iPhone users awoke on Jan 1st to find that their alarm didn’t work … or more accurately, they didn’t awake on Jan 1st. The glitch affected alarms set to repeat ‘never’, and complaints were widespread. Some were late for work, but others missed flights and had to fork out for the additional cost. In spite of Apples assurance that the clocks would work from Monday 3rd, some people still had difficulties getting it to go off.

What is interesting about all of this is the number of people who use their phones as their alarm. In mobile marketing we talk about the mobile phone being an always there, always on device. This episode seems to confirm it. Not only that, but the outrage at the failure shows the extent to which people rely on their phones, not just for calls and SMS but for many other things.