iPhone Alarm Bug Causes Thousands to Run Hour Late.

Despite Apple's soaring profits, the iPhone's reputation has taken another blow
after a reported bug with its alarm hit Europe.
It's a been a turbulent year for the iPhone - antennae-gate, proximity sensor fa
ils, claims of problems with the new iOS operating system, to name a few issues
that irritated customers worldwide, but a new problem has hit users of Apple's r
evolutionary gadget - They've woken up for work an hour late after a bug (known
as the DST bug) caused the iPhone's alarm to go off at the wrong time.
The iPhone DST Bug
The bug, already seen a few months ago when Australia switched between Daylight
Savings Time and Standard Time, has apparently hit Europe, with people complaini
ng on Twitter that their alarm failed.
Even though the iOS clock changed as it should over the weekend, when clocks wen
t back in the UK - the alarm did not. It's thought that the problem lies in that
most iPhone users do not create a 'new' alarm each morning, but just edit a pre
-existing alarm on the phone, changing the time to whatever time they wish to ge
t up. The problem seems to be that if the alarm was 'created' before the clocks
changed, the phone doesn't acknowledge that, and the OLD time remains in the pho
ne's memory, meaning the alarm fires an hour late.
The extent of the bug in Europe isn't fully known, but 55 percent of 4,500 owner
s polled in Australia a fortnight ago said that they experienced problems with t
heir iPhone alarm. (Source: Phone Arena Oct 2010)
Reported Fix For DST Alarm Bug
There has been a few suggested fixes for the problem, but the most popular - sha
red by thousands on Twitter - seems to be from UKGadgeteer, saying: "Anyone reli
ant on an iPhone alarm this morning is going to be 1 hour late. You'll need to c
reate new & not just edit to fix."
This solution seems to back up the theory that the main cause of the problem is
with the editing of pre-existing alarms, rather than the 'creation' of new one.
But this will be little consolation to the thousands of people who had an awkwar
d encounter with their bosses this morning.
Apple 'Knew' About DST Problem
ZDNet Australia reported the problem almost a month ago, and Apple acknowledged
it with a promise to fix it with in an imminent software update. But many iPhone
users will be angry that that update was not rolled out in time to save their b
lushes at work this Monday morning (November 1st 2010).
All eyes will now be on Apple to see if they can fix it in time for when North A
merica makes a time switch in 5 days time (November 6th)
Anger Online at Failing iPhone Alarms
Tweets from all over Europe showed customers expressing confusion, anger, and di
sappointment.
One tweet read: "Anyone else had their iPhone alarm go off an hour late?? Is thi
s a new bug with the clocks going back?" another said iPhone alarm going off 1h
late despite clock being correct?" with the twitter hashtags #apple #fail #dst #
class-action afterwards. Not everyone was humourless about it, however. One twee
t joked: "I love Steve Jobs!!! He's giving everyone who owns an iPhone a free li
e in today!
Apple are yet to officially respond to this latest hiccup with their best-sellin
g smartphone, causing more complaints from long-serving customers. People who wi
sh to report their feedback to Apple can do so at http://www.apple.com/feedback/
iphone.html
http://www.suite101.com/content/iphone-alarm-bug-causes-thousands-to-run-hour-la
te-a303195
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iPhone DST bug fails to alarm users in the wrong way
Thousands believed affected by iPhone alarm bug, causing unintended one hour lie
-ins across Europe
Sadly, my iPhone (3G running iOS 4.0.1) didn't grant me a lie-in this morning. B
ut thousands of others reliant on their repeating wake-up calls were woken up on
e hour late this morning, owing to a bug acknowledged by Apple more than three w
eeks ago when it affected users in Australia and New Zealand (where Daylight Sav
ing began, of course, three weeks ago).
Though the one-hour time shift was automatically accounted for on the iPhone's c
lock, the alarm clock on devices running iOS 4.1 failed to adjust (suggesting th
ey're set relative to GMT - which in turn would suggest that if you travel abroa
d and leave your alarm on it will go off at strange times of day).
The upshot: thousands of alarms went off an hour late. Twitter quickly filled up
with people complaining about the fault (or using it as an excuse for lateness)
.
The bug appears to affect alarms set to repeat; users are advised to set new non
-repeating alarms until Apple pushes out a fix. And with the US set to migrate t
o new daylight saving hours next Sunday, one would expect an update imminently.
Apple has been contacted but hadn't responded to me at the time of writing. The
company promised a fix after faulty alarms hitting Australia and New Zealand ear
lier this month, but Apple may roll any minor software update into its behind-cl
osed-doors iOS event for developers in the US later this week.
For now, Mashable has five "stylish" we'll let you be the judge alarm clock apps
that will wake you up on time.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2010/nov/01/iphone-dst-alarm-bug-europ
e
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iPhone alarm bug leads to UK lie-in
By Nicole Kobie
Posted on 11 Jan 2010 at 09:02
It must be the most welcome flaw to hit an Apple product, as a bug in iPhone ala
rm settings gave many across Europe an extra hour's sleep this morning.
When Britain flipped out of summer time and back to GMT over the weekend, the iP
hone's clock automatically made the change - but didn't update alarm settings, l
eaving some users asleep for an extra hour.
This morning, Twitter was awash with complaints. "Anyone else's iPhone alarm del
ayed by an hour? Great start to a Monday, cheers Jobs," said one.
"Don't trust your iPhone alarms folks. They're going off one hour late since clo
cks changed," noted another user.
As Engadget has noted, the bug was first noticed in New Zealand and then a week
later in Australia, with users woken up an hour early for the area's hour jump f
orward last month.
A month ago, a New Zealand user on the Apple forum noted: "I guess we're just lu
cky this didn't occur when the clock went the other way."
The iOS4 bug can apparently be avoided by using one-off alarms, rather than pre-
set regular wake-up calls.
Since then, Apple clearly hasn't fixed the bug or chosen to alert European custo
mers. The company wasn't available for comment at the time of publishing.
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/362407/iphone-alarm-bug-leads-to-uk-lie-in