iPhone Alarm Bug Prevents Alarm Clock Activating After New Years Eve
If you rely on an iPhone alarm clock to wake up in the morning, pay attention: your alarm will not sound after New Years Eve. MacRumors says:
Apparently a bug in the iPhone clock app prevents non-recurring alarms from properly triggering on New Years day. I was able to confirm this after a couple of false starts. For the bug to show itself, your iOS device must actually tick over from 11:59 p.m. on December 31, 2010 to 12:00 a.m. on January 1, 2011.
They also say the bug will resolve itself after January 3rd for no apparent reason. Presumably this bug effects all iOS devices and not just the iPhone, so if you use your iPod touch or iPad as an alarm clock this will likely effect you as well. So what are you to do? There’s a fix, sort of:
Fix for the iPhone Alarm New Years Bug
The fix is easy and similar to the iPhone daylight Savings Time bug that surfaced earlier in the year: simply set up a new alarm as a recurring event (ie: make sure the alarm is scheduled for every day), this is said to cause the alarm clock to active as intended.
Oh, and Happy New Year!
Update 1/1/11: MacWorld is reporting that Apple is aware of the problem and has offered the following information:
“We’re aware of an issue related to non repeating alarms set for January 1 or 2. Customers can set recurring alarms for those dates and all alarms will work properly beginning January 3.”
So, if you need an alarm tomorrow, set a recurring alarm or use a backup and apparently things will be normal in time to return to work on Monday.
[…] iPhone has inexplicably been plagued by multiple daylight savings bugs over the past year, each time sending the iPhone-dependent internet into an uproar as alarms go off late or early. […]
My question is always, when things like this happen, what else is not working?
I have a IPhone and am thinking i made a big mistake to move to apple. They are fast moving to market monopoly nonsense.
Controlling what i buy, watch, and how i used my device. There should be laws against this.
And now the thing is full of glitches. My message to Steve is get your priorities in order. Test your product and stop devising/implementing Market control gimmicks and spend your resources in making it work.
Your product should sell itself and do its own market domination, and not cause us to regret buying it.
No problem. This is because all alarms is set for year 2010.
Delete all old alarms and create new ones (for year 2011)
iPhone 4 iOS 4
Um…. Did everyone stop using old fashioned alarm clocks? I always plug in my iPhone beside my bed, yet sometimes the connection is lost and my phone goes dead when my phone has a low battery and end up being late for something (work/fun). Since then, I always have a backup old school alarm and it has served me well.
Man, folks. It’s a bug. It lasted a weekend. I mean come on… really? F Apple? They SUCK? Really??? Amazing how “deserving” some folks must be, to expect a sophisticated device like the iPhone 4 not to just be amazing, but bug-free.
Sorry, but bad news to those folks: if you’re expecting electronics to ever be perfect, you’re in for a lifetime of frustration.
For all it’s worth, the bug did NOT fix itself on January 3rd. I didn’t know about it, and now I’ve missed my flight this morning! What’s the chance Apple will reimburse me for the $391 change fee?!?!?! I say zero.
Well it’s 3 Jan and my alarm is still not working! Work tomorrow so who knows if my alarm will work then. Off to play around with repeating alarm but shouldn’t have to be doing this on my day off!!!!
[…] iPhone – January 3rd, 2011 – No Comments The New Years iPhone alarm bug is still effecting some people despite it being January 3rd, which is the date when things were […]
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I doubt that it will resolve itself for “no apparent reason”. The reason it resolves on the 3rd, I suspect, is that January 3rd this year is the first day of week 1 of 2011 on the ISO week-based calendar. January 1st and 2nd are in week 52 of 2010.
Weeks in the week calendar start on Mondays, and week 1 is the week that contains the first Thursday of the year.
Next year, January 1 is part of the last week of 2011. Week 1 of 2012 starts on Monday, January 2nd. Thus, if Apple doesn’t issue an update, I’d expect alarms will fail on January 1 next year, and the problem will resolve on January 2nd.
Insightful!
Unfortunatly, the problem will repeat next year (verified on 4.2.1 iPhone 3gs manually shifting date to 1/1/2012) … The problem will NOT be auto-corrected by iOS (iPhone does not implement any AI engine and cannot learn from his mistakes). It’s just a bug requiring a fix… It’s not a shame to have a bug. It’s a shame to minimize its and to omit full details on that (I’m sure Apple engineers has already enough information to let us fully understand what’s happened). I hope Apple will clearly state the fix will be MANDATORY, so we will not incur in the problem in our future.
P.S. If I were Steve, i’d ask Quality Team to implement a full new set of unit tests on Clock apps and related api….
2 days in a row…
Not good to be late in power industry. “wah wah wah”?? Five years ago I wouldn’t pay the $$$ that I do for iphone. An automatic alert would have been all it took for customer appreciation. The operator I was supposed to relieve wasn’t impressed.
Huh, really?
Because MY alarm rang on New Year’s Day.
Well, with the daylight saving bug that still makes recurring alarms go off an hour late (when will they fix that?), it’s still very unreliable. My alarm didn’t go off today, but I’m off today so it’s ok, phew. Still annoying.
[…] Eddie thank you for fast reply…..but i located the Problem! iPhone Alarm Bug Prevents Alarm Clock Activating After New Years Eve This is the Problem…….i must wait until tomorow….. thx […]
f apple. call me a baby but I am friggin late for army because of that stupid little bug. Make simple apps (YOUR apps) to work properly then think about making more complex apps! jesus christ… you’re no better than Micr$hot
Seriously?? Give them a break, it has to go to space and back! My hell!!
this is madness
thanks apple. late for army.
now im going to pay for that
The Vodafone Navigation app voice direction sounds have gone missing as well as my alarm sounds – tried restoring back to version 4.1 but every time I tried any of the software downloads they always bombed out halfway through.
Thanks Apple……
Also to late thanks to Iphone, second time my alarm doesn’t function in a proper way. Iphone is an unreliable tool and sucks indead!
thanks apple. late for work.
funny that i knew exactly why and that i’d find this article floating around. apple sucks
Apple will NEVER update any app if it does not bring money to them.
This is Apple. Fancy but hollow.
[…] To samo u mnie. Budzik nastawiony na 7:25 – nie zadzwonił. iPhone Alarm Bug Prevents Alarm Clock Activating After New Years Eve New Year’s 2011 breaks non-recurring iPhone alarm clocks (update: auto-fixes) | 9 to 5 Mac […]
Right after midnight my phone wouldn’t make outgoing calls… I had to force it to think it was Jan 1, 2010 in order to get calls working again…
right after midnight on new years eve your phone wouldnt make a call? wow, that’s amazing. that’s definitely got to be apple’s fault then. nothing to do with the tens of millions of people overloading the phone networks calling round to say happy new year…
Overslept this morning.
It is scandelous that Apple didn’t bother fixing the bug with the latest iOS update before the end of the year arrived!!
Overslept too
My Boyfriend was supposed to work from 10am but we both slept in. His boss won’t care if it’s a bug or not, he has to be there.
Well thats apple for you. Been using it since I was a Kid but it seems that the good times are nearly over.
1. If you set the alarm as a repeat event it works just fine. 2. “wah wah wah” is what I hear from you. “Omg, this phone that does things that were science fiction 5 years ago has a minor error that inconveniences me for a day or two.” Babies.
Hi
I realy agree with you they r not bothering about this issue
Overslept two days I didn’t suspect this on Jan 1 so
2 also same
For me Jan 1 & 2 both days i couldn’t catch my scheduled bus. Iphone stupid alarm …..ck me nicely.
120 Dhs spend for taxi because of (iPhone New year celebration with Alarm) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!