By default, if you have purchased your iPad in North America, it will display the time with local settings: this means a 12-hour time format, by appending "AM" or "PM", as appropriate. But your iPad also supports "military time", or the 24-hour format. This tutorial explains how to change the clock's time format on your iPad.
Switch to military time for the iPad clock
This is how you access the Date & Time settings on your iPad:
Click on the "Home" button, and flick through Home screens until you find the "Settings" icon: then tap on it.- Once the iPad Settings screen loads, tap on the "General" settings on the left (should be automatically selected).
- Then, in the fifth block of preferences, tap on "Date & Time" button.
- The first option reads "24-Hour Time", and is by default turned off. (That button displays in text the current state of the option: in other words, if it says "Off", it means that the feature is currently turned off, not that you need to tap on the button to turn disable it.)
- Tap once on the 24-Hour Time button, and your iPad will apply the new setting immediately: the button will now turn its switch to blue, and display the word "On". And if you look at the clock displayed at the top of your iPad's screen, it will now show the time in 24 hour format (military time) - if you are reading this tutorial before noon, the only change you'll see is the removal of the "
AM" suffix after the minutes. - You can now press the Home button to return to your previous activity; from this point on, your iPad will show the hours in military time everywhere a clock and time formats are called for.
Tip: while you can customize the time format for the iPad itself, some applications may use their own representation of time; but most (good) programmers will rely on the operating system's settings to display the proper time format!
Switch back to AM/PM, 12-Hour time format
If you change your mind, just follow the instructions above and turn off the "24-Hour Time" switch to resume using the 12-Hour, AM/PM time format instead.