New Years iPhone Alarm Clock Bug Continues to Affect Some Users
It looks like the New Years iPhone alarm bug is still causing a ruckus, as users from around the world complain their phone alarm failed to activate on Monday the 3rd of January. This date is significant because the 3rd is when the iOS alarm was supposed to start behaving as normal.
Well, not so much, as Reuters is reporting that some iPhone owners in Asia discovered their alarms continued to malfunction on Monday morning. This is in addition to a sizable number of vocal Twitter users from Asia, Australia, and Europe who report that despite the date, the iPhone alarm clock is continuing to malfunction:
If these reports are in fact true, this may suggest that all users who depend on the alarm app may need to delete and re-add a new alarm in order for it to function properly. A software fix from Apple would also remedy the glitch, but this may be too little too late for users who have already overslept.
In our past report on the bug, reader ‘tzs’ offered the following explanation as to why the bug is occurring, warning the problem may occur again next year if Apple does not issue an iOS fix:
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.
That may contribute to the cause, and I would venture a guess that many users who are reporting problems with their iOS alarms today are likely not using the recurring alarms. So while one-time alarms may still be causing problems, there is an easy solution of sorts…
Easy Fix for the New Years iPhone Alarm Clock Bug
If you are concerned about the alarm clock bug effecting you, the fix is remarkably simple:
Set up a new daily recurring alarm.
This should cause the alarm to activate as intended, and the fix works for all iOS hardware with iOS 4.2.1.
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
Perhaps those affected on 3rd january turned on their alarms before midnight on the 2nd (sunday)?
[…] iPhone – January 3rd, 2011 – 2 Comments The New Years iPhone alarm bug is still affecting some people despite it being January 3rd, which is the date when things were supposed to start […]
Minor typo in headline: “effect” should be “affect”
Thanks for pointing that out, I wrote this rather late and it’s easy for typos to slip through