Apple says it is working quickly to fix an issue that caused some iPhone alarms not to play a sound, giving their slumbering users an unexpected lie-in.
For many people, their phone is an indispensable alarm clock and some over-sleepers turned to social media to vent.
Apple has confirmed it is aware of the issue – but is yet to spell out what it believes is causing it, or what users can do to avoid a late start.
It is also unclear how many people are affected or whether the problem is restricted to particular models of iPhone.
Concerns were initially raised by the early-risers on NBC’s Today Show, which broke the news.
In the absence of an official fix, those losing sleep over the problem can try a few simple solutions.
One is to guard against human error – so double check the phone’s alarm settings and ensure the volume is turned up.
Others though have pointed the finger at Apple designers, saying a quirk of the iPhones’ “attention aware features” could be to blame.
When active, these enable an iPhone to check whether a person is paying attention to their device and take action automatically, such as lowering the volume sound of alerts, including alarms, if they are.
They are available on iPhone X or later, and iPad Pro 11-inch or iPad Pro 12.9-inch, Apple says.
