back to article iOS 6 Alarms bug hits Australia

An iOS 6 bug that added an extra instance of 3:00AM and 3:00PM to Australians' iDevices seems not to be something users in other nations need to worry about. The bug in question, first spotted by an an alert Gizmodo Australia reader, saw iDevices running iOS6 decide that 3:00AM happened twice on October 7th. That day is …

COMMENTS

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    photoshop alert

    snot a photo of a real phone. Obvious really, no one in the real world uses voda-fail.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: photoshop alert

      init star fail lol

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: photoshop alert

      Yeah right, if it did happen it would be a carrier fault as that is where the phone gets its time from and not from the phone itself.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: photoshop alert

        "Yeah right, if it did happen it would be a carrier fault as that is where the phone gets its time from and not from the phone itself."

        Umm no, re-read the article. It's not saying 3am happened twice, just that it was shown twice when setting an alarm. It is technically correct as 2am does become 3am when the clocks change. I think this is more a case of a nice UI idea implemented badly. What they meant to do was not show 2am rather than 3am twice.

      2. Bakunin

        Re: photoshop alert

        "Yeah right, if it did happen it would be a carrier fault as that is where the phone gets its time from and not from the phone itself."

        No it would be a software fault with the device*. The network would probably provide the time in UTC and the device then accommodates for the time zone offset and any day light saving issues in effect.

        Interestingly, time and date are notoriously difficult to get right as there are so many oddities to deal with (like Easter, temporary implementations of DST, and countries moving time zones). Thankfully there are number of *very* good libraries that have been refined over the years to deal with this for you. Woe betide the unlucky soul who tries to reinvent that wheel.

        * As someone below has pointed out, it would appear to just be a fault with displaying a pick list of numbers when the range spans an implementation of daylight saving. Just a little bit of a UI implementation mistake. I wonder how it handles the clocks going back?

        1. mccp

          @Bakunin

          +1 for "time and date are notoriously difficult to get right".

    3. TheRealRoland

      Re: photoshop alert

      >snot a photo of a real phone

      But it's green!

      (Or should we say purple?)

  2. Big-nosed Pengie
    Devil

    DEATH TO THOSE WHO CRITICISE APPLE!

  3. Esskay
    Joke

    Patent 34563285-4

    Relating to a method of buggering up a daylight saving change in displayed time - on a mobile device.

    1. Gio Ciampa
      Coat

      Re: Patent 34563285-4

      But there's Prior Art!!!

      Oh... that was Apple as well...

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Again

    How many alarm/time zone issues have Apple had? Almost every other iOS release has this issue. Why does Apple continue to keep making changes to it. They fuck it up, fix it and then will only fuck it up again. Learn from your past mistakes Apple.

    Maybe the users in Australia could use Apple Maps to find the nearest Apple store.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/23/ios_6_maps_get_apple_store_sydney_location_wrong/

    1. ThomH

      Re: Again

      This would appear to be only a problem with that one widget, so it's a highly localised display bug. Given that the previous screw ups have been system wide issues related to comprehension of daylight savings transition days, this does technically count as an improvement...

  5. Winkypop Silver badge
    Trollface

    Time

    Apple: You're not doing it right!

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Overrated buggy software

    Apple have a patent on that, despite there being prior art.

  7. Liam O'Hagan
    Thumb Up

    Android did it right...

    I set an 8AM alarm on my phone (S3) just after midnight on the night before daylight savings kicked in. Not only did the alarm go off as planned, but ICS was even smart enough, when setting the alarm, to indicate that it was set for '6 hours and 54 minutes from now', correctly accounting for the missing hour.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I wonder if the new iPad clock app has similar problems

    Now there's an app for which the term 'shit UI' was invented for.

  9. ratfox
    FAIL

    Testing

    We've heard of it.

  10. Confuciousmobil
    WTF?

    Spring forward?

    I thought the clocks spring forward in, well, the spring.

    And fall back in the, well, autumn.

    Am I wrong? Do they spring forward in the "fall" and fall back in the spring?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Spring forward?

      Just consider what season it currently is in Australia ...

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. jonathanb Silver badge

      Re: Spring forward?

      It is spring in Australia at the moment.

    3. Stephen 10

      Re: Spring forward?

      What's a "Fall"?

      We have 4 seasons in southern Australia; Summer, Autumn, Winter & Spring

      In the north they have two; hot and dry then hot and wet

    4. Martin Budden Silver badge
      FAIL

      Re: Spring forward?

      Fall Fail.

  11. Only me!
    Coat

    Alarming

    It is alarming that Apple have this bug included free in each release.

    Mines the one with the sun dial attached to a cockerel in the pocket.

  12. Jamie Kitson

    asked our San Francisco office

    You couldn't have just changed your time zone?

  13. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Really Apple, how hard

    is it to get a basic alarm clock working. It's been broken in one way or another in every iOS release for the last 4 years.

    I'm guessing hipster functionality is far more important than maps and clocks....

  14. S4qFBxkFFg
    Joke

    CMT

    Obviously, the solution would be to establish one standard time zone, with the Prime Meridian passing through Cupertino.

    If you want to use a legacy time zone, there will be apps for that.

  15. mickey mouse the fith

    Pretty inconsequential ui bug really, although why it wasnt picked up in testing is anyones guess.

    Seems like Apple have a pretty cavalier approach to field testing and polishing these days.

    `Just works` eh?

    1. Tim Bates
      FAIL

      Field testing?

      Surely it doens't take actual user testing out in the field to pick up a bug in a DST routine... Developers writing the dang code would have been able to see this one if they'd done suitable basic testing of their DST detection code.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Don't Criticise

    Working on integrating moronic FacePuke into the OS is a much better use of Apple's iOS developers' time than idle fripperies such as having a clock, or text selection/copy/paste that actually works properly.

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