The iPhone alarm the least reliable alarm in the history of earth?

[BigMcGuire]

There is an easy way to change media volume without first playing a sound. You don't even have to unlock the phone to do that. Simply swipe up the control panel then swipe to the right, you'll see the volume slider. Drag the slider to the left. Done. No more freaking out during meetings when opening apps that have sound

HAH! Thats awesome. Thanks! Learn something new every day. I appreciate it!

 

[Dave Felix]

I have too witnessed this - some of you guys are acting as if he's making it up. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not. I have my volume all the way up and will probably delete the alarm and make a new one.

 

[Armen]

I don't see why my volume would have been down but I'll see if that solves it.

My phone is always on silent at night as I don't want to be woken by a text or phone call when sleeping.

The alarm overrides silent (to the person saying they only got a silent alarm when they left their phone on silent) @Lappen71

Use Do Not Disturb instead of putting your phone on silent. I have mine set from 11PM-6AM.

 

[simonmet]

I'm sure I've experienced this, as in literally seeing the alarm on the screen while the phone is completely silent and perhaps even without vibration, but it's hard to reproduce. Even the quietest volume setting for the alarm is very noticeable (and always wakes me up) so I think it's a real issue or bug where it doesn't play the sound sometimes.

It hasn't happened very recently for me but I'm sure it has happened. I was on a 5s for a couple of years where I think it happened sometimes. Can't say I've noticed it since upgrading to the 7.

Do you ever use AirPlay to stream audio?

 

[willmtaylor]

I have too witnessed this - some of you guys are acting as if he's making it up.

Who? Not one person said this. The thread is full of people's anecdotal experiences both saying they had and hadn't seen this. Not one post acted as if he's making it up.

Don't be so sensitive.

 

[FeliApple]

Using iOS alarm for over four years and not a single time as ever one failed on me, on multiple devices.

 

[fjarl]

No, never had that problem. My first iphone was the very first iphone, and since then the alarms have always gone off.

 

[Dave Felix]

Who? Not one person said this. The thread is full of people's anecdotal experiences both saying they had and hadn't seen this. Not one post acted as if he's making it up.

Don't be so sensitive.

LOL this is from you

"Congrats on having the most hyperbolic thread title in the history of the entire universe though. "

Not being sensitive, I just happened to google this and noticed I am not alone.

 

[willmtaylor]

LOL this is from you

"Congrats on having the most hyperbolic thread title in the history of the entire universe though. "

Not being sensitive, I just happened to google this and noticed I am not alone.

You did read the thread title, did you not?
[Retracting tongue from cheek.]

Like I said, sensitive.

 

[dannyyankou]

I've never owned an alarm that works 100% of the time, so I have a backup.

 

[friednoodles]

Aside from volume-related issues, I have seen this happen on a friend's iPhone 6: the cause was that it was completely out of storage space and the whole OS was starting to behave weirdly, not even being able to play videos (in apps or in Safari) or any music/sounds. There was evidently not even any temporary files that iOS could remove to make more space to do anything, so it starting becoming glitchy. He deleted an app to make some space, restarted, and everything went back to normal, with sounds/alarms and video working again.

 

[Dave Felix]

You did read the thread title, did you not?
[Retracting tongue from cheek.]

Like I said, sensitive.

Its all good man, I'm not going to sit and go back and forth lol good day mate

 

[cynics]

What version of iOS are you on?

Of recent memory there have been two separate version of iOS that had an alarm bug, both were corrected.

iOS 10.0.x had an alarm bug that was fixed with 10.1 (found here). There was another one with iOS 9 that was fixed with later versions of iOS 9 for not sounding.

Also there was a bug that would cause the screen to shut off in iOS 9 so you couldn't hit snooze (or off without pressing a button). I made a video of that here, although it still worked just more of an annoyance than anything.

Least reliable alarm of the history of the earth is obviously an vast exaggeration however for something seemingly as simple as an alarm it doesn't have great track record. Yet for some reason I still rely on it every morning so can I really blame Apple at this point? Fool me once shame on you.....

 

[Soundburst]

The latest OS.

initially I thought 'well maybe I had my volume down' but then guys have said even with the volume right down you should hear something.

But that's never the case. The screen is on. The alarm dialogue box is on screen and yet complete silence.

I've bought an alarm clock as expecting Apple to get something as basic as an alarm working without fail was clearly too much too expect.

Maybe it'll be the big feature of iOS15 lol.

 

[willmtaylor]

The latest OS.

initially I thought 'well maybe I had my volume down' but then guys have said even with the volume right down you should hear something.

But that's never the case. The screen is on. The alarm dialogue box is on screen and yet complete silence.

I've bought an alarm clock as expecting Apple to get something as basic as an alarm working without fail was clearly too much too expect.

Maybe it'll be the big feature of iOS15 lol.

Clearly millions of folks don't have issues, so obviously it's an individual bug and an iOS feature.

I'm not saying you don't, but with the ridiculous thread title and comments like that, I can't help but roll my eyes.

 

[cynics]

The latest OS.

initially I thought 'well maybe I had my volume down' but then guys have said even with the volume right down you should hear something.

But that's never the case. The screen is on. The alarm dialogue box is on screen and yet complete silence.

I've bought an alarm clock as expecting Apple to get something as basic as an alarm working without fail was clearly too much too expect.

Maybe it'll be the big feature of iOS15 lol.

Well if volume doesn't affect the alarm volume then there is currently a bug with iOS. I don't think that is the case though.

Testing it real quick with the volume set to one bar (lowest setting) the alarm sounds accordingly, very quiet. This is the same whether the silent switch is on or off only difference being in silent the phone also vibrates.

I would reset the phone and just hope it doesn't happen again if I were you. I've been using my iPhone as an alarm for years but only had it fail me once with that iOS 10 bug, I don't consider the video I linked above as a failure. I still find the versatility of it to make up for the issue I had vs using a bedside alarm clocks.

Its portable so its always around, it accounts for daylight savings, I can activate it with Siri, set my own alarm tones (I learn to hate the sound because I hate work so I often change it), doesn't require mains power, etc etc. Of course reliability is probably the most important aspect of an alarm but like I mentioned it only let me down once. And even in the case it let me down I was already awake anyway so I just noticed its malfunction vs me being late.

Although the reason I knew about the iOS 10 issue was because a friend was late for an work on a day a supervisor was supposed to follow him around. And he told me that he had what you experienced (which is why I asked for the iOS version) with the screen saying alarm but no sound. Everything worked out fine for him but it could have been a big deal.
[doublepost=1488930422][/doublepost]

Clearly millions of folks don't have issues, so obviously it's an individual bug and an iOS feature.

I'm not saying you don't, but with the ridiculous thread title and comments like that, I can't help but roll my eyes.

Well its tough to say. The similar bug that he claims to have experienced was acknowledged and fixed by Apple in iOS 10 that I linked above.

And here are the release notes of iOS 9.0.1 which fixes the alarm clock not sounding in iOS 9.



And again in the release notes of iOS 9.2 which fixes the alarm clock not sounding in iOS 9.1.



It wasnt so prominently advertised but that image is pulled from Apple.com release notes.

https://support.apple.com/kb/dl1842?locale=en_US

How many people that experienced any of those is tough to say. I'm sure a lot of people did...


Pulled from Forbes https://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2015/10/29/apple-ios-9-1-alarms-fail/#471ba12e4721

The question is how many reported it? A lot of time its chalked up to human error, maybe they forgot to set it, didn't hear it, turned it off in our sleep etc etc. We all want to blindly trust an alarm clock but that is clearly not always the case. I agree the title is on the ridiculous side however its ridiculousness is subjective based on how long and what you were late for. lol

 

[simonmet]

There we have confirmation that it at least has been an issue in the past.

 

[cswifx]

Try turning on all sound options (turn off DND as well), as well as maximizing all your volume. If that still doesn't work, it's a bug.

 

[C DM]

Try turning on all sound options (turn off DND as well), as well as maximizing all your volume. If that still doesn't work, it's a bug.

But it should (and does) work even without all of that, so if it doesn't that means there's still an issue somewhere (not really a widespread one or a frequent one).

 

[mman454]

One thing none of you have mentioned is how many alarms do you have set to go off. I frequently find this happening with me and I think it could be a result of a second alarm going off while the first one is already playing. That's only a theory though, as I'm never actually awake and looking at the phone the moment the alarms are supposed to go off.

 

[simon lefisch]

Alarm has always gone off. I use a rooster tone. Damn it's annoying as hell but gets my ass outta bed in the morning.

 

[chekz0414]

I noticed that with iOS 10, if you had songs set, on old alarms it defaults to sound none. You need to go in and reselect the songs you want again. But nowadays I just use the Bedtime alarm in iOS

 

[one more]

My phone is always on silent at night as I don't want to be woken by a text or phone call when sleeping.

Put it in a plane mode overnight, so no disturbances & no need for a silent mode.

 

[willmtaylor]

Put it in a plane mode overnight, so no disturbances & no need for a silent mode.

Wow. A bit extreme, no? So much for emergencies. DND accomplishes the same thing without such extreme measures.

 

[Ulenspiegel]

Never had a single issue with iPhone alarm over the years.