iPhone Clock Bug Prevents Alarm Triggers after New Year's

[OllyW]

This bug caused me to miss my flight home. Rebooking has cost me 500 euros!

Does anyone know an email i can complain to, their website is spectacularly unhelpful... I have a dutch iphone 3gs.

What do you recon the chances of any compensation are.

You can leave feedback here but don't expect them to contact you. If you want to lodge a complaint then phone the customer service number for your country.

I'd say your chances of compensation from Apple are near to zero unless you take them to court.

 

[Castiel]

How about your lame post. If you are going to post, at least make it something post-worthy.

This was Apple's miss. I haven't read through all the posts, but why is it complaining to call out Apple for their product not performing as advertised? It's a clock with an alarm and the alarm did not work.

Uhm. I think he was referring to the members going into novel-length posts about iPhone vs. Droid, spawned simply from a single software fluke.

 

[MH01]

I like how everyone immediately starts jumping all over Apple blaming them for bad quality assurance and to test the devices more.....yet this is a ONE time issue that affects a very brief period (two whole days). Oh, HOW WILL WE LIVE WITHOUT OUR ALARMS FOR TWO WHOLE DAYS!

Get a life people. Find something else to troll the forums and complain about.

Heard of the Y2K bug?? Well that was a WHOLE DAY!

Point your missing mate, some poor sods who had to wake up on the 1st of Jan 2011 to go to work, catch a flight etc were affected by this. So if your one of them this really is a huge issue. Try rebooking a flight on the 1st!!

Your the one trolling here. This is infact a real issue that people have a right to express their opinions at...... I'd say the biggest Mac related rumor of 2011.

 

[AAPLaday]

So is everything fixed for when daylight saving changes in few months?

 

[johneaston]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148a Safari/6533.18.5)

"...this is the sign of a company straining under growth."

Totally agree.

 

[Veri]

if you only have one alarm...

If you only have one alarm, you have no right to call yourself an engineer.

If your only alarm is unnecessarily complex, leading to many more potential points of failure than a simple dedicated device, then the march of human progress has been sped up because you spent a day in bed.

I have 2 alarms and a cat to get me up. On rare occasions, at least one fails me. But they've never all failed on the same day.

you're calling longtime MR community members liars and drunks?

shame, thats pretty low.

Only a [insert mental illness label here] would hallucinate [insert your god here] making a mistake. /zealot

 

[Full of Win]

This bug caused me to miss my flight home. Rebooking has cost me 500 euros!

Does anyone know an email i can complain to, their website is spectacularly unhelpful... I have a dutch iphone 3gs.

What do you recon the chances of any compensation are.

Well you made a huge mistake - you expected competence from the incompetent. Sorry, that is life. Sad that Apple Consumer Electronics can't do then most basic of technical things anymore to a satisfactory level.

 

[748s]

Single alarms are working again (I'm in the future, it's 3rd jan here)

I can't believe people rely only on a phone alarm for mission critical stuff.

 

[anim8or]

Why do A LOT of users here think having 2 alarms set to get you up is a healthy solution???

I have always used ONE alarm, 90% of the time my body clock will wake me up BEFORE said alarm does, but that other 10% i rely on my ONE alarm.

The need to use 2 alarms suggests to me that you are used to turning off the first and then getting up at the second! I have a friend who uses 2 alarms and he is one of the laziest guys i know and would sleep all day given the chance!!!

I lead a pretty busy life and 1 alarm seems to suffice, i have had no problems in the past using different devices from traditional clocks to mobile devices, including some of my first iPods.

My reasoning behind using the iPhone alarm is to reduce number of devices i need to use/carry with me day to day... as I am sure many other iPhone alarm users would agree.

Yes i posted earlier saying the same thing but having read more of these posts i felt the need to reiterate my experiences.

I have had a lot of the publicised issues with my iPhone 4 from antenna problems to proximity sensor issues and now the alarm bugs.... NONE of these issues have affected me to harshly and i prefer my life WITH my iPhone than getting a different device, so i live with them.

BUT if one day i couldn't make a call in an emergency due to antenna problems, or didn't wake up in time for something important because my alarm inexplicably did not go off then i would be A LOT MORE annoyed.... and justifiably so.

To all those who feel the need in berating users who have had the misfortune of adverse effects of this bug then i hope one day you iOS device fails you in a way that makes you wanna throw it out the window, then maybe you will appreciate how many people are feeling right now.... but i am going to assume not many of you will, as you probably are like my friend i mentioned before.

I can't believe people rely only on a phone alarm for mission critical stuff.

Because technology is supposed to make life simpler and easier... 1 device that does everything.... but carry a spare device, just in case!!!

 

[Mr. C.]

next thing you knw, my iphone will be missing a "call" button on april fools day

It happened to me that tapping the «Answer» button didn't do anything. Luckily, I remembered to press the volume buttons instead to pick up the call.

 

[IamOnlyMe]

I nearly missed a plane because of this. Luckily my girlfriend's Nokia N95 woke us up in the last minute.
I bought the iPhone because Apple products were known to be reliable, but that seems to have been a grave mistake.

 

[fxtech]

If you only have one alarm, you have no right to call yourself an engineer.

I tend to agree with the content of your post, but let's not get too specific here. I engineer software for a living, and I work at home. I have one alarm clock, and I never use it (except if I have to get the kid up for school). I've never used a PHONE as an alarm clock - though as they are tied to the cellular network where time is a big deal, you'd think this kind of problem wouldn't happen.

However this issue is not a surprise. Having worked with Macs for over 25 years, I've seen a ton of bugs like this. One thing I would NOT give Apple credit for is their software QA.

 

[fxtech]

Well you made a huge mistake - you expected competence from the incompetent. Sorry, that is life. Sad that Apple Consumer Electronics can't do then most basic of technical things anymore to a satisfactory level.

But those devices sure are shiny!

 

[notabadname]

As if not every single person on this thread has at least once, goofed up setting an alarm: pm instead of am, forgot about daylight savings, forgot to un-mute the volume, left the phone in an other room, or simply had a power failure and learned they had failed to replace the 9 volt battery on their clock.

We are all human, we all make mistakes, including the software programers for the iPhone. Only for them, there are thousands, upon thousands of more opportunities to goof it up, just as every single one of us has at one time or another.

 

[fxtech]

As if not every single person on this thread has at least once, goofed up setting an alarm: pm instead of am, forgot about daylight savings, forgot to un-mute the volume, left the phone in an other room, or simply had a power failure and learned they had failed to replace the 9 volt battery on their clock.

We are all human, we all make mistakes, including the software programers for the iPhone. Only for them, there are thousands, upon thousands of more opportunities to goof it up, just as every single one of us has at one time or another.

You're not really defending them are you? There are hundreds of people there who's JOB it is to make sure their stuff works.

 

[Veri]

As if not every single person on this thread has at least once, goofed up setting an alarm

Indeed I have. Hence redundancy.

We are all human, we all make mistakes, including the software programers for the iPhone.

Indeed I have. Hence testing.

Timekeeping isn't easy, but preferring the college neophyte is. Since consumer systems research has been dead for 30 years, why are we still rewriting basic system routines?

 

[decadentdave]

My REPEATING alarm did not go off this morning so it's affecting recurring alarms too.

 

[GeekLawyer]

Apple fail!

I had my iPhone alarm set to remind me to take my life-saving medication.

Sadly, thanks to Apple's incompetence, my alarm didn't go off yesterday and now I'm dead.* Thanks, Apple!




*This isn't true. But it's about as likely as the other stories of woe we're reading here. Emphasis on stories. /snark

 

[athand]

Sadly, thanks to Apple's incompetence, my alarm didn't go off yesterday and now I'm dead.

Don't worry! Apple will compensate your family for their loss.

 

[MacModMachine]

This bug caused me to miss my flight home. Rebooking has cost me 500 euros!

Does anyone know an email i can complain to, their website is spectacularly unhelpful... I have a dutch iphone 3gs.

What do you recon the chances of any compensation are.

none, why should apple compensate you for missing your flight.

your problem, not theirs

 

[IamOnlyMe]

As if not every single person on this thread has at least once, goofed up setting an alarm: pm instead of am, forgot about daylight savings, forgot to un-mute the volume, left the phone in an other room, or simply had a power failure and learned they had failed to replace the 9 volt battery on their clock.

My own mistakes are my own problem and my own responsibility, but Apple's mistakes shouldn't be my problem and certainly not my responsibility.
I paid hard earned money for the product!

 

[GeekLawyer]

Don't worry! Apple will compensate your family for their loss.

I hope so. My sense of entitlement while living was nothing compared to the way I feel now that Apple has caused my death. Show me my family the money.

 

[FoxHoundADAM]

Seriously? This is almost inexcusable. Sure it's a minor but but how could this not have been tested?!?!

Between this and the fact that they had the wrong antenna single formula (for 2 years!) you really have to wonder what other things are messed up.

It may be small but really when you pay for high end stuff this stuff shouldn't happen.

 

[rivertrip]

I want to know what type of screw up they did. This was just piss poor programing that should of been caught in QA multiple times over. This is the 3rd rather large embarrassing thing for Apple on the iPhone in under 6 month.

Antenna design and handling, DST alarm issues, and now this one... All on the iPhone in under 6 months. Very sad.

You think you are exhibiting curiosity about the faulty algorithm?

 

[meatballs]

I can't believe people rely only on a phone alarm for mission critical stuff.

Yes, the iPhone is just a kids toy which can't be trusted for anything important. But that's not how Apple advertises it, I'm pretty sure I've seen references to business use on their website...