Apple confirms New Year's alarm bug, says to wait until Jan 3

Apple has confirmed an iOS bug where non-repeating alarms fail to ring on the first few days of the new year, recommending that users set recurring alarms until Jan. 3, when the alarms will resume working properly.

As various time zones entered the new year, reports began cropping up from iOS users whose one-time alarms had stopped functioning after the device's clock had ticked over to January 1, 2011. According to reports, the issue affects devices running the iOS 4.2.1, the latest version of iOS.

Apple spokesperson Natalie Harrison responded to the reports by confirming to Macworld that Apple is aware of the problem. "We're aware of an issue related to non repeating alarms set for January 1 or 2," Harrison said. "Customers can set recurring alarms for those dates and all alarms will work properly beginning January 3."

The issue is reminiscent of the iOS alarm bug that caused alarms to miss the daylight saving time change that occurred earlier this fall. After Australian users were woken up an hour early because of the bug, Apple Australia told ZDNet that the company was "aware of this issue and already developed a fix which will be available to customers in an upcoming software update."

In November, a number of European readers contacted AppleInsider to note having trouble with their iPhone alarms. Apple subsequently released a support document detailing the bug and recommending that users turn off their recurring alarms.