- Users report problems with iPhone's built-in alarm feature
- A Reddit thread reports that some users' alarms are ringing late, while others are not ringing at all
- We reached out to Apple for comment but have not yet received a response
iPhone users are reporting unusual behavior due to their phone's built-in alarm feature. Some alarms sounded hours after the scheduled time, others didn't sound at all.
A Reddit post shared on r/iphone by user bryanlolwut (via Android Authority) showing that an iPhone alarm set for 10:30 a.m. actually goes off at 12:42 p.m. sparked a thread in which dozens Users have shared similar experiences.
Some users noted that this was an ongoing problem – for example, KnowingFalcon said, “This has been happening to me for ages and I thought I was going crazy.” I woke up two hours after setting my alarm, looked at my clock and the alarm went off silently, without sound or haptics.”
Others reported alarms going off during commutes, with one comment suggesting the issue dates back to iOS 9, released in 2015. User “givingback11” simply replied, “I feel validated.”
Whether all of these comments reflect reality is hard to judge, but it's clear that there's a real sense of dissatisfaction among the iPhone user base over what should be one of the most reliable features on a smartphone.
Additionally, this is not the first time we have reported this issue. Following a segment on NBC's Today Show highlighting problems with iPhone alarms, Apple released a statement saying a fix was on the way. Nine months and a full version of iOS later, the problem appears to persist.
In our previous report, we explained that the Attention Aware feature added with iOS 17 could be partly to blame – it's a setting that lowers the volume of alerts when your iPhone detects you're looking at it.
Still, we'd like to assume that the iPhone is context-sensitive enough to detect when a user is sleeping or to simply exclude alarms from the Attention Aware feature.
Admittedly, we don't know exactly what iPhone model or iOS version user Bryanlolwut is working with, but the image shared (above) shows the alarm notification via Dynamic Island, which would make the phone an iPhone 14 Pro or newer shows that even the latest and greatest iPhones are not immune to the problem.
We reached out to Apple for comment on the issue but have not received a response at the time of writing.
Still, those who own iPhones and sleep late will certainly feel some sense of relief when they hear these persistent reports that at least suggest that waking up late may not be entirely their fault. We'll get the latest updates as we hear them through our dedicated iPhone coverage.