The Time Manager allows applications and other software to schedule routines for execution at a later time. By suitably defining the routine that is to be executed later, you can use the Time Manager to accomplish a wide range of time-related activities. For example, because a routine can reschedule itself for later execution, the Time Manager allows your application to perform periodic or repeated actions. You can use the Time Manager to schedule routines for execution after a specified delay; set up tasks that run periodically; compute the time a routine takes to run; and coordinate and synchronize actions in the Macintosh computer.
The Time Manager provides a hardware-independent method of performing these time-related tasks. In general, you should use the Time Manager instead of timing loops, which can vary in duration because they depend on clock speed and interrupt-handling speed.