iPhone Alarm Fix Is Found

Apple still hasn't said much about the bug that caused the alarm function on the iPhone 4 to fail starting on New Year's Day but many users, fully recovered from their hangovers no doubt, have found a fix of their own.

The easiest way to work around the bug is to wipe out all existing alarms, and create new ones, according to user-generated posts on Apple's support forum.

"All you have to do is set a new alarm anytime after 1/2/11. All alarms created and set after that date are OK," wrote a user named "Sk8Dreams", in a post Tuesday. The user's suggestion was echoed by other forum members.

The iPhone alarm problem first became apparent on New Year's Day morning, when numerous users reported that the changeover to 2011 apparently exposed a programming bug in the alarm. The problem appears to mostly affect iPhone 4 or older iPhones that have been upgraded to iOS 4, as well as models of the iPod touch running iOS 4.

Despite the billions of dollars it spends on research and development, and the fact that it supposedly only hires top talent, Apple has had a history of failing to anticipate routine chronological events that can impact the functioning of clock-driven programs.

Earlier this year, many iPhone users were late for school, work, or appointments when their alarms failed to activate following the switchover to daylight-saving time.

Such problems recall fears of the Y2K Bug, a programming lapse that many IT experts feared would cause computerized systems that rely on internal clocks to fail on January 1, 2000, impacting everything from electronic coffee makers to air traffic control systems.

Remediation efforts, however, minimized the Y2K Bug's impact. Apple shares were up .26%, to $330.43, in afternoon trading Tuesday.