The iPhone and iPod Touch, as previously noted, make great alarm clocks. Easy to set with the wheel-driven interface, a range of pleasant or downright nasty sounds and 100% reliability (as long as you haven’t turned the volume down). Just set, toss under your pillow and forget. You can even leave a romantic little note for your better half to read when he or she wakes up.
But like many of Apple’s built-in iPhone applications, it might be too simple. That’s where third party developers step in, adding music, nightstand clocks and more. Here are five of the best.
AlarmTunes
Like all the alarm apps, AlarmTunes (pictured above) needs to be left running to work. You can sleep the display but, unlike Apple’s own app, it can’t run in the background. Once you remember this, AlarmTunes gives all sorts of features. The main one is the setting of music to wake you, like clock-radios of old. You can pick anything from your existing playlists, including podcasts (who wouldn’t want to wake up next to Danny Dumas and the Gadget Lab podcast crew?)
There’s also a sleep mode which will fade out the music, multiple alarms and shake to snooze (a fantastic idea). The only problem is that it is ugly, and in the nightstand mode the screen is a little busy. Still, you’ll hopefully be asleep most of the time so this isn’t a big problem, and it costs just $1.
Product page [iTunes]
Playlist Alarm Clock
Playlist Alarm Clock, another $1 application, goes in the opposite direction: It looks gorgeous but the interface is somewhat clunky, not what you want from an app you use when half asleep at either end of the day.
The retro-digital readout gives the time and tells you what music you are listening to, but when you come to change the settings things get confusing. Again, you can add any playlist or sing from the iPod library, but the options are layed out in a way only an accountant (a wide-awake, caffeine-charged accountant) could love, with buttons all over the place. Also, right now there is no screen dimming and no nightstand mode.
Product page [iTunes]
EasyWakeup
EasyWakeup has two distinguishing features. Its high price ($15) and its auto-detection. You set the tune you want to hear and the target time for waking up and then put the iPhone down on the mattress next to you. As you toss and turn or lay still, the app uses data from the accelerometer to track your sleep phases.
It then uses some algorithms (read: special sauce) to work out the best time to wake you. If the testimonials on the site are anything to go by, you’ll be getting up earlier, more refreshed and will be able to break your intimate relationship with the snooze button.
There are cheaper version which offer a bewildering range of subsets of the main app’s functions, but it’ll send you to sleep studying them. Stick with the pro, or go elsewhere.
Product page [iTunes]
MusicAlarm
The simplest and cheapest of the bunch (it’s free), MusicAlarm lets you choose a track from your library to use as an alarm. That’s it. It looks a lot like Apple’s own alarm application, only instead of the built-in alarm tones you get a list of songs to choose from. You’ll need to leave the app on (although sleeping the screen is fine), but apart from that it should just work. And did we mention it’s free? Download it today.
Product page [iTunes]
Music Alarm Clock
Yet another $1 clock, this one is probably the best looking of the bunch thanks to its lovely digital display an option to put the album artwork in the background. It’s also dead simple to use: set the alarm, choose the song, done.
Product page [iTunes]
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