If you've ever woken up late and rolled over to find you've slept through your alarm, you'll know few feelings are worse. Our phones are supposed to keep us arriving on time, with an iPhone's alarm feature saving us on more than one occasion.
Unfortunately, the iPhone's alarm system isn't as foolproof as it might seem, with Apple itself confirming there has been the occasional gremlin in the system. Others have complained the snooze button is in the wrong place, but to be honest, that's nothing compared to the idea that your alarm simply won't go off in the morning.
Posting on TikTok, basicallybetsyblue explained how she thought something was wrong with her iPhone alarm. She says that while she recently changed medication, she's usually a pretty light sleeper and would always wake up for her alarm. She warns that you should all search your iPhones for 'Attention Aware Features', and if this is enabled, it could be messing with your alarm.
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Basically, Attention Aware Features will silence some notifications and turn down the volume on others like alarms. If your iPhone thinks you're on your phone and Attention Aware Features is enabled, it doesn't want to disturb you. She adds: "So you're not delusional, you're not super-tired, and you're not all of a sudden not able to wake up from your alarms."
"Most likely, they haven't been the same volume they were previously, or it's not even ringing at all."
She concludes by saying: "I literally felt like I was losing my mind." Making the video so others don't fall for this 'trap', she told us to look out.
Appearing on iPhone X or later, Attention Aware Features are supposed to detect when a user is looking at their phone and assumes that an audible alert isn't needed. It's unclear how this is happening if you're asleep, but if you prop your phone up at night to watch Netflix in bed, it might assume you're looking at the screen even when you're catching 40 winks.
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It's better to be safe than sorry, so if you're concerned about Attention Aware Features making you sleep through your alarm, you should probably turn it off.
Responding to basicallybetsyblue's video, it's clear many others are facing similar issues.
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One disgruntled user wrote: "I have major beef with Apple alarms. In the past, I feel like they just randomly didn't go off? My advice is to get an actual alarm clock."
Another added, "Oh my god this just saved my life. I’m a teacher and literally STOPPED using my phone as a timer because this kept happening and I couldn’t figure out why!!!!"
Someone else concluded: "Girl I’ve nearly missed work so many times because my alarms haven’t gone off! I’m a deep sleeper but my parents aren’t and usually hear my alarms but on many occasions, they haven’t at all😭."
While we can't guarantee you can use it as an excuse for being late for work, it sounds like we weren't all going mad by thinking our iPhone alarms weren't ringing.
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There we go, it looks like a case of mystery solved.