Apple admits New Year's alarm bug

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  • Reply 81 of 135
    zoolookzoolook Posts: 657member
    Yeah this happened to me - I almost missed my flight from Tampa to NYC and my wife was late for work.



    These little alarm bugs are starting to get annoying (same thing happened when the clocks adjusted for daylight saving), and frankly it's sloppy from Apple.
  • Reply 82 of 135
    This isn't a new bug - remember the problem with the change from Summer Time to Winter Time bug? That was also in the clock app. So this thing isn't new as some people claim, it's just that it only affected non-Americans before now.



    Still, it is only affecting iOS 4 - and because of various problems with this iOS I have not upgraded yet. I do think Apple is a little stretched at the moment.



    As for those people claiming it isn't important, or isn't real, if Apple's internal staff acts like them then Apple really does have a problem. If nobody points out deficiencies, you'll keep on making them, and your reputation will be damaged.



    Until Apple sorts out these silly little problems, I'm not replacing my iPhone 3G, nor am I going to upgrade to iOS 4, nor will I upgrade my iPad's software either (I want to keep my orientation lock).
  • Reply 83 of 135
    Three pages of people complaining, but on an Apple forum, nobody remembers that this is a fairly complicated problem?



    I've personally written event management software, and let me tell you - time zone management and recurring events are nontrivial things to figure out. That's why there are many libraries out there that try to do that for you, but sometimes even those don't work (although traditionally that's in esoteric situations, most places don't mess with their timezones).



    This is a tough problem, that can be ridiculously hard to track down. Of course, I demand perfection from apple as much as any bloke, but this truly is a difficult problem, and as it turns out, their solution breaks. Strangely, it doesn't seem to use core libraries already built into the system (for iCal) to handle this. I can't imagine why not, that seems to work fairly smoothly.
  • Reply 84 of 135
    lilgto64lilgto64 Posts: 1,147member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SwissMac2 View Post


    To make a mistake once, well, that happens to everyone; but to make the same mistake twice, well that's just careless. Apple have $50 billion in cash, are the world's biggest Technology company, and can't fix a simple bug like this?



    Are Apple engineers incompetent, or has the boss just taken his eye off the ball? Bring back Woz! He'd have never let this happen.



    The trouble with daylight savings time was the alarm not adjusting as a result of the time change - or perhaps changing when it should not have. I set an alarm for 2 pm on the day after the time change - and when the time change occurs either my alarm gets moved an hour as well to 1 pm instead of remaining at 2 pm or it stays at 2 pm as if the time of day did not change. (or something like that). This was a case of the alarms ringing at the wrong time.



    Whereas the alarms not ringing at all would seem to indicate a different problem. and with all the lines of code that must go into such a system it is amazing that there are so few problems.
  • Reply 85 of 135
    lilgto64lilgto64 Posts: 1,147member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by nvidia2008 View Post


    WARNING: SETTING ALARM TO "REPEAT" DOES NOT SOLVE SOME PROBLEMS. MY ALARM FAILED TODAY AGAIN DESPITE BEING REPEATING ALARM.



    DO NOT DEPEND ON IPHONE ALARM AT THIS STAGE FOR ANY CRITICAL APPOINTMENTS UNTIL THIS IS SORTED OUT.



    Something else is the issue. The Apple spokesperson seems to be repeating (pun unintended) what blogs are reporting about it working fine if you set to repeating alarm, and about it working after Jan 3rd. This may not be the issue, it needs further investigation once the iOS engineers are back from holiday.



    By setting it to a repeating alarm it seems to solve the issue when you test alarms during the same day. But somehow my alarm didn't go off this morning (Jan 2 2011) despite being a repeating alarm.



    The indicated advice does NOT say that alarms will work on Jan 1 and Jan 2 when using a recurring option - it says that a recurring alarm with function properly starting on Jan 3. In other words saying that the problem only affects alarms - both singular and repeating - but only for instances which fall on the 1st or the 2nd.
  • Reply 86 of 135
    Just curious but off any users that did experience this bug, do you have your date/time setting manually set or is it set to automatic? May have no impact, but i didn't write the code so I cannot guess The significance this might have. All I note is that some are affected and others are not. Btw, does anybody know what timeservers are used when date/time is set to automatic? I notice I can manually set my timezone to houston where I live but if i let the "autopilot" set it, it is set to Chicago. A difference for sure but both are in the same time zone. I just see it as interesting that it can be set to different things that are same. Just interesting that a gps equipped device sets it that way. Whatever... The only point being that I can only guess at what the programmers thatbuilt this stuff are thinking.



    Hope it gets fixed before the next time change in a few months happens. Would presume a new ios will come out when iPad2 is released. Hope it is properly sorted for this bug and that it runs on all iOS devices
  • Reply 87 of 135
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by lilgto64 View Post


    The indicated advice does NOT say that alarms will work on Jan 1 and Jan 2 when using a recurring option - it says that a recurring alarm with function properly starting on Jan 3. In other words saying that the problem only affects alarms - both singular and repeating - but only for instances which fall on the 1st or the 2nd.



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



    The advice clearly indicates, and personal testing by many people and blogs, show that on Jan 1 and 2 when using the recurring alarm, alarms work. However from January 3 alarms work regardless of whether they are set to recurring or not.



    I have found the above to be true when I test out an alarm set to go off say, five minutes from now.



    But it does not work for me overnight, the recurring alarm did not work on 11AM on Sunday Jan 2 and the normal alarm did not work on 11AM Monday Jan 3. Something is very screwy and I strongly suggest not to rely on the alarm for anything critical at this stage.



    I wonder if "set time automatically" is affecting things because that comes from the carrier signal(?)



    FWIW, my NightstandHD alarm went off normally this morning Jan 3rd. Will be using that now. The cool thing about the app is that you don't even have to have the app in the background for the alarm to go off.
  • Reply 88 of 135
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by sportytoes View Post


    Just curious but off any users that did experience this bug, do you have your date/time setting manually set or is it set to automatic? May have no impact, but i didn't write the code so I cannot guess The significance this might have. All I note is that some are affected and others are not. Btw, does anybody know what timeservers are used when date/time is set to automatic? I notice I can manually set my timezone to houston where I live but if i let the "autopilot" set it, it is set to Chicago. A difference for sure but both are in the same time zone. I just see it as interesting that it can be set to different things that are same. Just interesting that a gps equipped device sets it that way. Whatever... The only point being that I can only guess at what the programmers thatbuilt this stuff are thinking.



    Hope it gets fixed before the next time change in a few months happens. Would presume a new ios will come out when iPad2 is released. Hope it is properly sorted for this bug and that it runs on all iOS devices



    It's a possibility. I've seen several iPhone4s have the date and time set to a weird "2000 BE" or something like that when set to automatic, and it kinda gets stuck on that. I didn't have the time to rectify it for those people, not sure what the solution was.
  • Reply 89 of 135
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dave Marsh View Post


    Not everyone is experiencing this one-off alarm bug. I've tried this multiple times today on both my iPhone and iPad, and my one-off alarms have worked perfectly. So, there's something a bit more complicated occurring here that will take a bit more testing to narrow down and fix.



    Would like to enquire, how did you test it on the iPad? Are you referring to iCal alarms? Did you test the Clock app on iPhone?



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hill60 View Post


    test alarm went off in Australia, 03/01/2011 (01/03/2011)



    May I enquire, did you test it by leaving it overnight, or just test it by setting it a few minutes from now?



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Eriamjh View Post


    Apple isn't fixing it because everyone is on holiday. By Jan. 3, it won't be needed. Wait 'till next Jan 1.

    I use a standard alarm clock. Only thing that kills it is a power failure.



    It does seem like this whole thing is a little bit more complex. My Jan 3rd alarm didn't work *overnight*. Although test alarms today, Jan 3rd, go off if I set it within a few minutes of now.



    There is definitely something else going on. The promise of it working on Jan 3 and everything being perfect, will bite Apple because some users will still be affected.
  • Reply 90 of 135
    I have to agree that it is only common sense to not trust one alarm for important events (no matter what device or platform you are using), but it is disgustingly pathetic that it goes way beyond that to the level of paranoia when using my iPhone.



    I have a simple solution that I have used for a while. It not only provides safely from mechanical unreliability, it also provides safety from human errors (which are actually far more common than these alarm clock bugs to be honest). I set both an alarm AND a timer on my iPhone to wake me up for work (one slightly offset from the other). If the alarm would fail for some reason, the timer is much less likely to suffer from the kind of glitches that might affect an alarm.
  • Reply 91 of 135
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by tigerpro View Post


    I have to agree that it is only common sense to not trust one alarm for important events (no matter what device or platform you are using), but it is disgustingly pathetic that it goes way beyond that to the level of paranoia when using my iPhone.



    I have a simple solution that I have used for a while. It not only provides safely from mechanical unreliability, it also provides safety from human errors (which are actually far more common than these alarm clock bugs to be honest). I set both an alarm AND a timer on my iPhone to wake me up for work (one slightly offset from the other). If the alarm would fail for some reason, the timer is much less likely to suffer from the kind of glitches that might affect an alarm.



    Interesting solution. However, perhaps that still is depending on only one particular device for an alarm. iPhone has been the best iPod, PDA and phone I have ever used in my life. But it is not perfect.



    For anything critical may I suggest that a clock radio, other alarm device or even old mobile phone (assuming the battery isn't dead) should be used as a backup.
  • Reply 92 of 135
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    The Dev Team Blog seems to be down at the moment, particularly the comments. Coincidence? Or people rushing to see how to fix this issues, maybe people worried that jailbreaking killed the alarm app.
  • Reply 93 of 135
    habihabi Posts: 317member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by elliots11 View Post


    I do the same thing. Learned the hard way. This is still BS though because you can't always do dual alarm, like when traveling, nor should you be expected to do so at all. I hope they fix it properly, seems like such a basic app.

    \



    My thoughts exactly and what about the clock!!!! The time is right!!!! BUT the alarms fails to ring on the time set???? How cant the alarmclock not meet this small expectation . Seems to me that some one has made the alarmclock way to complicated.



    And why make alterations to something that has successfully worked for YEARS without as much as a glitch!!!! YES MY ALARMCLOCK HAS WORKED FOR SEVERAL YEARS WITHOUT THIS STUPIDITY!!!
  • Reply 94 of 135
    dlcmhdlcmh Posts: 43member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by nvidia2008 View Post


    Gaming on Windows presents several challenges.



    Thanks for taking the time to write this. The last PC game I played was F1 Racing Championship in 2000 (!!!) so this is all quite interesting.
  • Reply 95 of 135
    Today is the 3rd and my iPhone alarm didn't worked at all.



    I have an iPhone 4 with 4.1 iOS and I set the alarm for today morning. Guess what? It didn't worked at all.



    What's the deal with this? Is it so complicated to do a reliable alarm clock software or is someone at Apple trying to do a practical joke???
  • Reply 96 of 135
    If you set the timer before 3 of January wont it go off on the 3 of January.



    However, if you set the timer after midnight in 3 of January will it work. Go figure!
  • Reply 97 of 135
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Rank Xerox View Post


    If you set the timer before 3 of January wont it go off on the 3 of January.



    However, if you set the timer after midnight in 3 of January will it work. Go figure!



    Thanks for the tip. Will try this tonight.
  • Reply 98 of 135
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by c0h1b4 View Post


    Today is the 3rd and my iPhone alarm didn't worked at all.



    I have an iPhone 4 with 4.1 iOS and I set the alarm for today morning. Guess what? It didn't worked at all.



    What's the deal with this? Is it so complicated to do a reliable alarm clock software or is someone at Apple trying to do a practical joke???



    What time zone are you in? Did you set your date and time to "automatically set"? Curious.



    Yes, it's kind of embarrassing for Apple, unfortunately.
  • Reply 99 of 135
    i guess my wife, mother in law and i are some of the lucky ones. All of our alarms worked the whole weekend.

    iPhone 4 32gb full updates on ours. moms is 3gs on most recent ios
  • Reply 100 of 135
    mazda 3smazda 3s Posts: 1,613member
    Well, it's 1/3 and my wife's alarms didn't go off this morning (iPhone 3GS). She has alarms set for 6:00, 6:05, and 6:10 (she's pretty anal). The only reason she woke up is because she has her backup standard alarm clock on the nightstand.



    WTF Apple?
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