BEWARE: Updating Your iPhone to iOS 9.1 Overnight May Disable All Alarms
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Being able to update your iPhone or iPad to the latest version of iOS overnight seems like it would be a novel, intuitive feature, right? In practice, of course — instead of having to initiate the update to the latest version of the OS when you’re actively using the device, Apple now allows you to do so while you’re off the grid, whisked away in the midst of lullaby land.
Sounds all fine and dandy, certainly; however, as some iPhone and iPad users have recently discovered, it appears as if a glitch of some sort in the overnight update process is turning off all of your pre-existing alarms, which can cause a slew of trouble if you rely on your iPhone or iPad to help you wake up in time for work or school or other appointments.
At this stage in the game, it’s unable to be confirmed if the issue is a staple of every single overnight update, however, as a barrage of recent reports have been popping up out of the woodwork indicating as such — while also taking into consideration the surprising number of reports on Twitter and other Apple related forums, I think it’s only reasonable to assume that we may be dealing with an issue of more pandemic proportion here.
In order to remedy the problem, we would suggest that you attempt to update to the new iOS 9.1 manually, rather than automatically, and then check to make sure that all of your existing alarms are still in order and set to go off as planned.
At this time, users are not reporting of any other new feature in the iOS 9 update being susceptible to this same software glitch, so be wary of just the alarm functionality for now.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, this is not the first time that Apple has experienced problems with alarms on its devices. Back in 2010, for instance, iPhone and iPad users all across Europe reported that their alarms were going off at least an hour later than they were initially supposed to. Additionally, just a few months later, in early 2011, one-time alarm notifications didn’t go off on iPhones all around the world for a several days.
We recommend updating to iOS 9.1, not at night, but rather during the day. Make sure to check your alarms thereafter, just to play it safe!