Miss your morning iPhone alarm? It's not just you, and Apple is looking into it
- Reference: 1714586831
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/05/01/miss_your_morning_iphone_alarm/
- Source link:
These rumors, as so many often do in today's age, [1]began on social media. This time it was a rash of oversleeping TikTok users blaming their iPhone alarms failing to go off.
Yeah, yeah, save the comments about "kids these days" – The Register may still be waiting on confirmation of the problem from the source, but others have noted Apple's [2]confirmation of an issue, and that it's working on a fix.
[3]
No word on what the problem is, whether it's going to be a quick fix, any workarounds, or when anyone can expect a resolution, so cue the speculation engine.
[4]
[5]
Some of the TikTok users who may bring this article to their managers to use as proof for their tardiness have said the problem lies with an iPhone feature available from Series X onward known as " [6]Attention Aware ."
That feature uses the TrueDepth camera on the front of the iPhone, which uses an infrared dot mapping system to track a user's face. If an iPhowner is looking at their device when they get an alert, for example, Attention Aware will know the phone is in their hand and turn the volume of the alert down.
[7]Pixies keep switching off my morning alarm, says Google Pixel owner
[8]iPhone glitch gets US fanbois up on wrong side of bed
[9]Apple's trademark tight lips extend to new iPhone, iPad zero-days
[10]Rice isn't nice for drying your iPhone, according to Apple
Attention Aware also prevents screen dimming when a user is actively looking at their phone and can be used to prevent someone from unlocking someone else's phone by requiring attention while using Face ID.
In other words, a handy feature. But is it preventing iPhone alarms from going off? Apple isn't feeling chatty, so we've no clue if there's an Attention Aware bug at the root of the issue.
[11]
Those suffering from this issue can try disabling Attention Aware in the Face ID & Passcode section of the Settings app. Alternatively, iPhone users should be sure they didn't end up with other settings out of whack – while the fondleslab has few extraneous push buttons, it does still happen.
Barely a week has passed since this vulture pulled his iPhone from his pocket to find the screen had turned black and white. A quick fix, but if that can happen, others could have easily slipped, opened the Settings app, and turned the Ringtone and Alerts volume slider under Sound and Haptics down to zero.
Those attempts notwithstanding, please consider this article a valid note of tardiness for the bearer for this day and any future days until Apple deploys a fix. ®
Get our [12]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.today.com/video/how-to-make-sure-your-iphone-s-alarm-goes-off-in-the-morning-209952837765
[2] https://twitter.com/JoannaStern/status/1785309196562382969
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZjK7fTvRc22qF@a8RBhRMAAAAE8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZjK7fTvRc22qF@a8RBhRMAAAAE8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZjK7fTvRc22qF@a8RBhRMAAAAE8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://support.apple.com/en-us/102216
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/04/pixies_google_pixel_alarm/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2010/11/08/iphone_alarm_glitch/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/06/iphone_ipad_zero_days/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/21/dont_dry_iphone_rice/
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZjK7fTvRc22qF@a8RBhRMAAAAE8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: TikTok
I have cats.
I don’t need a device to wake me. :)
Re: TikTok
Showing your age there.
I just assumed we were finally bringing Return To Oz back in to normal social conversation.
Had the Same Problem
I had this exact problem. Disabling Attention Aware fixed it for me. I would wake up maybe 30min after the alarm and it would be going off at a very low volume. Finally managed to catch it in the act when I woke up just prior to the alarm going off... that time it started with loud audio for a fraction of a second, and muted. Phone was on my bedside charger and NOT pointed at me, so there was definitely no attention for it to be aware of...
This was a long time ago- maybe a year ago. So this has been around. I Googled the problem and that was where I found out it was related to Attention Aware, no thanks to Apple as they hadn't acknowledged it at the time.
Re: Had the Same Problem
It's pretty grim that zillions of phones are making 3D images of their users faces _all the time_ ...
And yet the only thong wrong with this situation is that a few false positives are causing the alarm to be too quiet
Ironic...
...as an advert on El Reg at the moment features a clock radio. A proper one with an LED display - one that you can see at night. A bedroom isn't complete without one of these beauties. They are really quite comforting. They aren't so easy to find nowadays, so when my old one finally croaked after a couple of decades (outlasting numerous generations of iPhones), I stocked up. The new one works fine. Daylight saving requires a manual tweak. Is that so hard? I date from the 80s and am happy to run with 80s tech. The simpler tech is, the less likely it is to go wrong.
Attention Aware?
Never heard of it... which came first the iPhone X or iPhone SE? I'm running late and don't have time to look now!
TikTok
I seem vaguely to remember some sort of mechanical device making that noise. Can't for the life of me remember what it was. Maybe it'll come to me in the morning.