Slashdot Mirror
iPhone Alarm Bug Leads To Mass European Sleep-in
nk497 writes "A flaw in the alarm clock in iPhone 4s gave Europeans a bit of a lie-in this morning. While the Apple handsets automatically adjusted to daylight savings time, a bug in the alarm system meant many were woken up an hour later than they should have been, after clocks rolled back over the weekend. Annoyingly, Australia was hit by a similar problem last month, but Apple failed to fix the problem or even warn users. American Apple fans, consider yourselves warned. The iOS4 bug can apparently be avoided by using one-off alarms, rather than pre-set regular wake-up calls."
my girlfriends 3gs (running iOS 4.x) had the same bug this morning.
Fortunately, my $99 android phone woke us up at the right time
People, what a bunch of bastards
The story fails to mention several key details.
1. The problem only manifests if you have a recurring alarm set.
2. The alram goes off an hour late if it was set before for DST switch.
3. The alarm goes off an hour early if it was set after the DST switch.
Then take a step outside at noon
Daylight savings saves (hence the name) billions every year in electricity costs."
Incorrect, DST causes more electricity to be used. It is bad for the economy and the environment. Hint: Air Conditioning uses more power than lights.
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.
Those 9v batteries tend to run down quickly. Luckily I have a 300watt UPS lying around, which can power that device for fucking ages.
However, my iPhone is what I generally rely on. Until iOS 4.2 comes out with the patch, I just set my alarms forward 1 hour (I'm in the souther hemisphere, with the opposite problem).
This is my footer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
People's sanity. :-P
I live in a place with DST -- basically it means in the summer, we get extra-long days so it's light until late into the evening (almost 9pm around the solstice). It shifts the hours of usable daylight into hours people might actually use during the summer instead of it being light out at 5am or something stupid.
It also makes up for the fact that in winter it's dark when you get up and leave for work, and dark by the time you leave for home after work. In winter there's a good 1.5 month period where you don't get to see much daylight -- as short as about 8h42m of daylight. DST doesn't fix this, but it gives us some of it back in the summer.
Much like you can't fathom why we have it -- if you grew up with it, you can't fathom why everyone else doesn't have it.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I call bullshit on the billions. Every study I've seen on DST has mixed results on electricity savings, and often shows losses in other areas like farming. It also costs money to design time-sensitive applications and devices around DST. The sleep schedule disruption also causes issues with workers, and has been shown to increase workplace injuries. While the increase in sunlight exposure is mostly healthy, it also increases the risk of skin cancer. Wikipedia has a nice section on this with sources.
Also, while in WW2, DST might have saved on some resources, power usage is now far different. DST mainly affects power usage by residential lighting, which is no longer the primary use of electricity (especially now that incandescent bulbs are being phased out).
Said, "It's just like dice but it's got more sides And it tells me who lives and who dies"
We have, and it involves daylight savings time.
We're not making you do a damned thing. If you don't like it, don't do it. You'll just have to keep track of what time we're operating on if you need to be calling us. (And, if we need to be calling you, we need to track that.)
Are you under the impression that you are forced to have DST just because (you think) we said so? Even within North America, there are places that don't do DST.
If your own government makes you do this, bitch to them. We don't care if you change your clocks. Heck, I don't care if you even have a clock.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.