“Y2K this is not. There are no worries that planes will fall from the sky. Yet when Europeans turned their clocks back during the wee hours Monday in accordance with the end of daylight-saving time, iPhones hiccuped,” Adam Satariano reports for Bloomberg Businessweek.
“The phone’s primary clock, which is synced with a server somewhere in the cloud, recorded the time change just fine. So-called recurrent alarms, those set by users to sound at the same time on given days, did not,” Satariano reports. “Those who relied on their phones to wake them at, say, 6:45 every weekday ended up snoozing until 7:45.”
“The software bug has its roots in the Congress. In 2005, legislators amended the Uniform Time Act to extend daylight-saving time, starting in 2007. The change, intended to prolong the number of daylight hours and thus conserve energy, means Americans move their clocks back a week later than Europeans do. The recurrent alarm feature in the latest iPhone software didn’t account for the discrepancy,” Satariano reports. “After Sunday, when the United States ends its prolonged daylight-saving time, the clocks of the DST-observing world will be in sync again, and the problem should be moot. Until March, that is, when DST begins again.”
“Natalie Harrison, an Apple spokeswoman, says the company is aware of the issue. Harrison told CNN that iPhone users in the United States must also remember to delete and then reset their phone’s alarm clock – otherwise they may be an hour late for work on Monday morning,” Satariano reports. “The company says it will deliver a fix along with a scheduled software update this month.”
Read more in the full article here.