iPhone owners cheering in the new year may be in for a surprise Saturday morning thanks to an iOS bug that seems to prevent one-time alarms from sounding once their clock rolls over into 2011. The bug apparently impacts devices running iOS 4.0.2 and higher, and alarms that were set both before and after the new year transition.
Reports of the bug started cropping up on Twitter as midnight rolled around in several time zones, and according to Engadget affects only alarms set in the Clock application. 9 to 5 Mac reports that the bug seems to fix it self after January 3, 2011.
Welcome to 2011, sans alarms.
Recurring alarms don’t seem to be impacted by the bug, which should come as a relief to users that missed appointments when the Day Light Saving alarm bug hit. That bug caused recurring alarms in the Clock app to fail if they were set before the Day Light Saving time shift.
A temporary fix for the New Year bug is to set a recurring alarm for specific days. Setting a recurring alarm for Sunday, for example, will ensure that you’ll get up on time this Sunday. Just be sure to disable the alarm after you wake up so you don’t hear the alarm unexpectedly next Sunday morning.