The bug keeping iPhone owners awake at night: Apple says 'do not disturb' issue will not be fixed (but not until next week)
Apple has confirmed it cannot fix a bug that has woken thousands of iPhone owners every night since January 1.
The phone's 'do not disturb' feature is designed to silence the handset during set hours to prevent any disturbance while users sleep or if they are in a meeting.
However, it stopped working on New Year's Day, and the firm today confirmed it will not work again until January 7 to a glitch in the way Apple's software deals with dates.
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Venus and Serena Willliams in a new TV ad for the Do Not Disturb feature - which Apple has been forced to admit has not worked since New Year's Day
'After January 1st, 2013, Do Not Disturb mode stays on past its scheduled end time,' Apple said in a statement on its support site.
'Do Not Disturb scheduling feature will resume normal functionality after January 7, 2013.
'Before this date, you should manually turn the Do Not Disturb feature on or off.'
The Do Not Disturb feature was added to the latest version of Apple's iOS software so users could sleep without being woken or go to meetings without being disturbed.
Users can manually turn Do Not Disturb on or off, or can set a scheduled time for Do Not Disturb to kick in automatically and then reset later.
The software is used to silence the phone during meetings and at night - but will not work properly again until January 7th due to a glitch
Many users set Do Not Disturb to turn on around bedtime and reset the following day so they are not disturbed by calls on new message alerts during the night.
However, users discovered on January 1 that Do Not Disturb did not automatically reset as scheduled, so calls and message alerts sounded as normal - causing many to wake up, or be interrupted during meetings.
It prompted scores of iPhone users to flood blogs and internet chat boards to vent their frustration.
Apple's explanation of the problem, telling users to simply wait
Apple iOS developer Patrick McCarron suggested on Twitter that Apple had made a common mistake by incorrectly formatting how its iOS software defines dates, allowing the underlying software, based on Unix, to define the final week of 2012 as ending on January 7.
Apple has previously had a string of similar problems with dates.
In March 2011, the iPhone 4 clocks went back rather than forward as daylight saving changed.
Earlier in the same year, a clock glitch prevented alarms from sounding on New Year's Day, and the devices also struggled to adjust to the end of daylight savings time back in November.
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