iPhone alarm glitch leaves users snoozing through 2011

January 2, 2011 By Nick Mokey

A glitch in Apple’s iPhone software caused the phone to tick right past scheduled alarm times without a peep this weekend.

If too much New Years revelry weren’t enough to foil thousands of morning plans this weekend, a bug with the iPhone did the trick. Mirroring November’s European daylight savings time hiccup, a known glitch in iOS caused phones with one-time alarms set for January 1 and 2 to fizzle, leaving iPhone users oversleeping throughout the country.

Engadget forewarned of the bug on New Years Eve, but Apple failed to respond with a patch in time and alarms failed to go off the next morning as predicted – then again on Sunday.

“We’re aware of an issue related to non-repeating alarms set for January 1 or 2,” Apple responded in an e-mail to news outlets. According to the company, alarms will begin functioning properly again on January 3, even without a patch.

Need an alarm for the remaining hours of January 2? Apple recommends setting a recurring alarm, which won’t be affected by the bug, then deleting it after it goes off.

Showing 5 comments

AKN at 6:43pm 3rd January 2011 mine failed on 2nd Jan. I didnt ask for wake up call in hotel as i beleived in iPhone alarm. Luckily my airport pickup cab person called my room since i didnt show up.
371 at 3:29pm 3rd January 2011 mine failed on the 3rd and i missed my flight that i was supposed to be working on as a lfight attendant. but my good old employer still chose to make that my fault for not having a normal alarm clock even tho i wasnt aware of the problem until it happened to me
danR at 8:08pm 2nd January 2011 Mine's OK. It's stumbled over every other alarm glitch, however. Apple glitches are under-reported generally. Crappy Lemming-journalism. .
Sara at 3:40pm 2nd January 2011 I wish mine didn't go off this morning!
sarah at 2:45pm 2nd January 2011 My alarm worked on the 1st but has not worked on the 2nd or 3rd. Very annoying!