Daylight Saving Time started today bringing back memories of an annual iPhone fail

In most of the United States, an hour of sleep was lost overnight as the clock moved ahead at 2 am to 3 am, with the start of Daylight Saving Time. This means that it will stay light later in the day. Luckily, these days most of our devices and appliances automatically spring ahead and fall back at the correct time on the correct date. But if you’re a long-time PhoneArena reader, you might recall problems that iPhone users had with the twice a year hourly shift in time.

One of the first iPhone bugs became an annual event for a few years

This is not just an issue that American iPhone users have had to deal with. In 2010, a bug in iOS made the shift to Daylight Saving Time a tough one for Australian iPhone users. 55% of the 4,500 iPhone users taking part in a poll said that alarms that were set to be recurring never went off that day in the country.

In 2011 when Daylight Saving Time started that year, iPhone users who had an alarm set had issues when the alarm times did not adjust to the time change. The very next year, the start of Daylight Savings Time once again led to an issue. That year, some iPhone users had the clock on their iOS-powered handset pushed back one hour instead of moved ahead by one hour. That two-hour shift had many iPhone users reeling that day, arriving late for work, appointments, flights, and more. Siri even incorrectly gave users the wrong starting date for the time shift that year telling users that the time change would take place on Wednesday, March 7th, instead of the correct date of Sunday, March 11th.

Daylight Savng Time started today in most of the United States. | Image by PhoneArena

Even the Pixel gets into the act

You would have thought that Apple would have straightened this out by 2019, right? Nope. Once again, on the exact date that Daylight Saving Time took effect, at least one iPhone user nearly overslept when his alarm failed to adjust to the time change.

The iPhone isn’t the only phone that found itself challenged by Daylight Saving Time. In 2021, some Pixel users were bitten by the bug. Some Pixel models that year, such as the Pixel 5, Pixel 4a 5G, Pixel 4a and Pixel 4 XL failed to move ahead leaving users of these devices to fall behind. Even stranger, Pixel users in Arizona that year saw the clocks on their phones move ahead by one hour even though Arizona is one of the few states that does not support Daylight Saving Time. All of the affected Pixel models were set to receive the time from users’ carriers.

With today being the start of Daylight Saving Time in the U.S., the time change will always be associated with the iPhone. However, not every iPhone time bug has anything to do with the hourly time change. On 1/11/11, iPhones running iOS 4.2.1 or earlier had the alarms they had set for a single day become disabled.

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