Apple is finally fixing the iPhone alarm glitch that's driving people mad

Phones have replaced alarm clocks, along with many other appliances, to become our default wake-up calls in the morning. So reliable are the little computers that sit by our bedside, that we’ve forgotten that, like laptops and PCs, they’re prone to bugging out.

Well, it seems some iPhone owners recently received a rude awakening to that prospect. Social media is currently littered with grumpy posts from people who overslept after their iPhone alarms didn’t go off. Naturally, appointments were missed and awkward glances were exchanged at work. Try telling your boss you were late because your iPhone didn’t chirp in the morning.

As it turns out, this isn’t exactly a new phenomenon. Reddit and X posts lambasting broken iPhone alarms have been sporadically popping up over the past couple of years. All of which begs the question: what, if anything, is Apple doing about it?

After years of silence, the good news is Apple has finally acknowledged the problem - and says it’s working quickly to fix it. Specifically, Apple says there’s an issue causing some alarms on iPhones to not play a sound as expected. So far, so cryptic.

It’s still not clear what caused the problem, or which iPhone models or iOS versions are affected. We also don’t know how it’s planning to remedy the bug, though it typically resolves this sort of stuff with a software update that can be downloaded over the internet.

Apple did just that in January by patching serious security holes in iPhones and iPads that could have let hackers take control of devices. These were classified as "zero-day" vulnerabilities, meaning they were exploited in attacks.

Apple’s updates also tend to address user-reported issues. For instance, iOS 17.1.1 fixed a problem where Apple Pay wouldn't work on iPhone 15 models after wireless charging.

How to fix your iPhone alarm

In the case of the latest bug, there’s also a chance that the silence may be due to user settings. For added peace of mind, and while you wait for a possible update, you can try these troubleshooting steps to make sure your alarms are working properly:

• Check the ringer volume and make sure it's turned up.

• Verify that Do Not Disturb mode is disabled by opening the control centre and checking the Focus option.

• Open the Clock app and confirm the alarm you want to use has a sound selected and isn't set to vibrate only.

• Try turning off the iPhone’s “attention aware features” via the Face ID menu in settings.