IN AN eerie, if far less serious, parallel to the Y2K millennium bug that set hearts racing a decade ago, iPhone users in Asia, parts of Europe, Australia and New Zealand overslept yesterday after their phone alarms malfunctioned on the first working day of 2011, despite Apple’s reassurances that built-in clocks would work as normal.
The online world was abuzz with irritated messages as people blogged, tweeted and posted Facebook messages about how they were two hours late for work or missed flights because of the third successive day of failure on the iPhone’s built-in alarm.
“I was a victim of the iPhone alarm glitch this morning. I have never gotten ready for work so fast in my life,” tweeted jkless. The problem also appeared to affect alarms on other Apple products such as the iPod and iTouch music player.
After the problem arose on New Year’s Day, Apple said the phones would function properly again on January 3rd, but many wished they had relied on the old-fashioned alarm clock instead. The problem did not affect recurring alarms.
There have been glitches like this before. The iPhone alarm system failed to recognise changes in daylight savings time in 2010, causing some users to sleep in an hour longer. And Apple had to deal with publicity problems in July when shortly after the launch of the iPhone 4, the most recent model, there were reports of bad phone reception.
It didn’t seem to hurt sales – Apple sold more than 14 million iPhones in the year to the end of September, and the phone is now the world’s No 2 smartphone brand behind global leader Nokia.
Of course, the alarm glitch may prompt some malingerers to try to extend the Christmas break.
ChrisWBates tweeted: “Wonder how many people are going to use ‘my iPhone alarm didn’t go off’ as an excuse to not go in tomorrow after new year’s break.” And as another online wag commented: “Haven’t you all heard of an alarm clock?”