OK, so we live in the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) era and everyone should take responsibility for their own phones. But if you work in IT, it might be timely to send a reminder email to everyone this afternoon pointing out that the onset of daylight saving may play havoc with their alarms.
Picture: Marcus Hansson
At 0200 on Sunday morning, clocks go forward an hour in most Australian states (except WA, which is already so far away no-one else minds, and Queensland, which needs to take a long hard look at itself). While the loss of an hour’s sleep is less of an issue given the Labour Day public holiday in many states, people who do have to work (or be somewhere) on Sunday morning might not want to trust their smartphone alarms to perform properly.
In theory, there should be no problem, but in the past we have seen some notable bugs. In particular, iOS 4 developed an unusual bug where recurring alarms failed to work. Apple’s response at the time was churlish, essentially telling users to put up with it until it was fixed. We haven’t seen similar reports for iOS 7, but given that product isn’t bug-free, caution (and a backup clock) are advised, no matter what platform you use.
Comments
5 responses to “Remind Everyone You Work With Not To Trust Their Alarm This Weekend”
Glad I live in Sunny QLD, one of only 2 states smart enough to not do daylight savings.
Same here.
If you want to move your schedule forward an hour for summer, why not just do that?
Time should remain consistent, so it can be reliably referenced. Even if you move your schedule to start an hour earlier during warmer months, there would be no ambiguity in saying “My work hours are 7am to 3pm.” Instead we have a system where two hours each day are useless for interstate communication.
I’ve organised teams stretched from Ireland through Asia to west coast USA. If you have a will to work and to communicate then time-zones are no real barrier. I’ve had more trouble getting people in my own office building to communicate effectively.
It causes mayhem with live broadcasts
Here in WA we already have the equivalent to daylight savings due to different geography. Here the sun rises over land and due to the Darling Ranges it is around an hour after sunrise before we see the sun itself. In the evening we have the sun set over sea and have daylight until later than the east coast where it sets over the ranges.