Apple finally had a wakeup call.
For many months, iPhone users have been complaining about a glitch that resulted in set alarms not sounding.
“This has probably been the third or fourth day in a row my alarm clock has not gone off,” TikToker Reid Manning recently griped.
Another person on TikTok said they spent half a year trying to get to the bottom of the Alarmgate.
This week, Apple finally confirmed to Today that an ongoing issue is causing alarms to quietly malfunction.
The most common version of the issue has to do with a subtle setting called “Attention Aware.”
In January, Apple posted that Attention Aware allows an iPhone to “check whether you’re paying attention to your device and automatically take action.” It “intelligently activates” a phone’s camera — whether FaceID is enabled or not.
Some Reddit users — they were helping a dad who was chronically late for his child’s school pickup line from the problem — have noticed that Attention Aware has a fatal flaw.
It can falsely be under the impression that a person is looking at their phone and will automatically power down their important wake-up jingle, many have complained.
The way to shut down the function, per Apple, is to go into settings, then “Face ID & Passcode” and toggle the switch for “Attention Aware Features” to off.
In a March guide Apple made for setting alarms, the company also advises to double check ringtone volume under “sound & haptics.”
