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Apple Says 'Do Not Disturb' Bug to Resolve Itself on Monday, January 7th
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The problem may be minor, but the response from Apple is the unacceptable part.
And sorry, but the problem happening even once could get you fired, or lose a sale, etc. and you wouldn't even know what happened until after the fact. Who cares that it's a new feature that lost you that sale?
"Well, why did you have it on in the first place when you read about the problem?"
Answer: because it didn't happen on January 1 for us. But it did on January 2. So we thought we were safe, only to find this morning that our phones were stuck in DND, and they weren't yesterday.
I'm pretty sure someone above nailed it with the yyyy v. YYYY thing. This is why when you adjust the on time it automatically engages, because it thinks it was supposed to have turned on on January 2, 2012 even if you set it today for 11pm Jan 2, 2013.
Outrage over nothing .....
It's a very acceptable answer to this particular type of problem, which is clearly some sort of mathematical bug which Apple seems to know only causes problems through the first Monday of the month.
Put yourself in Apple's shoes for a minute. Say you just discover this issue when users start complaining about the problem on Jan 1. Your company isn't even open for business until the 2nd. Now what? Push out a huge iOS update just to address this issue? A large number of users will delay downloading and installing such an upgrade for at least a little while -- likely for at least a week or so, by which time they don't even have a need for it anymore!
Better to just tell people to live without this one feature (which really doesn't prevent you from receiving any calls, text messages, data downloads or anything else you might rely on your phone to get!) for a week.
It's a very acceptable answer to this particular type of problem, which is clearly some sort of mathematical bug which Apple seems to know only causes problems through the first Monday of the month.
Put yourself in Apple's shoes for a minute. Say you just discover this issue when users start complaining about the problem on Jan 1. Your company isn't even open for business until the 2nd. Now what? Push out a huge iOS update just to address this issue? A large number of users will delay downloading and installing such an upgrade for at least a little while -- likely for at least a week or so, by which time they don't even have a need for it anymore!
Better to just tell people to live without this one feature (which really doesn't prevent you from receiving any calls, text messages, data downloads or anything else you might rely on your phone to get!) for a week.
Yes. I noticed that those who had the problem on 1/1 are those that have DND enabled from midnight or later. They don't mind being disturbed up until midnight or 1AM.
You and I and my wife enabled it at 11pm or similar. So it didn't happen until last night. It happens the first time it turns on in 2013, which for us was last night, not Dec 31...
In iOS for Date format "YYYY" is very different that 'yyyy'. The first the year for week of. The other is the year for day of. Those 2 are the same all accept for just a few days of the year.
But more likely they are using the year for Sunday or Monday of the week hence the reason the 7th is when it will be fixed as right now it is trying to end it on 2012 and not 2013 so it does well passed the cut off date so the code never would trip.
The hysteria on this thread is pathetic. Get over it. People in the world are dying because they lack basic human necessities.
It's disgusting to read some of these comments. So sorry your life is ruined because you have to wait a week to use a non-critical feature that wasn't available until a few months ago.
It's disgusting to read some of these comments. So sorry your life is ruined because you have to wait a week to use a non-critical feature that wasn't available until a few months ago.
It's not an acceptable answer. It may be the truth, but it is not customer focused. It is the answer a software engineer might give to another software engineer internal to a company. It's not the answer Apple should be giving to public.
Emails should have been sent to ALL iDevice customers explaining the issue, how to disable it, with an apology.
"We are truly sorry about this error and the problems it may have caused our customers. We understand that missing an important call can cost you time and money, and do our best to make our products as reliable as possible. We are working on a fix, but it is unlikely to be resolved through software before January 7. On that day, the issue will resolve itself for the rest of the year, and we will do our best to make sure this doesn't occur next year through a software update as soon as possible."
That is an acceptable response.
Not informing customers of the problem and telling a tech journal it will resolve itself is not acceptable.
See the difference?
Based on your comments we may as well close all forums down everywhere because nothing is more important than life itself.
Every topic on these forums is pathetic compared to people dying in the world because they lack basic human necessities.
Pretty stupid reply mate.
Well, my Nokia running Symbian had a similar problem. On january 1ste the calendar alarms didn't go. Next day it "magically" worked again.
Time/date bugs seem to be a big problem for programmers. I work in TV broadcasting, where time is of the essence. The software of our automation had a similar time bug: whenever there was a transmission switch scheduled a couple of seconds before or after 00.00 hours, the system switched the vision/audio mixer completely wrong. And of course eventually this bug got solved, but after a couple of updates / upgrades a similar bug reappeared again. So often that it got nicknamed "the Cinderella bug" by the operators.
As it turned out, every time when these bugs came back, the company that made the system had hired a new programmer, fresh from some "microsoft certified" school (no joke, unfortunately). They lacked experience in good and clean coding with time/date counters.
And even today I still find station scheduling software that has the same stupid time related bugs.
Time/date bugs seem to be a big problem for programmers. I work in TV broadcasting, where time is of the essence. The software of our automation had a similar time bug: whenever there was a transmission switch scheduled a couple of seconds before or after 00.00 hours, the system switched the vision/audio mixer completely wrong. And of course eventually this bug got solved, but after a couple of updates / upgrades a similar bug reappeared again. So often that it got nicknamed "the Cinderella bug" by the operators.
As it turned out, every time when these bugs came back, the company that made the system had hired a new programmer, fresh from some "microsoft certified" school (no joke, unfortunately). They lacked experience in good and clean coding with time/date counters.
And even today I still find station scheduling software that has the same stupid time related bugs.
Ice Cream Sandwich crashed phones and disabled some features so I wouldn't be too concerned about this small thing. Just turn off the phone
Sell everything you own and live in a Yurt, and donate everything you have and make to causes to help those starving people.
Otherwise, you are just a hypocrite. Just like those who cry 'first world problem' anytime something happens they don't consider a big deal because it didn't actually impact them.
For many, this happened on the first business day of the year (January 2, not Jan 1) after a very spotty week of days off, holidays, etc. That means that they may have missed a call about a deal, a sale, a job, etc. Would you think it was meaningless if you lost out on buying a house for your family because you didn't get a call regarding counter offers and deadlines? Or lost a sale that meant a big account? Or missed an emergency call when you are an OBGYN, delaying you even an hour? All because you DIDN'T KNOW THE FEATURE WAS BROKEN? Or, despite Apple knowing it would impact a huge number of people on January 2 but not January 1, not being warned about it?
I'm already fed up with Apple with the lack of reliability of the iPhone 5. WiFi is horrible, LTE to 4G switchover is broken, purple haze in videos is unavoidable in many cases unless you stand perfectly still. And I'm not to happy with my mini server which never seems to remain up 100%, forcing restarts when it "loses contact" with hard drives over FW800 or can't maintain a "share screen" connection to administer it (under snow leopard or now mountain lion), which kind of makes it pointless as a server. And none of this is being addressed by Apple. They just let it slide.
And this response by them just feels like more of the same.
Signed: 22 year Apple customer who's bought his last Apple product...
What's really amazing about all the outrage is that some folks are only now waking up to how much contempt Apple has for its customers!?!
Come on, Apple's contemptuous attitude has been on display for quite some time!
It's how we got Apple Maps, after all...a very bad beta foisted upon anyone who upgraded to iOS 6 without the option to downgrade...
It's how we got "You're holding it wrong!"
Surely you all knew that as Apple customers, you're all beta testers?
Come on, Apple's contemptuous attitude has been on display for quite some time!
It's how we got Apple Maps, after all...a very bad beta foisted upon anyone who upgraded to iOS 6 without the option to downgrade...
It's how we got "You're holding it wrong!"
Surely you all knew that as Apple customers, you're all beta testers?
This seems to be Apple's mantra over the last couple years. Apple has trained you well.
WOW...what a solution, Apple! I can smell a lawsuit already when someone misses a very important call because they didn't realize that DND was still on.
In the support article Apple did NOT say it would "resolve itself" Jan. 7th.
Apple said it would resume working correctly.
If one reads between the lines this could be due to a date bug or the release of IOS 6.1
Apple said it would resume working correctly.
If one reads between the lines this could be due to a date bug or the release of IOS 6.1
Ok, but ....
Now you're making a completely different argument, IMO.
Your initial complaint sounded like you were demanding Apple address the problem with an immediate bug fix rather than making users wait until the 7th.
In fact, you're now saying you just wanted Apple to provide users with better communications about the nature of the issue.
I'd agree with you on this, but I'd also point out that historically, it's pretty uncharacteristic of Apple to do it. Likely largely because of Steve Jobs and his personal beliefs and characteristics, Apple always leaned towards communicating nothing about their mistakes or flaws, and just silently correcting them in due time.
In fact, I recall complaining myself on MacRumors, a year ago or so, about Apple's relatively useless lists of updates and bug fixes they include with many update patches. Most companies provide some sort of "revision history" document detailing every single fix, change or addition made to a program. Apple, on the other hand, is fond of giving brief summaries which only highlight a few items they feel are more significant and ending the summary with "....and other miscellaneous fixes and improvements."
Indeed, OS X revisions often include "hundreds of new features!", only some of which Apple bothers to document or detail. It's usually left up to users and 3rd. party book or magazine writers to discover the "little stuff" and tell the rest of us about them.
Now you're making a completely different argument, IMO.
Your initial complaint sounded like you were demanding Apple address the problem with an immediate bug fix rather than making users wait until the 7th.
In fact, you're now saying you just wanted Apple to provide users with better communications about the nature of the issue.
I'd agree with you on this, but I'd also point out that historically, it's pretty uncharacteristic of Apple to do it. Likely largely because of Steve Jobs and his personal beliefs and characteristics, Apple always leaned towards communicating nothing about their mistakes or flaws, and just silently correcting them in due time.
In fact, I recall complaining myself on MacRumors, a year ago or so, about Apple's relatively useless lists of updates and bug fixes they include with many update patches. Most companies provide some sort of "revision history" document detailing every single fix, change or addition made to a program. Apple, on the other hand, is fond of giving brief summaries which only highlight a few items they feel are more significant and ending the summary with "....and other miscellaneous fixes and improvements."
Indeed, OS X revisions often include "hundreds of new features!", only some of which Apple bothers to document or detail. It's usually left up to users and 3rd. party book or magazine writers to discover the "little stuff" and tell the rest of us about them.
I don't know why Microsoft is getting a bad rap here. I was a Windows user during Y2K and didn't have any problems. I was working IT desktop support in 2007 I believe was the year when the daylight savings was extended. We had to patch hundreds of Windows computers (thanks Congress!
While you didn't have issues, thousands of big businesses had to run patches to insure they didn't have problems. It was a planning mistake on their part.
I should've used this opportunity to extend my Christmas break until January 7th.
<Boss> Why haven't you answered my calls or come to work?!
<Me> Do Not Disturb bug.
<Boss> Why haven't you answered my calls or come to work?!
<Me> Do Not Disturb bug.
I'd bet out of all the people up in arms in this thread, less than 10% actually use the Do Not Disturb feature.
THIS IS THE LAST STRAW APPLE!
What is Do Not Disturb?
Some of the rationalizations, indignations and just turn it off posts in this thread
are a sad reminder of what happens when cultists divide by zero.
I guess they will eventually resolve themselves. Magic.
are a sad reminder of what happens when cultists divide by zero.
I guess they will eventually resolve themselves. Magic.
Just called Apple, apparently the guy who signs off on software releases is on a South Pacific island on vacation until January 6th. He is expected back in the office the following day.
Stay tuned!
Stay tuned!