iPhone alarm not working? Apple confirms it's aware of bug causing people to oversleep and is working on fix

iPhone owners have complained about an issue that silences their alarms in the morning. Apple has confirmed that it's working on a fix

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Aaron Brown

By Aaron Brown


Published: 02/05/2024

- 11:52

Updated: 02/05/2024

- 12:04

Some believe an obscure setting will temporarily fix the issue

  • iPhone owners have had issues with alarms not ringing
  • Apple has confirmed it's working on a fix for the glitch
  • It's unclear whether it's limited to a specific iPhone model or iOS version
  • Some users have suggested a workaround

If you overslept this morning because your iPhone alarm didn't play a sound — you're not alone.

Apple has confirmed that it's aware of a bug in iOS that's causing alarms to play without a sound. The problem has been raised by disgruntled iPhone owners across social media.

The issue crops up when using the alarm feature built into the Clock app on iPhone, which is preinstalled on every smartphone shipped by Apple. It remains unclear how many people have been affected, what may be causing the issue, or what, if anything, users can do to remedy it.

However, in recent days, a number of iPhone users have reported that their alarms have not gone off, causing them to be late for work and school.

"The alarm in my iPhone has failed to go off for the last two mornings, causing me to lie-in. I thought there was a problem with my phone but it seems to be a more widespread glitch affecting lots of users," one user posted on X, formerly Twitter.

Another disgruntled iPhone who had an involuntary lie-in posted: "Happened today, woke up at 7:30 (was suppose to wake up at 6!) and was looking at my phone "playing" the alarm but the sound was muted. Apparently this is related to attention aware features and the phone "thinks" you looked at it and mutes the volume!"

"Oh, I had this happen the other day - alarm was silent. Other days it plays super, super soft. I assumed I messed something up!" another user added.

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Apple has confirmed it is aware of the issue and revealed its engineers are working to quickly fix it.

The Californian company hasn't revealed whether the glitch with alarms is restricted to a particular model of iPhone, or a specific version of its iOS software. GB News hasn't been able to replicate the issue.

While we're waiting for a permanent fix, iPhone owners have been encouraged to double-check their alarms before going to bed – ensuring their settings are correct and the volume is turned up.

If you want to double-check that you've got sounds enabled correctly for your alarm, head to Settings > Sound & Haptics and check the volume slider is turned up. If you have Change with Buttons enabled, it can be easy to press one of the volume buttons on the side of your handset and inadvertently kill the sound.

If you notice the volume slider is lower than you expected, it might be worth toggling Change with Buttons off.

iPhone owners on social media claim that disabling the "attention aware features" baked into iOS can also solve the issue — although this hasn't been confirmed by Apple. If you want to ditch these features, head to Settings > Face ID & Passcode on your iPhone and then toggle Attention-Aware Features off to disable the functionality.

When enabled, iPhone will automatically expand to show the contents of notifications on the lockscreen when it detects that you're looking at the handset. It can also lower the volume of an alarm when you look at the screen while it's ringing.

Additional Reporting By Martyn Landi, PA Technology Correspondent

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