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iPhone 5 time and date issues

So, I activated my vzw iPhone5 Saturday. Very much enjoying it. Woke up yesterday and was very confused because my phone thought it was 8/26/12 and 30 minutes later than the actual time. I reset network settings and it self resolved...until this morning. I woke up and looked at my phone and had a melt down because my alarm never went off. I hurriedly got ready and looked at the microwave as I ran out, and it was 30 minutes earlier than my iPhone said.

My iPhone apparently is doing something weird and reverting to 8/26/12 + 30 minutes while I (and it) sleep. It throws off iMessage and I'm sure the rest of the date/time dependent apps, so I've turned off the automatic time setting for now, and its fine now (so far lol). But I would like to know what the real issue is if possible!?! Is it my phone? VZW? Does it matter?


Thanks in advance :0)

iPhone 5, iOS 6

Posted on Sep 24, 2012 12:22 PM

Reply
742 replies

Jan 10, 2013 1:39 PM in response to b12911

Thanks for the suggestion. However, I can tell you that setting date/time manually won't work. My most recent clock mal-function happened when it was set to Manual setting. I think Brent's solution makes most sense. That is, turn off LTE. Think about this: what is so different between iphone 5 and iphone 4? The LTE. I turned off LTE last night. So far so good. When I need to watch movie or tv episode, I just turn it back on. Now I'm waiting to see if the problem is gone for good.

Jan 10, 2013 3:48 PM in response to dsword19

Dsword, I never implied that I work for Apple. And unless you do, your employer isn't really relevant. I may appear AWFULLY informed (as well as a good speller) because I have read hundreds of pages of forum posts on the multitude of issues I have experienced with my iPhone 5. I can state with relative certainty that Apple does not check these boards mainly because they say they don't. I've been told that by several Apple employees, as well as MANY others users whose responses you obviously haven't bothered to read. Go into an Apple Store or call tech support, and ask them to reference these boards. You'll be changing your tune pretty quickly.


I'm not saying that every Apple employee is oblivious to the boards. Obviously they're not, because many of their customers use them and talk about them. However, the official Apple policy is that the boards are... well, not official. They created the boards so that, as the Apple Support web site states, their customers can find and share solutions. They dedicate resources to the boards so that their customers have a common place to talk about Apple products and share information with each other. It is not a place for them to gather information regarding technical support, as you are implying, because that information would not be nearly as reliable as information they can gather directly from their trained employees, through a channel such as Apple Stores or their Apple Support telephone reps. They rely on their employees to perform basic troubleshooting to rule out other options, and assess the problem and report back with that information. If they utilized information from these boards in the manner that other companies do, you would see moderators on here asking the users for more information or to contact them directly. Have you seen anyone with MODERATOR or other Apple credentials, helping users via this board? I didn't think so.


And finally, this description is also posted on the Apple web site:

Browse online support

Visit the Apple Support site for quick answers, manuals, and in-depth technical articles. Visit Apple Support Communities to get help and tips from fellow Apple customers.

As you can see, Apple plainly states that visiting the communities puts one in touch with fellow Apple customers. If you navigate their page further looking for support, you will be directed to either Apple Support Site (separate from communities), telephone support or an Apple Store. I don't have to work for Apple to understand basic instructions.


And I never said Apple was not aware of the problem. I said that Apple does not officially address most problems until they have come up with a fix. I also said that they neglect to share a lot of information with their lower level employees, which is why myself and many other people have encountered reps that don't know anything about this problem. You spoke to someone that DID know? Bully for you. That rep had probably already encountered a customer with that same problem, as I suggested in my last post. As you stated, you can't assume that the experience of one is the experience of all. So, you shouldn't be assuming that all Apple and VZW employees are well versed in this problem and its upcoming fix. If you had bothered to read the other 40+ pages of this board, you would see plenty of other people who have contacted support about this issue and encountered a clueless rep.


And yes, LTE shouldn't have to be turned off and you paid a premium to get an iPhone with that feature, blah blah blah. Anyone who took the time to read the boards has heard this argument enough times to want to puke. I'm not Apple, so I'm not interested in your complaints about the phone. I simply meant that until the fix actually comes, and we are faced with the possibility of a non-working alarm clock, that temporarily disabling LTE is not the end of the world. It's not like you have to turn off data completely. I would rather wait a few extra seconds for a web page to load than be written up for being late to work. (Is anyone else having that deja vu feeling?) I never said nor implied that Apple customers don't deserve to get what they expect, so you can take that entire last paragraph and repeat to someone who cares. Maybe an employee that gets paid an hourly rate to put up with insufferable drones like you.


So let me reiterate, since apparently my first post was too confusing to understand. I don't work for Apple. I didn't claim to. I was nice enough to take information provided by Apple and/or VZW and repost it on these boards, since some of the newer posters were obviously uninformed. I was just trying to be helpful, and use these boards to share information with other Apple customers... after all, that is their intended purpose. However, Apple has stated that these boards are not official and as such, it should be obvious that the information here is not guaranteed.

Jan 16, 2013 6:36 AM in response to Hyperyellow

I was not a iphone 5 fan but then few freinds of mine had convince me for to go for it and I finally buy iphone 5 16gb with SPRINTS and guess what that firste iphone 5 of mine give me problem with battery i had to charge it 2 time a day and it all of sudden say cannot connect to internet so i went to the the store and replaced it with new iphone and hoping it would be good but nope i was WRONG the new iphone had Time problem it was behind 35 min then normal , which lead to delay alarm and late to work 2 days in a row. So what is this all they Rumors are there that apple might come with new Iphone version this ear I would say CAN YOU APPLE SOLVE THIS ISSUE FIRST THEN THEN WORK ON NEW PRODUCT.

Jan 16, 2013 3:22 PM in response to denypharma

Hi. I'm in Florida, on Verizon with an iPhone 5. Just noticed this problem this week that I'm "losing minutes" so to speak. Where I live and where I work there is a pretty good signal for LTE, but does drop to 3G from time to time. I don't have WiFi on due to this luxory. I've noticed that my clock is about 5 to 10 minutes slow sometimes. I have to reboot the phone and it corrects itself.


Very annoying now that I notice it. Verizon/Apple need to get on this.

Jan 19, 2013 3:38 PM in response to Hyperyellow

Me and my wife both have iPhone 5s on Sprint and we are experiencing the sames issues with date and time. This is becoming extremely frustrating. Apple/Sprint/Verizon need to get busy addressing this issue. Our date and time must be corrected at least once a day.


One thing I did notice that when I left an LTE area and went to a 3G area my phone date and time became incorrect. When I reentered the LTE area it automatically corrected itself back to the correct time.


But today we never left our LTE and my wifes phone date and time became incorrect. She turned her LTE off and back on. It took about a minute for it to automatically correct itself.


I've read many other posts that this has been an issue since September. Why is it taking so long to correct this issue.

Jan 20, 2013 9:50 AM in response to Hyperyellow

I have been involved in this thread since page 15 of this 44 page forum. None of these suggestions seem to work. I have tried them all over the past 4-5 months. Even Verizon has admitted that the fix must to come in the form of a software update. After several weeks of back and forth service calls with Verizon, I was told by a top tier tech support rep way back in November (see previous post by me) to expect the fix to come via a carrier update from Apple by mid- December, this obviously didn't happen since thousands of people still suffer from this time issue and the interference it causes with vital phone systems that rely on time. Yes, there have been iOS updates but none have fixed this!


My wife and I both got iPhone 5's back when they first came out. To date my phone's time has changed hundreds of times, I have tried every suggested fix and none work. My phone did go nearly a month with no problems. I literally forgot about the issue until this weekend. My time has gone wrong 7 times since Friday. My wife has NEVER had the time problem on her iPhone 5 until this weekend. Her phone has gone crazy over the past few days, the time goes wrong almost every hour. In the last two days we noticed a couple instances where our phones both switched to the exact same wrong time at the exact same moment. (ex: at 8:15am Staurday our phones both were showing the wrong time of 5:31am) Obviously a cell network problem, but why all the sudden after 5 months is my wife's phone now having this problem too??? I have been patient with Verizon/Apple but now I am getting really ticked!! Enough is enough. A $600 phone should be able to keep time, and we have 2 of them! If it goes on much longer I am going to demand Verizon let us out of our contract so we can switch to a network that can keep proper time.


Note: turning LTE off does prevent the probelm, but is not a solution. Verizon tech support warned me not to leave LTE off for too many days in a row, doing so may cause you to need to repace your SIM card due to the fact that if left in 3G mode for too long it may not be able to re-join the LTE network. Not sure why this is but thats what they told me...

Jan 20, 2013 10:24 AM in response to Hyperyellow

Builder1,


I just saw your message and noticed you are from Champaign. I am too. My wife and I just switched to Verizon on 12/24 and we each got an iPhone 5. We got our daughter and iPhone 4. Until Friday, we hadn't had any issues. My wife called me Friday morning and told me that her phone had the wrong time. As others stated, it wasn't an even hour off. It was a weird amount of time. She had it happen almost every hour. I didn't have any issues. However, about 12:15 AM Saturday morning, my phone had the same issue. Since then, I have been having issues multiple times a day.


My daughter hasn't had an issue with her iPhone 4.


Hope this gets fixed...

Jan 20, 2013 10:49 AM in response to wickeddan

You are right "wickeddan", We used to have iPhone4's and had no problems. The "iPhone 4" is 3G only so it should not have any issues. The problem with the iPhone5 is the LTE (4G) network (it is not really the phone's fault, it is the network that it uses). Recently, I had no problems for nearly the whole month of December and most of January until now, now the problem is back full force. (in some instances, I have had the time and day be so far off that it was literally a month or more off by date and the time was several hours and random minutes off. When the time is wrong many phone features that use time and date stamps will not work (such as text, email, phone messages, etc).


I purchased my iPhones at the Verizon Corperate store out by Meijer on N. Prospect. in Champaign. I have been in there twice to complain in person and each time they act like they have never heard of this. It is obvious they are deliberately avoiding the conversation. One day, I spoke to the cell phone reps in Best Buy when I was passing through and everyone in that department knew about the problem, one of the Best Buy reps even suffered from the same problem herself! How is it all the Best Buy phone reps know about this but no one at the Verizon store has heard of it? That leads me to believe that the Verizon store reps are being told to deny the issue!

Jan 21, 2013 10:12 AM in response to Builder1

Below is an email response from Verizon tech support I received today. Not very hopeful. My next step may be to try and cancel my contract with them since reliable service cannot be assumed anytime in the near future.



Hi,



Yes, I remember your situation. I was hoping that I didn’t hear from you because it started functioning normally, but, unfortunately, that doesn’t appear to be the case.


I am sorry to hear that you are till having this issue. I have researched this issue further and I have been informed that there were improvements made on our end and Apple is planning further improvements at this time. However, there is no expected time of completion/release of that update/fix. I was initially told that this would be corrected by the end of December, but it has now been pushed back.


Keep an eye out for a software update that I expect to be released soon. I wish I had a better answer for you at this time.


I apologize for the inconvenience that this issue has caused

Jan 23, 2013 7:16 AM in response to alexis360

Yes. It is noted many times in this thread that Sprint leases Verizon towers. The only way to escape the issue is to switch to AT&T. I know several Verizon customers with Samsungs and Droids who also have the problem. Apple gets all the blame because there are so many more iPhones out there. All Verizon LTE clients are potentially at risk for this issue. (Including other carriers that use Verizon's network) I am not an expert, I just have been unfortunate enough to have this problem since the day I got my iphone5, leaving me 5 months to research and troubleshoot this issue. Still no concrete answers or solutions...

iPhone 5 time and date issues

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