If you want to avoid a rude wake up call this Monday morning, here’s how to make sure your iPhone alarm doesn’t falter when daylight savings ends in North America on Sunday, November 7.
The snafu appears to be a problem with the synchronization — while the iPhone updates itself to recognize the daylight savings change in your time zone, it doesn’t update your alarm.
Specifically, it messes up repeating alarms set for anything other than “every day.” That means that your alarm will go off an hour late if you set it for “weekdays,” “weekends” or “every Monday,” for example.
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Apple issued a support document just before the Northern America DST changes to stem the tide irate of jill-and-johnny-iPhone-come-latelys.
It advises iPhone users to “set the repeat interval to “Never.” You will need to reset these alarms for each day you need them. After November 7th, 2010, you can set your alarms to repeat again.” (We’re guessing that’s because the smartphone “catches up” synching the alarm time after the iPhone synchs with DST. But Apple’s laconic 77-word statement doesn’t elaborate.)
Because the bug has infected every device Apple makes that runs on iOS4.1, that means your iPod touch (4th generation), iPod touch (3rd generation), iPhone 3G, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPod touch (2nd generation) could all set off the wrong alarm bells.
The iPhone bug has already sent a ripple of “I Don’t Like Mondays” around the world from Australia to Europe as it either forgets to sound or goes off an hour late or an hour early.
Maybe if hits some key Cupertino employees, we’ll see a real fix sooner than later.
Nicole Martinelli is a San Francisco freelance writer who heads up Cult of Mac Magazine, our weekly publication available on iTunes. You can find her on Twitter and Google+. If you’re doing something new, cool and Apple-related, email her.
