With iOS 17.4 (discovered by MacRumors), the humble iPhone stopwatch now supports iOS' Live Activity feature.

After starting the stopwatch in the iPhone Clock app as usual and installing iOS 17.4, the Live Activity bubble will appear on the lock screen of all compatible iPhones, and iPhone 14 Pro, iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Pro models will also appear on Dynamic Island.

The lock screen version and the enhanced Dynamic Island version will offer the option to pause the stopwatch or start a new lap. Pausing the stopwatch allows you to delete live activity with a swipe or the X button.

Unfortunately, the live activity version only supports traditional digital-style stopwatches. A fun analog-style version is only available in the full app, presumably for reasons of size and practicality.

If you are anything like us, you may have read this news and thought: "Well, this is a great idea. We were surprised too, but this is Stopwatch's first foray into live activity.

The timer feature of the watch has been compatible with Live Activity since its introduction in iOS 16.1 over a year ago. Live Activity is also great for tracking rideshare trips, checking flight information, monitoring takeout deliveries, and monitoring sports scores, if the right apps are installed. But somehow Apple never added stopwatch support until now. [iOS 17.4 also introduces new emoji and significant changes in the EU to open up the App Store and payment system to third parties, but for now it is still in beta for developers. iOS 17.3 is the latest stable version of iOS and offers collaborative playlists for Apple Music and the security feature Stolen Device Protection as key features.