IPhone Alarms Still Not Working Despite Apple's Words | Hacker News Reader

IPhone Alarms Still Not Working Despite Apple's Words

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43 pointssolipsist37 comments

The two non-recurring iPhone alarms that I enabled last night after midnight (by adjusting the times) both sounded as expected this morning, Monday the 3rd. Latest iOS, iPhone4.

So, it's not a certain failure, or the factors required to reproduce are more particular.

I recall in an earlier iPhone/iOS, once being disappointed that an alarm didn't audibly sound when some other notification had (and held) the foreground... I presume that was fixed long ago, but maybe something with the growth of notifications and background services is creating a similar problem.

My girlfriend and I set our alarms when we went to bed on the 2nd, expecting to wake up around 8 am CET. She's got an iPhone 3G with iOS 4.1 and I've got an iPhone 4 with iOS 4.2. None of them sounded the morning of the 3rd.

We are now proud owners of two analog alarm clocks.

It worked for me this morning. Or rather, it would've if I hadn't kept hitting 'snooze'.

edit: the alarm I set was configured identically to how mtigas describes their setup.

My one-off alarms worked for me as well — though they hadn’t been enabled all weekend and I enabled them before bed last night.

Not sure what the circumstances were for those whose alarms didn’t go off today.

My alarms worked fine today. iPhone 4, recently updated; I have a recurring 7:05AM and then a bunch of 1-offs for 7:10, 7:20, and 7:50, and they all worked fine.

> I have a recurring 7:05AM and then a bunch of 1-offs for 7:10, 7:20, and 7:50, and they all worked fine.

Hah, I thought I was the only person who did this! It fixes three problems at once - no chance of the AM/PM error (alarm set for 7PM when there's a meeting at 8AM - whoops), no chance of turning it off and falling back asleep, and no need to screw around with snooze if I decide I need 10 more before getting up.

I'd never heard of anyone else doing this... I wonder if this is more common than I thought?

I do this - I set 5 different alarms, each spaced 2-3 mins apart.

If I'm going to bed and need to get up after only 3-4 hours sleep, I will do the same, but also set one 10 mins later, 20 mins later

Mine are set roughy at "wake up", "kids should be downstairs", "kids should be eating", "daughter needs to be bundled for school". I'm not really conscious until 8:30 or so.

Ha! I do the same thing. Mine are "wake up", "stop messing around online and eat breakfast", "stop messing around online and get dressed", "stop messing around online and go to work". All spaced about 30 minutes apart.

I'm going to be interested to see how long this article stays on the front page after the far more alarming and longstanding Android SMS bug fell off the front page after only a couple hours.

Both are unfortunate bugs. The iPhone one is the one that burned me and my wife and many people at work. I'm sure the Android one is real too, but I don't know anyone who has been affected yet.

iOS having a mission-critical bug is like a plane crash: a rare failure of a service we think of as working flawlessly every time, which we can do almost nothing to fix except hope the powers that be do it soon.

Android having a mission-critical bug is like a car crash: relatively unlikely for any given device, but there are so many devices running around that you'd be surprised if there weren't one happening somewhere all the time. And the collection of devices was never billed as just-working every time anyway.

(I have an Android phone and an iPad, and will be first in line for a Verizon iPhone.)

What? iPhones have a bug? Well uhh... look over there, Android has a bug too! Why aren't you paying more attention to that, huh? What are you some kind of anti-apple bigot? Shame on you for noticing this bug!

Android bug might be more severe, but you have to give it that the iOS bug is more alarming.

cough

It's not alarming at all. That's the problem!

I'm guessing it's because the iPhone alarm bug has probably affected millions of people and the Android bug has probably affected far fewer? And because this isn't the first time the iPhone has had a bug in the alarm system.

The vast majority of Android users probably haven't noticed any issue with SMS.

The built-in alarm on my Android failed some time ago, too. Since the last update I got, if I set two alarms in the morning, only the first will sound. I think with Androids I'm still in the early adopter mindset, willing to put up with bugs and workarounds, whereas iPhone is very much a finished, polished product designed for non-geeks, who don't want that sort of hassle.

Except the demographics actually point to Android being the go-to platform for the non-geeks. Android, not iOS, will be the platform that puts iPhone-like functionality into the hands of millions. And as of today, Android devices very much "work out of the box". Given the lower price points (and increasing quality) of Android devices, I think it's pretty clear which device is designed for "real people" and which is designed for tech enthusiasts and early adopters.

I agree that it's not fair to say that Android isn't made for "real people" (hey, Windows is made for "real people", and I'd much rather use Android than Windows), but iPhone is most certainly designed for "real people", too.

Yes, fair enough. Agreed. I would revise this to say that I think Android will ultimately be the more accessible of the two platforms - mostly because of the different price pointing strategies. Why should Apple give up the hefty premium people are willing to pay to use Apple products? Their attitude might be "let other manufacturers cater to the cheap flip-phone crowd. We build best in class devices here, and our customers know that, and are willing to pay for the value we provide."

I'd be interested in reading an explanation of that bug from Apple once it's fixed.

Y2K had some valid reasons behind it, but this is kind of strange. Especially since it happened once not too long ago.

Me too. It's also weird that Apple suggested that it only affected Jan 1 and Jan 2 but that it seemed to affect some (but only some) people on Jan 3, too.

My wife's alarm didn't work yesterday (non-recurring, setup yesterday) and a friend told me today that his hadn't worked this morning (non-recurring, setup today).

Free alternatives.. Iphone Apps:

Alarm clock pro, Nightstand Central, Alarm Tunes

Online Alarm Clocks:

http://onlineclock.net, http://kukuklok.com, http://Sleep.fm - The Social Alarm Clock

Or look around your house for one of those old blocky looking things that make horrible noises.

My alarm woke me up this morning. But then again, it is January 4th in Australia.

My recurring one works, but not the one-off alarm (in Australia).

That was a one off alarm.

Does anyone know what this bug stems from? Why is 2011 so special?

Mine did not go off this morning (1/3/2011) at 7am. I woke up at 730a and confirmed that it was indeed set for 7am.

Is it really that hard to implement an alarm clock application? I'd love to hear why these bugs are occurring (I recall once of twice recently hearing friends with iPhones complaining about alarm clocks not working, so this isn't the first time).

I was tempted to not upvote this, but then the thought of the economic impact not upvoting would have changed my mind. For the sake for the technology companies in the valley and elsewhere I think this is a worthwhile PSA.

Not sure, but it could be device specific. My one off alarm that I just set the other day did not work. The one that my wife set worked. Same OS versions but she has a 3GS and I have the iPhone 4.

Had to take my daughter to the airport this morning and her iPhone 4 alarm didn't go off. My iPhone 3G alarm did.

Mine repeatedly failed on the 1st,2nd and 3rd

I set a 'recurring' alarm feature last night and it went off this morning

How is their alarm clock implemented?

Badly

i read this and immediately tested 3 to go off, one each minute after i read it.

worked fine... latest iOS build.

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