iPhone, Android DST problems'¦ again >.

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Monday, 04 April 2011 17:37

Your IT - Mobility

 

Reports that some iPhones and Androids on Vodafone experienced problems in the switchover from daylight savings time brings up the inevitable question: how can something that is a predictable, twice-yearly change in timing not go off like clockwork? >.<

It looks like getting a handle on our DST (daylight savings time), whether changing to, or changing from, isn't easy.

If it was, no-one would ever experience DST time zone issues ever, but as reports continue year after year on different platforms, the problem isn't fully licked, even though it should be.

Although PCs and smartphones have had DST issues in the past and even the Y2K issue from a decade ago, people are still either being woken up late, or early, usually depending on whether you're entering or leaving DST.

Asher Moses' report in the Sydney Morning Herald (Fairfax Newspapers) has an excellent write-up of the various problems reported by iPhone and Vodafone users across various media.

His report also lists an update from Vodafone which explained that a 'transmission link failure' was responsible for Vodafone's network issues, which were reported to be stopping Telstra and Vodafone customers from calling each other and receiving multiple copies of SMS messages.

The article's comment section has both iPhone and Android users claiming that their alarms went off an hour early despite the clock changing properly, and there were even reports that alarms went off an hour late.

Who knows the veracity of the reports other than the fact that they are being made from multiple sources. Indeed, other iPhone and Android owners report no problems at all.

Although the standard advice for iPhone owners is to update to the latest iOS 4.3.1 update, users of earlier iOS versions have also reported no problems, as was the case in earlier years, thus leading to the usual conflicting reports.

This shows that some users do have issues, and others don't. Because smartphones can be set to pick up the time from the mobile network they are connected to, if that mobile network supports the feature, telcos can also cause problems at DST time.

PC operating systems seem to have solved this problem, but smartphone operating system makers clearly have more work to do.

Although waking up an hour early or an hour late can be very annoying, and result in getting to work early or late, or missing flights, appointments or other events, I guess the DST issue doesn't rate as highly as the 'potential end of the world' scenarios that Y2K conjured up - or it would be a non-issue.

Sadly it is still an issue. We're in the technology-driven 21st Century and we still can't get this right.

The clock keeps ticking on page two, set your clicks (not clocks) forward by one and read on!