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Plane to catch tomorrow? Beware iPhone's alarm

Apple's beloved gadget reportedly has a glitch that means if users set a one-time alarm to wake them tomorrow, they may well end up sleeping in.

Edward Moyer Senior Editor
Edward Moyer is a senior editor at CNET and a many-year veteran of the writing and editing world. He enjoys taking sentences apart and putting them back together. He also likes making them from scratch. ¶ For nearly a quarter of a century, he's edited and written stories about various aspects of the technology world, from the US National Security Agency's controversial spying techniques to historic NASA space missions to 3D-printed works of fine art. Before that, he wrote about movies, musicians, artists and subcultures.
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  • Ed was a member of the CNET crew that won a National Magazine Award from the American Society of Magazine Editors for general excellence online. He's also edited pieces that've nabbed prizes from the Society of Professional Journalists and others.
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Edward Moyer

In the "early bird catches the worm, unless its iPhone has caught a bug" department, Apple's beloved gadget reportedly has a glitch that means if users set a one-time alarm to wake them tomorrow, they may well end up sleeping in.

Engadget and other media outlets are reporting that Twitter lit up today with lots of grumpy comments from people who were cheated out of greeting the New Year in their desired fashion because their iPhone alarm clocks failed to ring.

The bug reportedly could ruin your plans for January 2 as well, if you let it. But there's an easy fix, and come the 3rd, the glitch should evaporate. Apple told Engadget:

"We're aware of an issue related to nonrepeating alarms set for January 1 or 2. Customers can set recurring alarms for those dates and all alarms will work properly beginning January 3."

So you need only set a recurring alarm to sidestep the problem and get a good night's rest.

In November the iPhone's alarm was off by an hour, in a mix-up related to Daylight Savings Time. Judging from this latest error, iPhone users weren't the only ones affected then: Apple itself apparently didn't get the, ahem, wake-up call.