What features do people really want in an alarm clock?

Well currently it doesn't seem to be anything more than the stock alarm clock app (touchwiz) with a different UI.

Mostly what I wanted from Alarm clock Xtreme was the ability to change use a math problem to dismiss. That makes me really wake up. LOL.

What I want is to be able to use the whole screen to dismiss or snooze the alarm. Pick one in settings and then hit anywhere on the screen. I hate having to find the volume rockers or a tiny little onscreen button to dismiss or snooze. I want to roll over and whack the phone anywhere and be done with it. That's the one feature I'm really looking for in an alarm app!!

I would like the alarm to power-on the phone and ring the alarm at the set time, like BlackBerry and other phones can. I want to sleep at night with the phone powered off.

Speaking said:

I would like the alarm to power-on the phone and ring the alarm at the set time, like BlackBerry and other phones can. I want to sleep at night with the phone powered off.

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Not possible. Blackberry and dumbphones only go into "deep sleep" mode when an alarm is active. Android is like a computer. If its off, its off. Just switch to Airplane mode at night and its basically the same as deep sleep mode for its function.

Thanks for the explaination.

IIRC the S3's stock alarm has a single button on screen to switch the alarm off. No probs leaving it on snadby while you are asleep, just put the phone screen down, which silents all alerts (but not the alarm).

I installed this and had a quicker look - would have been much more of a look if it hadn't forced portrait on me.
The good: alarm setting "dial" is excellent. Lightweight and doesn't lag.
The bad: no landscape. Ugly as sin.

I will keep an eye out for updates though as this hasn't potential.

Desired features: ability to choose audio stream. Google calendar integration. Tasker 3rd party integration and/or plugin. Multiple simultaneous timers.

As stated, I will come back to this with high hopes. Thanks for your hard work.

reissgo said:

Thank you for your constructive criticism. I have some questions though...

You say "ability to choose audio stream" - you explain a bit more about that. What exactly would you want to achieve that my alarm can not do already? I'm sceptical that most users will even know what "choosing an audio stream" means.

Google calendar integration - I've definitely been thinking about that. It may come... though one thing I've been thinking about is making a calendar app, where my alarm code just forms one component, so I may wait till then. I'm not sure.

With regard tasker - I'd never heard of it before and while tasker's downloads have been reasonable, its a long way short of a standard. So I think integration with that will please too few people for it to be worth the effort.

With regard "Multiple simultaneous timers".. well actually it has that already...try it out. I think my alarm program is one of the few that can do that.

With regard "ugly as sin"... if you have any suggestions for making it prettier, I'm all ears.

Thanks again for your comments.
Mick.

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Hi Mick, sorry I took so long to reply - Busy, busy, busy.
Firstly, my apologies for not seeing the multiple timers, this is a great feature!
Regarding choice of audio streams, maybe it is a specialist feature only a few would use, in my case I have different profiles set up that set mute different streams depending on certain events. Having said that I can take work around that issue.
Calendar integration would be brilliant and I'll look forward to seeing your calendar app in the future.
As for the UI. Well I'm afraid I can offer no insight there as I lack any talent for design. Maybe get an artistic friend to help or ask users for input? It does need work Imho and of course good programmers aren't usually great designers.
Good luck with your app/apps in the future and I will be looking forward to trying them out.

Edit: forgot to comment re tasker. I do feel that Tasker integration via a plugin would really boost the appeal of your app - there are a lot of us tasker users - and would enable me to pass alarms to my pc and other droids as well as allowing me to have alarms set from calendar, email, sms events and such (though of course your planned calendar app would partially negate the need for the latter)

I've found the best features to have in an alarm clock.

1) It makes a good loud noise, I'm a heavy sleeper.
2) It's reliable and goes off at the correct time, I don't want to be late for work.

chanchan05 said:

Not possible. Blackberry and dumbphones only go into "deep sleep" mode when an alarm is active.

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The Lenovo ICS Android phone I use has scheduled power on off. It's probably more like "deep sleep" rather than being truly off though. My late Samsung Galaxy S didn't have this feature though.

chanchan05 said:

Android is like a computer. If its off, its off. Just switch to Airplane mode at night and its basically the same as deep sleep mode for its function.

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Even a computer is not truly off, not when you press the power button on the front or do an OS shut-down. It's more like stand-by mode. Rather like TVs when you turn them on or off via the remote. There's still some power going through the them. Some BIOSs do have a scheduled power on time feature in them. Only time a PC is truly off is when you disconnect the electricity, or the PC has a real mains on/off switch.

mikedt said:

The Lenovo ICS Android phone I use has scheduled power on off. It's probably more like "deep sleep" rather than being truly off though. My late Samsung Galaxy S didn't have this feature though.

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Considering how highly customizeable Android ROMs are, its possible.

mikedt said:

Even a computer is not truly off, not when you press the power button on the front or do an OS shut-down. It's more like stand-by mode. Rather like TVs when you turn them on or off via the remote. There's still some power going through the them. Some BIOSs do have a scheduled power on time feature in them. Only time a PC is truly off is when you disconnect the electricity, or the PC has a real mains on/off switch.

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Not so sure about the TV reference. A computer turned off doesn't respond to buttons or whatever, but a TV turns on with any button pressed on it. As far as I know the only electricity flowing through an off PC is to the power switch, not into the motherboard or memory or whatever, which is why I said it was really off. A BB still has the a BIOS or something running to trigger an alarm at a timed interval.

chanchan05 said:

Considering how highly customizeable Android ROMs are, its possible.




Not so sure about the TV reference. A computer turned off doesn't respond to buttons or whatever, but a TV turns on with any button pressed on it. As far as I know the only electricity flowing through an off PC is to the power switch, not into the motherboard or memory or whatever, which is why I said it was really off. A BB still has the a BIOS or something running to trigger an alarm at a timed interval.

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Think it depends which on/off switch we're talking about with a PC. Either the push-button on/off switch at the front, that just goes into the mainboard, or the big rocker switch at the back, that has mains electricity going through it. Some PCs don't even have a proper mains switch, only way to remove power is to pull the plug. That's why I made the TV comparison, press the button on the remote, it looks like it's off, Sometimes there maybe little red light to tell you it's not really off.

Speaking said:

I would like the alarm to power-on the phone and ring the alarm at the set time, like BlackBerry and other phones can. I want to sleep at night with the phone powered off.

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Not possible. Droids don't work like that.