back to article iPhone makes many Aussies late/early for work

Australian iPhone users have been having some early starts recently as their handsets have failed to adjust repeated alarms to allow for daylight saving - if they've gone off at all. We're indebted to the Sydney Morning Herald, and reader Adrian Esdaile, for alerting us to this latest iOS bug, which isn't limited to the iPhone …

COMMENTS

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  1. Real Name

    Already fixed

    in iOS 4.2

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      which is a beta?

      so not generally available yet.

  2. IR

    RAZR

    My razr had an interesting take on daylight savings. It would change the time correctly, and then change all alarm settings by an hour. This meant that 6am alarms were moved to 7am, keeping an exact 24 hours between the alarm times. It failed to take into account that I still wanted to get up at 6am, regardless of the time change.

    1. Alexander Vollmer

      Office hours shifts too

      Our office hours during daylight time shift from 0900-1600 to 1000-1700 and compensate the daylight saving hour. The RAZR might be designed with the same strategy in mind.

  3. Phillip Allen

    even worse if...

    you live in central queensland which doesn't do daylight saving!

  4. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    For once it's not entirely Apple's fault

    Our TV guide was an hour out for a day and as much as I'd like to blame that on Apple it just wouldn't be fair.

    The ABC (think BBC) managed to show the breakfast news programme on two channels but with one delayed by an hour. And no, this wasn't a conventional +1 hour channel as you have in Blighty, it's supposed to be broadcast on both simultaneously.

    An enormous clock up.

    1. hodma727

      Apple - years of imperfection

      People have been complaining about the latest fiasco for months now - see http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2469993

      I enjoy having birthday reminders on the wrong date, and alarms going off at the wrong time, really I do.

      Judging from the deafening silence from Apple on these ongoing issues they're never heard of customer service or PR...

  5. David 45

    Have you got the time?

    Well...........if you can't trust Apple with the time, what about the rest of their kit? Low iPhone signals, anybody?

  6. Dale 3

    Sony Ericsson

    My Sony Ericsson also struggles with timezones and daylight saving, but I haven't quite been able to put my finger on exactly what the problem is. The result tends to be "All-day" events suddenly becoming 23:00-22:59 or 01:00-00:59 events, depending on which way the world turns. It also might have to do with complications with syncing to Outlook.

    It also really bugs me that if I have an appointment at a certain time and then change the timezone, the appointment gets shifted. So my 3pm meeting which I entered before departing suddenly becomes a 6pm meeting when I arrive at the far end. You can understand logically why it would do this, but it is impractical in actual use. If I tell someone on the other side of the world I will meet them at 3pm when I get there, then that's the time it should show on the calendar regardless of timezone.

  7. Tempest
    Jobs Horns

    Not an Apple problem, it's because Australia is upside down compared to ...

    where the iCrap stuff was designed and even manufactured.

    Australia also has a problem with bath water - run runs counter-clockwise to California - which scientifically proves that Jobs is correct.

  8. JaitcH
    Pint

    Newfoundland beats the lot

    Newfy time is 30 minutes ahead on Eastern (coast) standard time.

    When people spread words of doom they say "The world ends at midnight, 12.30 in Newfoundland".

  9. Head
    Jobs Horns

    Ha

    Yet more evidence that Apple doesn't give a stuff about it's customers lol

  10. teknuj
    Thumb Up

    Well....

    You know those things, errr, what are they called, err, ahh yes, alarm clocks, us simple folk use them.

    Its reverse luddism, the more technology you use the more stupid you get.

  11. Steve Roper

    For once I don't blame Apple

    since Australia's government is worse. Australia's daylight saving regime is a bloody joke, and most devices that adjust for daylight saving get it wrong, not just Apple's. With different daylight saving times in each state (which means no less than 6 changes as each state government has its own criteria for setting when it happens, and the fact that the day it happens on changes every other year as one state government or another decides to bring it in early or late to accommodate some event or other - it's no surprise timekeeping devices can't keep up.

    I gave up trying to track Australia's daylight saving system in my web app code years ago. Since we're based in Adelaide but our servers are in Sydney, one can imagine the daylight-saving horrors we went through each year, as SA goes forward but NSW does not, and so on. After much hair-tearing on my part, all the timekeeping applications on our websites now go by GMT and I adjust the current time with a constant in my code which I can manually toggle to add one hour or not. And I toggle this constant myself, twice each year, whenever DST happens to fall. It's the only way I can make it work!

  12. Stephen 10
    Happy

    meanwhile on my zombie nexus one

    The time was showing perfectly and alarms worked just fine.

    Don't you love it when things 'just work'?

  13. Il Midga di Macaroni
    Joke

    Do I have to be the first to say it?

    I come from a land down under, whose kangaroo-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think iPhones are a pretty neat idea.

  14. cphi
    Unhappy

    not a happy camper

    almost had the opportunity to upgrade to an android phone after almost broke iphone into very small, very *quiet* pieces.

    astonished to discover many others at my office had the same problem. that NZ has apparently had this for a week and the fix still hasn't been released makes you question Apple's competence.

  15. Gumby1
    Paris Hilton

    Still happening

    Its Wednesday and all the clocks in my house think its a different time. Good thing they do this on the long weekend. Lucky I'm not in Queensland where the curtains would get confused and the Cows would fade more! OH and yes my iTelephone is just as confused. Hope I'm not late for happy hour .

    Paris , because she never has problems with cLocks.

  16. Lars Silver badge
    Happy

    unless they're still wearing a wristwatch

    Not sure about that one, cannot remember even one wristwatch that did daylight savings. Then

    again I have not used one during the last 15 years.

    Cannot remember having any problems with Nokia, however.

  17. Pandy06269

    Alarm clocks and clocks

    Clocks are (mostly) not clever enough to cope with Daylight Saving Changes, and I've never before read a story in the media - "everybody's late because the clocks changed overnight."

    iPhone (or any phones for that matter) shouldn't be any different. I never trust that my computer will make the change correctly.

    I also set two alarms every night, just in case one keels over, or I turn off the first one and go back to sleep!

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