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Apple has confirmed an iOS bug that left the iPhone without functioning alarms on January 1st 2011. As the New Year was rung in, iPhone alarms remained curiously silent.

Apple spokesperson Natalie Harrison told Macworld that the the bug had been officially recognized, and would fix itself on January 3rd. “We’re aware of an issue related to non repeating alarms set for January 1 or 2. Customers can set recurring alarms for those dates and all alarms will work properly beginning January 3.” Harrison told Macworld.

The alarm code in iOS seems to be pretty buggy. This latest problem follows a bug that caused alarms to sound an hour late when both Europe and the U.S flipped over from daylight saving time at the end of the summer.

Today is the third, and judging by the fact that The Lady made it out of the house on time this morning, iPod Touch alarms are working fine. On the other hand, she has a curious habit of leaving recurring alarms running on my iPod Touch, waking me at all sorts of odd hours, so it could be that.

iOS bug prevents New Year’s alarms [Macworld]

Photo [Eflon / Flickr]

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Source:wired.com

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With every new Apple product there are usually some wrinkles to be ironed out, and the 11 and 13-inch MacBook Air have proven to be a little more wrinkled than most. Both models of Apple’s new slimline notebook have been suffering display issues. Now, Apple has acknowledged the problem in internal memos with instructions to help the Geniuses fix things.

The 13-inch MacBook Air suffers from “horizontal flickering” on the screen when it wakes from sleep or if you hot-plug an external display, and both the 11 and 12-inch models can experience a display that is “fading dark to light colors repeatedly after waking from sleep.”

The memos, snapped off Apple Store screens and acquired by the Boy Genius Report, say that the problems will be fixed in a future software update. Until then, if you have these troubles. save yourself a trip to the Genius Bar and fix them yourself. Apple says you should close the lid and sleep the computer for 10 seconds. This will power-cycle the screen and get things back to normal.

Apple Confirms MacBook Air bugs internally [BGR]

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If all fails according to plan, “My iPhone alarm clock was buggy” could become a popular excuse for being late to work.

A number of European iPhone users this morning complained that a bug in the iPhone’s alarm clock caused their alarm to go off an hour late because the software failed to automatically adjust to daylight saving time.

Some affected iPhone customers expressed their grief on Twitter.

“Thanks so much iPhone alarm clock software fail (not updating when the clocks changed,” tweeted Aliteralgirl. “You almost made me very late for work this morning!”

“iPhone not so great,” tweeted Nellezthe. “Alarm didn’t update even though iPhone time automatically updated. Got up half an hour late! Where’s the technology?!”

Even Wired.com’s Charlie Sorrel, who lives in Barcelona, reported experiencing the problem along with some additional peculiarities affecting his other iOS devices.

“My alarms were running late today and yesterday,” he said.” “Also, my 3G iPad didn’t change time itself, although my iPod Touch did.”

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This incident isn’t the first time the iPhone’s alarm clock has seen issues. Some Australians and New Zealand iPhone customers reported alarm issues on Oct. 3 during their daylight-saving change, according to MSNBC.

Engadget claims it’s discovered a fix: Set the alarm to recur every day (as opposed to just weekdays, like most users would do) or set the alarm to never repeat.

The alarm-clock bug is another embarrassing bug for the popular iPhone following a security flaw discovered last week, in which a simple button sequence allows strangers to bypass the iPhone’s passcode protection.

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

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After Google’s Nexus One, HTC’s Evo 4G phone is the first device to get upgraded to the latest Android 2.2 Froyo version of the operating system. But some users are not happy about it.

The Froyo update has broken the syncing of multiple Gmail accounts on the device. The results is that only the primary Gmail account is updated automatically. Second and third Gmail accounts have to be manually refreshed to pull in new e-mails, say Evo users on forums such as Android Central and Google’s Android support board.

“My two Gmail accounts have always worked great on 2.1. Moving to 2.2 my primary Gmail pushes instantly. My secondary Gmail account doesn’t sync at all. I have to manually sync to get it to work,” says ‘tommy m‘, an Evo user who first posted about the issue on the Android Central forum.

The problem also means that users don’t see new e-mail notifications from secondary accounts.

HTC hasn’t responded to a request for comment yet.

HTC and Sprint, the exclusive carrier for the Evo, started pushing out Froyo to customers on August 3. The update offers features such as voice dialing over Bluetooth, the ability to store apps on the external memory card and browser improvements including a faster JavaScript engine and Flash support.

The problems with syncing of multiple Gmail accounts flared up right after the Evo moved to Android 2.2. Some Froyo users have been offering homebrewed solutions on message boards including deleting the accounts and adding them again with a change to the mail setting of ‘notify once.’ But the solution hasn’t worked reliably for all users.

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Source:wired.com

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Got an iPhone 4 yet? Hold it carefully by the glass, avoiding the new steel antenna band that runs around the edges. Note the number of signal-strength bars you have. Now, touch the steel band with your other hand, preferably the left and bottom sides together. You will almost certainly see your signal disappear, or drop by three or four bars.

The problem is being so widely reported that Gizmodo has managed to add 16 videos of the phenomenon, along with many, many user reports. The problem is also repeatable, making it look like a lot more than simple coincidence.

If you have ever touched a bare-metal loop antenna for a TV, you’ll know that the water-filled human body has an effect on the reception, although in that case it usually improves the picture.

This, it turns out, is not entirely unexpected. Just two weeks ago, Jens Nielsen of Danish blog ComON quoted Professor Gert Frlund Pedersen of the Department of Electronic Systems at Aalborg University:

[H]uman tissues will in any case have an inhibitory effect on the antenna. Touch means that a larger portion of the antenna energy turns into heat and lost. This makes the antenna less efficient to send and receive radio signals. [Translation by Google]

Simply holding the new iPhone in the hand is enough to kill the signal. Even Walt Mossberg, in his review of the iPhone 4, had an eerily similar-sounding experience:

[O]n at least six occasions during my tests, the new iPhone was either reporting no service or searching for a network while the old one, held in my other hand, was showing at least a couple of bars. Neither Apple nor AT&T could explain this. [emphasis added]

Is it possible that a problem like this would make it into the wild? You’d think that it would have been discovered in testing. On the other hand, maybe this is what caused Steve Jobs’ connection woes at the WWDC keynote where he demoed the new handset?

One possible answer is in the way the new antenna works. Instead of just picking the strongest signal, the iPhone 4 picks the highest quality signal, the frequency with the least amount of interference. In the current iPhone firmware, this is not yet reflected in the signal display, which still indicates actual strength. Apple has said that this is known bug which it plans to fix. If true, then you shouldn’t actually drop a call, even when your apparent signal-bars drop to zero.

Or perhaps it is all a sinister plot from Apple to sell more of those insulating rubber Bumper cases?

If you have an iPhone 4, please test this out for us, and send the results to us at gadgetnews@wired.com or post them in the comments. Specifically, check to see if a decrease in displayed bars corresponds with an actual drop in call quality.

iPhone 4 Reception Issue? [MacRumors]

Source:wired.com

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