Middle school teacher Katie (@teachmiddleschoolinstyle) has gone viral after becoming the latest victim of Apple's "malfunctioning" iPhone alarm clock.
In the 28-second clip, Katie said, "Raise your hand if you have been personally victimized by the Apple alarm. My alarm did not go off on my iPhone today. The only reason that I woke up was because somebody texted me."
"I Googled it, and apparently, this is happening to a lot of people," she added. "So if this has happened to you, know that you are not alone. We can create a support group, and today is just going to be a mess for me. So thank you, Apple alarm."
Clearly, Katie's experience has resonated with a lot of people. Altogether, the video was viewed 2.5 million times, and the majority of commenters said they could relate to Katie's experience.
"I knew I wasn't crazy," one wrote.
Another said, "I genuinely thought I was sleeping through them".
"I set 15 alarms, so this hasn't happened to me," a third admitted.
While a fourth revealed that they ended up getting fired from their job because their alarm didn't go off.
"It's actually getting annoying," they added.
The Daily Dot reached out to Katie via email.
How to fix silent iPhone alarms
On the Apple website, the company shared numerous ways to fix an iPhone alarm if you can't hear it. Advice includes setting the volume of an iPhone up to maximum, ensuring that your alarm settings aren't set to None, making sure that earphones aren't connected to your iPhone, and not putting your phone on Standby.
Moreover, as pointed out by TikToker Betsy (@basicallybetsy_), the cause of silent alarms is most likely Apple's Attention Aware Features, which came about in May 2024 as part of a new Apple update. The purpose of this feature is to recognize if eye contact is being made with the phone.
“Go into settings and at the top of the settings, search ‘attention aware’ features, and shut this little toggle off,” Betsy said to TikTokers. “Apparently, with the new update, Apple thought it was cute to silence some notifications and turn down the volume on certain things, such as alarms.”
@teachmiddleschoolinstyle Not the way I wanted to start my day. Help @apple #middleschoolteacher #teachertok #meangirls
♬ original sound - Katie • 7th Grade Teacher
She added, “So you’re not delusional. You’re not super tired. And you’re not all of a sudden not able to wake up from your alarms,” she says. “Most likely, they haven’t been the same volume they have been previously, or it’s not even ringing at all.”
Apple didn't immediately respond to the Daily Dot's request for comment via email.
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