On Jan 1 and 2 of 2011, tons of people overslept, not due to hangovers, but because of an iPhone glitch that made their alarms go off. For most people this was just an inconvenience, but for one couple it was disastrous. They missed a fertility treatment deadline.
Jodi writes:
My husband and I set the alarms on both of our iPhones to go off at 6:45am on January 1. We had a very important deadline to make that morning in regards to our scheduled fertility treatment. But we missed it. The alarms didn’t go off. Apparently (according to Google) they don’t work on January 1 or 2 of 2011. Wish we would’ve known this ahead of time. Thousands of dollars and a month of injections wasted. And no one to turn to for recourse.Jodi
Sent from my iPhone
My heart goes out to you and your husband, Jodi. That is devastating. I only hope that you have the resources and fortitude to be able to pick up the pieces and try again.
You might say that they should have set multiple, non-iPhone alarms, but hindsight is 20/20 and that doesn’t remove the pain of their loss.
For those who aren’t familiar, fertility treatment is a multi-step process, requiring different drugs to be injected for several weeks at prescribed days and usually at the same time. Missing an injection time can complicate the pregnancy. Getting an injection a few hours later runs the risk of overstimulating the patient as the interval between that injection and the next one is shorter. If you miss an injection, you need to call your clinic’s emergency line as soon as possible and tell them what’s going on.
An Apple spokesperson told NYT that they were “aware of an issue related to non-repeating alarms set for January 1 or 2.” They promised alarms will start working right today. Mine worked fine today but judging by some angry Tweets, the fix hasn’t rolled out to everyone yet. Until then, here’s some free iPhone alarm apps that will work.
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Not blaming the OP here (the alarms should have worked…although I personally would never trust a phone alarm), but it doesn’t say when they actually woke up? I’m assuming they left around an hour or so to get ready in the morning before they left, so if they woke up at 7:45 then they could have just jumped in the car and made the appointment. Or even a couple hours late would make them maybe an hour late for the appointment? (which should be okay?)
I just don’t understand how people can be in such a deep, almost blackout-like sleep to oversleep for hours and hours or why some people need to set 80 blaring alarms in the morning to get my out of bed…it kind of disturbs me a bit, what if a fire alarm goes off or something and they don’t hear? Of course, this is coming from a light sleeper who wakes up naturally before the alarm even goes off everyday…so I don’t really understand too much. I’ve never actually overslept anything before.
January 1st. Maybe they stayed up too late on New Years Eve. But they cut it real close if waking an hour later made them miss a crucial time-sensitive appointment.
I think the real question is “How many software engineers does it take to implement a clock?” We keep seeing missed leap years, incorrect DST support, etc. Talk about reinventing the wheel, over and over again….
This actually happened to me this morning (January 3rd). Missed the gym but luckily woke up in time for work.
Waited for an alarm that I set last night (1/2/11) to go off this morning (1/3/11) and it didn’t work. Deleted all the alarms on my phone and set a new one and it worked fine.
This is disturbing as I rely on my iPhone for my alarm clock (actually got rid of my alarm clock when I got the phone). Hopefully this won’t happen again as I don’t think work would take “My iPhone alarm didn’t go off” as a valid excuse. :-/
How can Apple have so many stupid little Glitches like this? It’s not like their products are cheap and it’s not like this is a difficult thing to test and catch.
I feel so bad for them!
Did Ben email/call back to verify this story?
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Adopt. Problem solved.
Yes. because adopting is so easy, fast, and inexpensive in this day and age. I’m sure the thought never occurred to them. Its a good thing you are able to let them know about this possibility.
Paul Ehrlich has a lot to answer for. His book, which started the neo-Malthusian, doomsday talk about overpopulation, had many scary, influential predictions which did not come true. We are not all eating Soylent Green.
Third World countries cannot sustain their populations – those are the real crisis points. Not so in Europe, the US, Canada, Australia, Japan, etc. where there is a looming labor and health care crisis. But many of us living in North America or Australia – think of the Irish, Italians and many other immigrant groups – need only look back a hundred years to see a great-grandmother or grandmother who came from a family of 6 or 10 children.
The key is not forced sterilization (which Ehrlich suggested at one point; stuff in the drinking water). It’s better education in these Third World countries. Women who continue their education further into their teenage years and adulthood, are more likely to use birth control, and more likely to wait to marry and have children. They are more likely to be established in careers or businesses (even microbusinesses) and able to increase their standard of living. They have fewer children, and those children have better lives. There is a ripple effect, too, of improving the lives of the general community.
The doom n’ gloom persistently pushed about overpopulation is not helpful, and frankly, it’s not *rational*. Many people who hear these sorts of lectures will continue to have babies, however many they want. Some others think they are morally superior because they will only adopt children, or have no children.
But what we do in North America, reproduction-wise has little to no impact on the real crisis points in the Third World, which is why the doom n’ glooming is irrational.
Support women’s rights, women’s education, and women’s microbusinesses in these developing countries. That makes more of a difference.
In a lot of these third world countries, where they are suffering and are disease ridden, rape is rampant. Sure education is a good tool but who do you think is going over there to educate?
Missionaries.
And guess what their main message is?
Abstinence.
Not birth control. Not something that will actually prevent pregnancy when rape happens. These people are told that prayer and abstaining will solve all their problems. Meanwhile other countries dump tons of money to provide sacks of grain and water to these people who will continue to multiply at a rapid rate.
Why cant they tell these people god handed the anti rape condom down from the heavens and they need to use it. Not only will that stop unwanted pregnancy but it will give that country a chance to persecute the animals that are raping women.
There are great ways to control this problem but religion, political correctness and culture profiling all gets in the way so others can feel better about themselves. God forbid another, better off, country comes in and teaches these people how to live and work and survive. Oh no, cant do that. Cant destroy the peoples way of life and culture. Doesn’t matter their way of life, their culture and what they believe is flushing them down the toilet and creating a huge crisis.
Seems like people feel better putting band aids around these problems so they feel so much better about their own stupid values.
Someone comes along with different radical suggestions and people swarm them with the same ideas that havent worked for decades!
Every Christmas I have to hear about how Ethiopia is in trouble by that moron Bono and a bunch of other idiots who sang that song in 1984. Its 2011 and THERE IS STILL A PROBLEM!!!! Millions are still suffering. Despite the tons of money that is raised to help them.
So if thats still the case shouldn’t we be considering many different options instead of rehashing the same ones that never work?
I understand what other posters are saying, but if the OP and her husband have never had issues with the alarm on their iphone then why would they have set an alarm clock?
like antennae-gate and the “you’re holding it wrong!” response, only apple could get away with “it will fix itself in a couple of days, so in the meantime, enjoy sleeping in!”
kind of outrageous for such a simple thing as an alarm clock app to not work properly TWICE in only a couple of months, and more outrageous that apple hasn’t even bothered to fix it.
Mine didn’t go off today, either. So, where do I get this fix?
if you have something THAT important to get to, and you’re too stupid to use an actual alarm clock, and decide to rely on ONLY your phone, then you deserve to miss it.
People need to stop revolving their life completely around their smartphones
If I were up against a deadline that was expensive and emotionally/physically draining you can be your booty there is more than just a phone to wake me up. I’d be setting multiple types of alarms including a regular, old-fashioned plug in, my phone, probably my oven or microwave timer, and maybe even a friend or family member to give me a call.
I think it is silly that they relied on one single device (just doubled) to wake them up for a huge event.
And what if they had their power go out too, or their battery in the alarm clock died overnight. Still their fault?
Plus, it isn’t as if it’s just this couple that was impacted by this error. It’s just their story is one of the most heartbreaking. I’m sure lots of people were late to work or the doctor or whatever too.
I don’t want to blame the couple, but holy smoke, if I had such an important deadline, I’d sure opt for more than a telephone alarm. I think I’d go with a clock as well. I mean, computers sometimes have issues the first of the year.
I think a lot of people are missing the point here… they both set the alarms on their phones, and yet a failure on Apple’s part has cost them the chance of having a child. You guys just sound nasty at this point.
Consumers like the idea that they can trust their products, and this just shows that the alarms obviously can’t be trusted.
I’m so sorry for your lost chance Jodi.
I am the “Jodi” of this story. Just to clarify, it was an IUI (Intrauterine insemination) that we missed that morning and not medication. And to update, we were able to do an IUI the next day, so hopefully all is not lost! The timing wasn’t perfect, but we’re told there could still be a chance. This was a really bad start to what we hoped would be a really great year, but we’ve learned our lesson – don’t rely on only software or electricity – use both! And we think 2011 will still be good.
I hope everything goes well and you get your wish! We have been trying for four years, and it broke my heart when I read this article. Ignore all the people who have no clue what we go through and know that that someone out there is crossing fingers and everything else that it works out for you!
My boss just told me today that the alarm on his iPhone didn’t go off this morning… I immediately thought of the New Year’s Day (and the day after) alarm problems. I don’t know for sure that it’s the same issue – I don’t think anyone is still complaining about this? – but his iPhone is OS 4 and it is probably a recurring alarm.
For me, I tend to set multiple alarms because I’m afraid I’ll oversleep. I used to have two analog clocks plus a digital clock (all battery operated) and I’d set alarms on all of them – even for just everyday “waking up”! Of course, once one alarm went off and I got all ready to leave for work and then realized the clock was wrong (battery was dying) – it was only like 2am in the morning. Now, I use the digital clock (which is actually a super cheap electronic planner gadget, with a calculator, address book, clock, alarm – and has lasted for over 10 years on the same battery) and my cellphone (a slider, non-smart-phone).
If I have an important event, I’d definitely set more than one alarm. I guess the OP doesn’t own alarm clocks? (Or ever see that episode of Seinfeld?)
I nearly missed a plane flight because of this.
Now I am all for the “set two alarms and use a normal alarm clock for something important” but I don’t travel with an alarm clock as my phone (and all my phones for the past several years) have an alarm clock on them.
It all worked out fine as my mom who was driving me to the airport woke me up, but still.
…technological natural selection?..
I don’t know who will read this so far down-thread but… BlaBlaBla shoulda set 18 different alarms, shoulda had someone call, I would never rely on a cell phone BlaBlaBla… There is a completely natural way to wake up that requires zero electronics. It sounds insane, but try it, it really works. Say you have to wake up at 7. Before going to bed, visualize the time 7:00, visualize seeing it on a clock, visualize an alarm going up, and say to yourself a few times that you must wake up at 7. You will wake up within a few minutes of this time. I’ve done this several times and it works.
I am the farthest thing from New Age, I own two Blackberries and several alarm clocks… But, this is a good backup method. I’ve never tried when falling asleep intoxicated, so no guarantees about that.
Also, while I realize that not all iPhones are on AT&T (although, would this even affect jailbroken phones?) it sure would have been nice for AT&T to send out a text message to all iPhone users letting them know about this glitch and its effects.
OMG this poor couple. We are just starting fertility treatments, I can not imagine losing an entire month of money and hopes and pain over an alarm clock not going off. That is horrible.
there maybe an app for everything but seriously – use an alarm clock. You most likely have at least one. Maybe you should have also programmed your car to honk repeatedly at 6:45 am too.
Not front page news.
I use a dedicated alarm clock, low tech but it is a dedicated devices and has never failed me. sometimes single function can be helpful.
Actually, Apple could be saving them tons of money!