Help alarm

[mk3tony]

am i being thick? surely on my homescreen i have a clock widget, which i press and it brings up the alarm screen. DO i always have to contantly change the day? surely if you turn an alarm on it should automatically change the day to suit the alarm?

 

[NZtechfreak]

You set which days you want the alarm to sound...

 

[Shanness]

I agree, this is very, very annoying, especially coming from an iphone, where it just assumes the next 24 hours.

Do we really have to change the day EVERY time we set an alarm at night for the next morning? It seems stupid that the software doesn't guess it's tomorrow, rather than "next week"...

Ahh well.. Don't suppose there are other good alarm apps worth using?

 

[XplosiV]

The stock alarm should do what you want. Have you tried all the settings? You should easily be able to set the time as desired, and then the days of which you want that alarm to sound at that time. I know it used to work, try pressing your options button

 

[pcbms]

When you set the time for the alarm underneath it says alarm repeat - from here you can set when the alarm repeats

 

[uktivo]

I can understand what the OP is saying as I have the same issue.

Why on earth you have to decided which day the alarm sounds is mad.. the software should just assume until you tell it differently that the alarm is required for the following day.. i.e. at 11pm, setting the alarm for 7am the following day should be as simple as entering the 7am time and press save.. you really shouldn't have to decide what day are you on, what day do you want to set it for and then really struggle to see which days have been chosen as the way the stock app indicates the day is very confusing.

Does anyone have a better alarm clock app????

 

[Baines93]

I agree! On Nokia E-series phones, you went into clock, and set a "quick alarm" this just set one for the time you specified within the next 24 hours... if you went across to tab two, you could then set an alarm specifying tone, repetition etc. - and it went off if the phone was off too! One thing I miss from the E71 was the good clock app.

One annoying thing also... it never remembers my alarm tone! Why?! Everytime, I have to select the song I like to wake up to?!

 

[greggebhardt]

This is just not that big of a deal.

 

[lotus49]

This is just not that big of a deal.

Compared to say the importance of ending world hunger, no.

However, it's an idiotic bit of design and it irritates me literally every day. I use alarms a lot and it strikes me that whoever wrote this has never actually set an alarm on a phone. Any alarm that is a one-off, will almost always be for the next 24 hours (literally always in my case) so that should be the default. It should NOT be necessary to faff around changing the repeat day for something that doesn't repeat.

Yes, the capability for setting an alarm to go off in two days may be useful for some people but that's what the calendar is for. This is the sort of usability SNAFU that Apple very rarely makes.

Bad design, pure and simple.

 

[steslatt]

Just click Alarm repeat then daily - Simple. Although it does annoy me that when you click the clock widget it does nothing

 

[XplosiV]

I have to disagree. An alarm is there to be set when needed. Its fine for those who work regular hours and can have one alarm set up to wake you when you need it. But for people like me, who work shifts, we need something that will do what we need.

I have 5 separate alarm profiles because that's what I need.

Mon, tues, sat, sun, for 0450, then another profile for 1550, and wed, thus & fri for the same times. Plus a one off alarm for when I need it. The night before my first shift I activate the two profiles I need for the next seven days, job done.

The point is, being able to set specifics is useful, it only has to be done once. Then activated as needed. Its not exactly a hardship.

And by default the android deskclock app (stock clock/alarm) already has a monday-friday profile, as well as a weekend profile, you just have to set the time you want. So I don't really see what your all complaining about.

 

[Shanness]

I think the alarm app is pretty good, very, very configurable alarms. The only stupid bit, and it's VERY stupid is that when at 20:00, you change the time to 07:00, it leaves the day as today, meaning the alarm is set for 6 days in the future. When the hell would anyone want that.

It should bump the day up when the time is less than "now". This would make it work in a much more user friendly way.

As lotus49 said

Any alarm that is a one-off, will almost always be for the next 24 hours (literally always in my case) so that should be the default.

Myself and my girlfriend don't work regular hours (both work from home programmers), and this alarm function drives us both crazy.

Basically, setting an alarm for "tomorrow morning" shouldn't be so difficult and error prone..

 

[lotus49]

Just click Alarm repeat then daily - Simple. Although it does annoy me that when you click the clock widget it does nothing

But then it will repeat when I don't want it to.

I have no problem with the ability to set an alarm at any random time in the future (although it cannot do that, it has to be in the next week) but the default should be in the next 24 hours. I'd bet good money that > 95% of non-repeating alarms set by mobile phone users around the world are for the next 24 hours so that should not require any fiddling about to achieve.

 

[lotus49]

I have to disagree. An alarm is there to be set when needed.

[cut]

The point is, being able to set specifics is useful, it only has to be done once. Then activated as needed. Its not exactly a hardship.

And by default the android deskclock app (stock clock/alarm) already has a monday-friday profile, as well as a weekend profile, you just have to set the time you want. So I don't really see what your all complaining about.

You are rather missing the point.

For one thing, you assume that setting an alarm is a one-off activity. It may be in your case but it's not in mine. I set a different alarm almost every day and every single time, I want it to go off within 24 hours.

I also have no problem with the capability to set a one-off alarm for say Thursday, but almost all non-repeating alarms will be for the next 24 hours and if an alarm is set not to repeat, that should be the default. I should not have to set the day every damn time, it's idiotic.

 

[lotus49]

I think the alarm app is pretty good, very, very configurable alarms. The only stupid bit, and it's VERY stupid is that when at 20:00, you change the time to 07:00, it leaves the day as today, meaning the alarm is set for 6 days in the future. When the hell would anyone want that.

That is also a good point. This hasn't caught me out yet because at least the alarm has the saving grace of telling you that it's set for 6 days in the future but it should make the sensible assumption that you mean tomorrow.

You can do (mostly) whatever you want with the alarm, but it takes three times as long as it should. It's another example of bad UI design on Android (or is it just the SGS2 - I am new to Android).

 

[steslatt]

Well then you set an alarm to repeat daily, tick it on when you want to use it and untick it off when you dont want to. That way you dont have to do the individual days.

 

[steslatt]

I set a different alarm almost every day and every single time, I want it to go off within 24 hours.

So having a daily repeat would be fine, all you do is change the time??

 

[lotus49]

So having a daily repeat would be fine, all you do is change the time??

Not really because some days I don't set any alarms and some days I set three or four.

I appreciate your suggestions but anything that users do regularly should be set up in such a way that sensible defaults are chosen to make the process as quick and easy as possible. If more complex options are required, this should be possible but since this is relatively rare, this should be when it takes a bit longer.

Yes, I could set four different alarms for each day making a total of 28 (cripes) alarms that I can just change each day in addition to the six regular alarms that I have on all the time but in the time it takes me to have scrolled to the correct one of 34, I could have set three alarms on my iPhone.

This is not enough of a big deal to have soured my feelings towards my phone (something I could not say about the sucky desktop integration) but making things easy and obvious is the one area where Apple and iOS are a shining beacon of virtue compared to Android. That isn't enough to offset Apple's somewhat fascist approach to what is permitted on the phone (ie SJ likes it or it doesn't happen) but it is frustrating. Sadly, any device is a compromise and this area of UI elegance and consistency is the one where Android loses out.

 

[XplosiV]

Just curious, but have you tried other alarm clock apps?

 

[lotus49]

Just curious, but have you tried other alarm clock apps?

No I haven't and that is a fair point. As you can probably tell, this has irritated me on a daily basis since I got my phone but it hadn't occurred to me to look for an alternative.

Any suggestions would be gratefully received.

 

[XplosiV]

I use alarm clock plus (paid) and you have a ton of options on that. alarms/naps dismiss via math problems, change fonts colours, full screen alerts, slideshow, ... You'd have to try the ad supported free version to get a better idea, I only got it because I kitchened a rom without the desk clock by mistake. But it does what I need