Apple iPhone and iPod Alarm Clock Glitch Strikes Again

Posted on Jan 1 2011 - 5:25pm by Richard Sharp

Another New Year and another Apple iPhone alarm glitch, some users discovered that alarms set specifically for today using the default Apple program didn’t work.

iOS 4.0 and above all seem to have the problem when users set a single alarm to go off on the 1st January or 2nd January, the problem will not occur on 3rd January according to 9to5 Mac.

Interestingly recurring alarms were not affected, unlike the glitch that caused many problems when day light savings started in October. At the time Apple did say they would ensure the problem didn’t happen again, it seems another time bug has slipped through the net.

 To remedy the problem in the meantime simply set up a recurring alarm that includes the first two days of January and your preferred day – the alarm will then go off without any problems.

Apple has not made any official comment or indicated a patch will be released; if the problem only occurs on two days of the year don’t expect Apple to perform an update today. Hopefully they will sort it out before 2012 though!

16 Comments so far. Feel free to join this conversation.

  1. john January 1, 2011 at 5:52 pm - Reply

    will apple reimburse my lost wages for being late for work? probably not!

  2. Michael S. January 1, 2011 at 6:10 pm - Reply

    You people still believe in Apple? God help you, got rid of my Iphone and Mac a long time. It's about time you do too!

  3. lolwow January 1, 2011 at 6:15 pm - Reply

    haha oh man that's funny!!!! lolol

  4. Jared January 1, 2011 at 6:30 pm - Reply

    This is something that should get someone at apple fired, and potentially has already got many people fired who rely on their product. Apple should be working their butts off to fix this problem long before the next year, or the time changes, but much preferably before the end of the day. Their desire to fix the problem directly reflects their concern for their customers, and affects customer loyalty. Get to work apple, not setting your alarm is no excuse… Oops, that's right, you did.

  5. Jacquelyn Ann January 1, 2011 at 7:38 pm - Reply

    "Interestingly recurring alarms were not affected," …. Well… on my iPhone… the recurring alarms were/are affected. For health reasons some of us rely on the alarms daily for taking meds that need to be separated from each other. I'm back to using paper & pen. Slept through my am alarms because they didn't work. Hmmm, we'll see what 01.03.2011 brings.

  6. Sem January 1, 2011 at 10:22 pm - Reply

    I was late 1 hour late today 1.1.11, got up at around 8:30 the time I was supposed to start, I jumped out of the bed when I saw the day light screamed and dressed up and left. I got to work at 9:30 and was I glad cause they didn't open till 10am, although I will get paid from 9:30. I saved myself waiting in the cold 1.5hrs instead only waited .5hrs. 🙂 so thx Apple

  7. Darwin January 2, 2011 at 12:23 am - Reply

    I hope this help .

    When setting the alarm, set repeat on everyday or that particular

    Day that you wanna wake up & the alarm should work . I've tried and it worked.

  8. Ricky Fantana January 2, 2011 at 7:59 am - Reply

    I am really disappointed from what happened. For the nth time, I hope that this incident will never happen again. If iPhone dreams to be the leading smartphone globally, they should fix minor problems such as this one as this will greatly affect their reputation and especially their sales.

  9. Jacquelyn January 3, 2011 at 12:08 am - Reply

    To Darwin… after I wrote the first comment, I deleted everything & started over & did the repeat each day starting from 01.01.2011. It's up & running fine now. Thanks… Happy New Year!

  10. Ken Sturrock January 3, 2011 at 8:01 am - Reply

    It happened today (on the 3rd) as well – of course I'm in Central Asia and not in California so it was still January 2nd in the USA when my alarm failed me.

  11. ATANACE January 3, 2011 at 3:08 pm - Reply

    Come on people. Nothing is perfect. Nobody's perfect. It is amazing to see the megative energy from so many people for one little glitch. This iPhone is an amazing little device. At least be grateful for the other thousands and thousands things that you can do with your iPhone and stop whining and complaining. Be grateful for once

  12. Geoff Valcourt January 3, 2011 at 3:20 pm - Reply

    My alarm again did not work this morning. Jan 3. I am now regretting getting an iphone 4. I want my black berry back. At least it worked.

  13. Lee January 3, 2011 at 3:33 pm - Reply

    Yep, has happened to me also on the 3rd, (UK holiday), though I did misinterpret the remedy by setting a one-off alarm instead, so my fault.

  14. David January 3, 2011 at 4:15 pm - Reply

    My alarm did not go off this morning. I slept an extra hour. When I checked, it still showed as on.

  15. Rich January 3, 2011 at 7:59 pm - Reply

    Missed my flight home to Los Angeles this morning. Can't fly until tomorrow now. Despite what Apple says, this problems has not been fixed. Great way to start off the new year! Out a days pay and productivity. Thank you Apple! The iphone has turned out to be a fancy toy more than a reliable piece of technology.

  16. Jared February 12, 2011 at 8:48 pm - Reply

    Alright, it's been a while now, and I don't know if anyone will read this anymore, but here are some of my final thoughts. The iPhone is an amazing little piece of technology, and no, it is not perfect, what is? However, this was a problem that should not have occurred after the first daylight savings issue. Apple should have gone over their entire alarm clock code to see if there were other places where it would fail, and fixed those as well. Okay, maybe it wasn't an easy glitch to see at that point, but not figuring out the issue and fixing it as soon as humanly possible is very bad form. Programming can be extremely finicky, but with the amount of resource they have they should have been able to come up with an update to fix it before the end of the day. I'm sure there has been a huge uproar over this thing, but that is probably mostly because Apple wasn't going to fix anything. If Toyota had said, "Oh, by the way, our most recent cars have accelerators that stick and may cause you to drive at unsafe speeds, but we aren't going to fix them," it would have probably been the end of Toyota. We come to rely on certain things to work 100% of the time, and hope that most everything else works 100% of the time. Alarms are something some people need to work all the time, such as people who require timely medication to keep them alive. Yes, an alarm could be a life or death device, and while missing one might be okay, maybe the next one isn't. I understand that technology isn't perfect, but my issue is the code of ethics that Apple disregarded when this happened. As a Mechanical Engineer I know that Apple did no act accordingly to the code of ethics that that falls around their engineering staff. It affected a great amount of people with potentially deadly consequences, and they just brushed it off.

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