iPhone alarm app with snooze by pressing side buttons

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Level 1

13 points

iPhone alarm app with snooze by pressing side buttons

I'm thinking of purchasing an iPhone 5, not sure what IOS version is on it now but I assume it can be upgraded to the latest. I need an alarm app that allows me to set up to six alarms that recur daily, and allows snoozing in the following manner. The button to turn off the alarm should either be on the screen or should be a side button. The snooze button should be the other one (ie. if "turn off" is the side button, then snooze should be on the screen, and vice-versa). This allows me to snooze the alarm without looking at the phone without fear of pressing the off button by mistake. (If both the snooze and off buttons are on the screen, then it's too easy to accidentally hit the off button as I pick up the phone or take it out of its carry case.) If the snooze button is one of the side buttons, then that's best-- I can snooze it without taking it out of its carry case. So does this exist?

iPhone 5, iOS 8.4

Posted on Jul 21, 2015 8:44 PM

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Answer 1

Jul 21, 2015 9:41 PM in response to mike1127

I am doing as much research as I can on this, but unfortunately my time is limited because my old phone died and I need a replacement ASAP

Other people's time is limited, too. No one else is likely to do the research for you. Rather than buying a phone because it meets your needs as an alarm clock, it sounds like you would save yourself an enormous amount of time and effort by just buying an alarm clock.

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Answer 2

Jul 22, 2015 2:39 PM in response to mike1127

mike1127 wrote:

Meg, it sounds like you are annoyed by my question for some reason.

Not in the least. You asked for advice. Sometimes you won't like the advice or find it useful. Sometimes you will. Generally, it's considered polite to just say thanks by that doesn't work or simply ignore it. If you're under a time constraint as you seem to indicate, you may not have the luxury of waiting around, hoping that someone will have found an app that meets your rather exacting specifications.

Best of luck.

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Answer 3

Jul 21, 2015 8:47 PM in response to mike1127

There are hundreds (possibly thousands) of alarm apps in the app store. There are ones that let you snooze by waving your hand in front of the phone, by shaking it. However, I doubt there are too many that let you snooze by tapping the side buttons as I don't believe Apple allows third party apps to access those buttons. But, as I said, there are lots of alarm apps. Time to do a bit of research.

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Answer 4

mike1127 Author

Level 1

13 points

Jul 21, 2015 9:27 PM in response to mike1127

An addendum to my question - - I now see there is potentially a major problem. I need the alarm app to run in the background and I need it to play loud and continuous alarms even if I'm on the phone or listening to music. I am not sure this is possible on the iPhone with third party apps.

I am doing as much research as I can on this, but unfortunately my time is limited because my old phone died and I need a replacement ASAP. Also, it is extremely difficult to tell merely from the app descriptions in the app store how the alarm actually works - many of the descriptions aren't even written by native English speakers and so are somewhat muddled.

Thanks,

Mike

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Answer 5

mike1127 Author

Level 1

13 points

Jul 21, 2015 9:54 PM in response to IdrisSeabright

Meg, it sounds like you are annoyed by my question for some reason. How about just leaving it for someone who might know the answer? Could save you a lot of typing time. For instance, maybe someone knows if Apple prevents third party apps from playing continuous alarms when the app is in the background or other sound-generating apps are running.

I can't even believe I need to explain why I can't use an "alarm clock" - obviously this is something I need to carry with me throughout the day and as I mentioned I need multiple alarms throughout the day. I do have an alarm clock already, you know. Many people do.

My old Android phone had a choice of apps that all behaved as I describe here. I would rather replace it with an iPhone, but this alarm functionaity is a necessity,. In iTunes there appear to be about twenty alarm apps that are meant as general purpose alarms (about 100 apps come up in response to searching on "alarm" but most of those aren't general purpose or have some specific area of functionality that is not what I need or aren't even alarms). I'm starting to notice a pattern... some of them list among their features that they send notifications when the app is in the background or the screen is locked, but they can't play "iTunes music." One of them mentions also that snoozing is not available in that case. I'm starting to suspect that there is some kind of OS limitation on third party apps.

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Answer 6

anypats

Level 7

21,357 points

Jul 22, 2015 6:29 AM in response to mike1127

From what I can find, the only alarm that allows snooze by using the volume buttons is the built-in alarm clock. And even then, snooze is also a button on the screen and you have to use the slide to unlock to turn the alarm off if the iPhone was locked when the alarm goes off. If the alarm goes off when it is not in lock mode, the volume button will silence the alarm but you still have to press Snooze or OK on the screen. I have tried several different alarm clock apps and none of them have an option to snooze (or turn off the alarm) using a side button. It seems the only third party use for the volume button is for camera apps.

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