It has been reported that iPhones in New Zealand running the iOS 4.1 software have been hit by a bug as the country changes daylight saving time.
The error caused the times on phones to revert back two hours instead of just one. This resulted in one disgruntled iPhone user being awoken at 3am instead of 5am, and a great many more complaints from users on Twitter.
In his blog the disgruntled user said…
I am tired and I am grumpy. And it’s my iPhone’s fault! Yes, folks, as if losing an hour’s sleep due to daylight savings isn’t bad enough, how about losing another hour just for good measure? It seems that Apple have borked something with the alarm clock and despite the clock on my iPhone being correctly set, the alarm I had scheduled for 5:55am went off at 4:55am this morning, which is basically 3:55am until my body clock adjusts. Unfortunately my tired brain didn’t spot the critical flaw in the Matrix and now I’m seriously hacked off. But the plot thickens upon further investigation…
It’s not the first time a device has been hit by a daylight savings bug. Microsoft’s Zune players once famously failed to operate for a full 24 hours as they didn’t recognise the date as a valid day. Microsoft couldn’t have issued a patch in time as when the clocks ticked over to midnight again, everything started working properly.
It’s far too early for Apple to issue a comment or to say if the same bug will hit other countries when they switch from summer time in a few weeks, after all, when the bug hit people in Cupertino were just getting ready for bed. We can be dertain though that a patch will be issued, but perhaps not before the bug has had a chance to strike again.
It’s not known whether this is local to New Zealand but if you have an iPhone and use its alarm when daylight savings time changes next, you might want to go back to your trusty old clock radio for the night.
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Something to be said for ‘manual’ alarm clocks around this time of year! And by the way, NZ is going into summer time, our clocks went forward not back.
unfortunately its not just iphones that are affected, its also the ipod touch. and now for the second day in a row I got woken up early.
Same problem on the other side of the globe.
Alarm clock on my Iphone 3Gs in Norway are one hour late.
Set it for 07:35 and it will sound at 08:35.
Same here. I guess a lot of people in Norway might be late for work today. My alarm was set for 06:00, but went off at 07:00 when I was in the car. Then i tested setting a new alarm for 07:15, and strangely enough that went off as supposed to at 07:15. Looks almost as if the displayed time for the alarm and the actual time is different, and when changing the time on the phone, the internal sett alarm time doesn’t get updated.
I wonder if this is the same bug that hit the LA Lakers team and made a couple of them late for practice.