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Europeans wake up an hour late as Apple fails to fix iPhone alarm clock bug

A still-unfixed bug with Apple's iPhone caused alarms in Europe to go off an hour late Monday as the continent switched from daylight saving time, but their phone's alarms did not.

A number of readers contacted AppleInsider Monday to note that their handset's alarms failed to go off Monday morning. Instead, alarms went off an hour late, not automatically adjusting for the change in clocks.

"Both iPhones (3GS and 4) in my house failed to go off this morning," one reader said. "Even after checking and switching the settings in time/date and in the alarm app, there is still no alarm going off. Apparently this happened before. I had to delete, all the alarms, restart my phone then re-set the alarms before they worked as expected."

Most countries in Europe conclude daylight saving time on the last Sunday in October. The same bug affected iPhone users in Australia and New Zealand in September, causing their alarms to go off an hour early in the southern hemisphere.

In North America, the switch from daylight saving time occurs later this week. Clocks will be rolled back on Sunday, Nov., 7, and if Apple doesn't issue an update for iOS, the glitch will likely affect users there as well.

In October, Apple said it was aware of the issue and had "already developed" a fix that would be available to users in an upcoming software update. That fix could be a part of iOS 4.2, which Apple said would be released for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch in November.

Though Apple indicated last month that the software fix had already been developed, it was not issued in time for the end of daylight saving time in Europe.