Alarm glitch leaves European iPhone users running late

November 1, 2010 By Aemon Malone

A glitch in the way the iPhone handles daylight savings time led to lateness all over Europe as Apple owners overslept.

Mobile phones are used almost as frequently for their clocks as they are for their communication abilities. Most phones these days automatically adjust for changes in time zones and for daylight savings. Reliance on that auto-updating feature led to instances of tardiness across Europe today as some countries adjusted national clocks for daylight saving time.

The glitch responsible is present in iOS 4.1 and reportedly only affects recurring alarms. IPhone users who checked the time on their phones over the weekend would not have noticed anything amiss. The iPhones adjusted just fine to the new time. However some alarms did not adjust, leaving those European users to snooze an hour later than they had planned.

Australian and New Zealand iPhone users experienced a similar malfunction when their phones’ alarms went off an hour early as their countries adjusted clocks back in September.

To fix the bug, users will need to delete their existing recurring alarms after the phones self-adjust for a time change and then add them back. Or, we suppose, users facing imminent time change can just bump their alarms up by an hour.

Following reports of alarm problems in the Southern Hemisphere, Apple stated that the company is aware of the problem and was working to correct it, but so far no fix has been issued. That fix is likely to be contained as part of a forthcoming iOS upgrade. We’ll see if that happens before the coming weekend. That’s when a daylight saving time adjustment comes to the US. For the time being, we recommend that American iPhone users set a backup alarm.

Showing 3 comments

Carlos at 10:08am 1st January 2011 My iPhone's alarm NEVER went off at all. I've been testing it all over the morning and the alarm time goes by with no alarm 1 hour before, after nor obviously on time. Apple should say something about it as because of their glitch I was late for my flight so the joke cost me £24,99
James at 12:44am 2nd November 2010 Deleting the recurring clock and setting another one doesn't work. You need to put it back an hour still. Dang iPhones, I'm going for an android next time....
Andrew Beehler at 9:29am 1st November 2010 Along those lines, my iPhone woke me up this morning (11/1) an hour early. I had my alarm set for 6:45, bur it went off at 5:45. I double checked everything.... My bedroom clock read 5:45, my iPhone clock read 5:45, and my alarm was scheduled to go off at 6:45... but it still went off early. Anyone else have this similar problem?