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Oversleep Today? Apple Working on iPhone Alarm Not Working

By Laura Tucker
Apple Iphone Alarm Not Ringing Feature

Does your bedside table have an alarm clock, or even a clock radio? If you’re like most of us, it no longer does. You don’t need anything, save for your Android or iPhone, which of course, increases our independence on smartphones. This makes the issue with the iPhone alarm not working life-shattering. Rest assured that Apple is aware of the difficulty and is working on it.

Reliance on Mobile Alarms

What I put on my bedside now is just an updated version of my favorite alarm of all time. I had a large phone with a keypad that had a handset attached, and it also worked as a radio. Believe me when I say that 40 years ago, it was the bomb. So my iPhone is just a rather updated version, over a few decades.

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The beauty of relying on an iPhone, though, is that you can wake up just the way you want to, whether it’s with music, with an alarm, with a special ringtone, and with or without snooze. It’s up to you. This allows you to also play a game before going to bed or check the weather and your messages when you wake up.

So imagine the panic when the iPhone alarm is not working correctly. You wake up in a cold sweat and realize you should have left for work two hours prior. Unfortunately, that’s what’s happening to iPhone users recently. As you can imagine, it’s upsetting when you rely on something so much, then it causes you to be late for work, miss an appointment, etc.

Apple Working on the iPhone Alarm Problem

I’ll admit right upfront that I don’t rely on my iPhone alarm anymore – at least not daily. I wear my Apple Watch at night, so my alarm will go off on my watch instead, and it’s simply not loud enough, unless I happen to be sleeping with my wrist right under my ear. If it’s really important that I get up, I just leave my Apple Watch on the charger.

But even people who don’t rely on an Apple Watch are facing problems with the iPhone alarm not working. It was first reported on NBC’s Today, and several people are posting to TikTok and other social media outlets that their iPhone alarms are not going off.

It’s not completely clear when the problem started or if it’s affecting a recent version of iOS or all iOS, or even certain iPhone models. One particularly irritated person noted missing classes, despite setting five alarms.

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Some users believe it’s the fault of the iOS “Attention Aware Features.” Alert sounds are lowered if you are looking at your iPhone. You can switch it off and see whether it helps by tapping Face ID & Passcode in Settings, then flipping the Attention Aware Features toggle to off.

Thankfully, Apple says it’s aware of the issue with the iPhone alarm not working, specifically not sounding the alarm when it should, and they are working on it.

Try these fixes if your iPhone is not ringing for calls. Get some extra help for your iPhone with these iOS widgets that will help you manage your day.

Image credit: Unsplash

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Laura Tucker Avatar
Laura Tucker
Laura has spent more than 20 years writing news, reviews, and op-eds, with the majority of those years as an editor as well. She has exclusively used Apple products for the past 35 years. In addition to writing and editing at MTE, she also runs the site’s sponsored review program.

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