iOS 26 Makes Third-Party Alarm and Timer Apps Better

[MacRumors]

With iOS 26, Apple is adding a new AlarmKit framework for developers that offer apps with alarm clocks and timers. AlarmKit provides system-level access to alarm functionality, which was previously reserved only for Apple's Clock app.

Developers will now be able to create apps that have the same feature set and permissions as Apple's built-in alarm functionality, including alerts that always activate even if Silent mode or a Focus mode is enabled, full-screen snooze and stop display options, and access to the Lock Screen, Dynamic Island, and Apple Watch.

In iOS 18 and before, developers used time sensitive alerts for alarms, and critical alerts when given the entitlement from Apple, but there was no option for an alert that can't be missed like the alerts that comes from the Clock app. There was also no Lock Screen overlay, and there were limits on the number of alarms that could be set.

Alarms from third-party apps could fail to trigger if the iPhone restarted or if the app updated, which was problematic, and alerts could be silenced with Focuses.

The new framework will support unlimited alarms and repeating options, so there won't be the same limitations there were before, and alarm alerts won't be simple notifications. In the coming months, we should see much more full-featured alarm apps and apps with timers that are able to better compete with Apple's built-in options.

Apple's own alarm feature in the Clock app has a new look in iOS 26, with a larger time display and larger stop and snooze buttons. Apple also now allows users to customize snooze length, choosing a length of time between 1 minute and 15 minutes. Previously, tapping snooze always snoozed an alarm for nine minutes.

Article Link: iOS 26 Makes Third-Party Alarm and Timer Apps Better

 

[ss2cire]

now that's nifty, I just hope games don't start using it to make sure your notifications come through even in silent mode haha

 

[MakaniKai]

Yes!! Now Home Assistant could in theory add the ability to fire off custom alarms on my phone on demand. This would be useful to make sure I don't miss meetings for example (sometimes a regular notification is just not enough for me).

 

[iDento]

I wonder why would anyone use a third party alarm app. What functionality is missing from the stock app?

 

[MakaniKai]

I wonder why would anyone use a third party alarm app. What functionality is missing from the stock app?

Something I'd really like to have is puzzle alarm clocks. e.g. you have to complete a series of math problems or go scan a certain QR code to stop the alarm. Before this they weren't really possible because the app would get put to sleep by iOS and the alarm wouldn't go off.

 

[lellis2k]

I wonder why would anyone use a third party alarm app. What functionality is missing from the stock app?

There’s plenty of use cases, eg cooking timers that fire off a set of alarms/timers based on one specific recipe/method

 

[MakaniKai]

There’s plenty of use cases, eg cooking timers that fire off a set of alarms/timers based on one specific recipe/method

Or like the picture in the article, it could be used for reminders for taking/giving pills (in this case, for the cat!)

 

[diskrisk]

I wonder why would anyone use a third party alarm app. What functionality is missing from the stock app?

I use an app called AutoSleep which has an Apple Watch alarm feature that detects what stage of sleep you’re in so it can always wake you up on light sleep, which helps you wake up less groggy and tired. Only issue (until now) was that it did it through notification alerts, which could result in missed alarms or the alarms being randomly silenced, so I always have a backup “normal” alarm in case the AutoSleep one doesn’t come through. With this AlarmKit functionality that won’t be a concern anymore.

 

[Agent007]

Mid-2000's, I had a Motorola flip phone where the alarm would activate even if the phone was turned off. In those days there were SO many different handsets on the market, some with bizarre features, it was kinda cool.

 

[Trausner]

Can i set an alarm waking up to a Music playlist, that would be wonderful!

 

[TheMountainLife]

Its annoying there has to be a "kit" or API to everything such as this simple function. I'd like this feature to extend to apps like Ring, UniFi Protect, home security system apps as well as car apps incase your alarm is tripped or if a grandparent activates their Life Alert.

Edit: If you're going to disagree, state why. Some of you really hate having options unless Apple says it's ok for you to.

 

[klasma]

I wonder why would anyone use a third party alarm app. What functionality is missing from the stock app?

Earlier today someone on this forum wished for an alarm that always goes off at sunset (or some fixed offset from sunset).

Someone who wants to shift their sleep rhythm might want to set an alarm that automatically shifts five minutes forward (or backward) each day.

There are plenty of things one could implement.

 

[TomaxXamot]

I wonder why would anyone use a third party alarm app. What functionality is missing from the stock app?

Maybe because the timers could potentially be more reliable?
I use them all the time for my rest periods at the gym and here are some annoyances that have existed for years and persist in iOS 18.5, even on my 15 Pro that I started anew with and didn’t restore from a backup when I bought it.

-Timer sometimes doesn’t make a sound even though a few minutes previous it did (I hadn’t adjusted any volume or silence settings)

-Timer sound sometimes stops after a ring or two without me doing anything

-Sometimes music doesn’t start playing again after I cancel/end timer

Add those to the million other bugs in their stock apps that I wish they’d finally fix. Don’t get me started on Notes.

 

[whatgift]

Can i set an alarm waking up to a Music playlist, that would be wonderful!

You can pick a song if you're using Apple Music.

 

[arlomedia]

Oh dang, I could have used this in 2010 when I released a couple alarm clock apps. At that time, the limitation was that they would only go off if they were active, or the last app that was active before you locked your device.

One of my apps let you select a song from your music library as your alarm sound, which the built-in clock app didn't do at that time. After Apple added that in 2012, they removed my app from the store, saying it didn't offer unique functionality. It hardly mattered that I got Sherlocked because the backgrounding options were so limiting.

Maybe we need a term for reverse Sherlocking, where Apple opens up functionality that they previously reserved solely for themselves.

 

[svish]

Great to see these really small but useful changes to iOS. However I have used only the inbuilt alarm app.

 

[WarmWinterHat]

I wonder why would anyone use a third party alarm app. What functionality is missing from the stock app?

I use the Paprika recipe app quite a bit. You can start multiple timers from times on the recipes and they stay visible on screen in the app, but they stop working if the app is closed or the iPhone or iPad goes to sleep.

 

[MrCubes]

Oh dang, I could have used this in 2010 when I released a couple alarm clock apps. At that time, the limitation was that they would only go off if they were active, or the last app that was active before you locked your device.

One of my apps let you select a song from your music library as your alarm sound, which the built-in clock app didn't do at that time. After Apple added that in 2012, they removed my app from the store, saying it didn't offer unique functionality. It hardly mattered that I got Sherlocked because the backgrounding options were so limiting.

Maybe we need a term for reverse Sherlocking, where Apple opens up functionality that they previously reserved solely for themselves.

Kcloreshing?

 

[shapesinaframe]

I wonder why would anyone use a third party alarm app. What functionality is missing from the stock app?

The two use cases I want:

• set an alarm for a specific date
• set an alarm at a specific frequency eg: every second Tuesday

 

[miguelcoma]

This looks great, but does it work with Sleep Focus? I currently use Apple's built-in Sleep/Wake Up alarm because of how well it integrates with the Health app's Sleep Schedule and because it automatically enables and disables Sleep Focus across my devices to prevent notifications and disruptions. I'd want any third-party alarm app to have this same Sleep Focus integration

 

[CarlJ]

I just hope games don't start using it to make sure your notifications come through even in silent mode haha

Why would Apple approve such a thing? And if a game did use it, why wouldn't you immediately delete the game?

 

[Trausner]

You can pick a song if you're using Apple Music.

I know thats possible, but i like to just keep the whole album running. I had that option with a 2000s hifi unit. I could program it to switch on and play an MP3 CD at a time in the morning and kept it running until i left the house. Those were the days. My iPhone never really was able to do that.

 

[FateOfNations]

Its annoying there has to be a "kit" or API to everything such as this simple function. I'd like this feature to extend to apps like Ring, UniFi Protect, home security system apps as well as car apps incase your alarm is tripped or if a grandparent activates their Life Alert.

Edit: If you're going to disagree, state why. Some of you really hate having options unless Apple says it's ok for you to.

On a device where performance, energy use, and user experience are critical, the operating system has to carefully manage competing demands for access device resources. For an app to use those resources, it has to communicate with the operating system using an API. On some other operating system platforms, similar functionality is implemented by having an app remain active, consuming resources in the background all the time, with the operating system only providing less sophisticated, low level process switching capabilities. For example, an alarm app would need to have the device wake up once per second, so the app can determine if it needs to activate the alarm or not. With something like AlarmKit, the app can instead tell the OS to wake up and make the app active at a specific clock face time.

Apple divides up it's operating system APIs into discrete “kits” that encapsulate a specific portion of the overall API. That's mostly for documentation and developer experience purposes and shouldn't concern an end user.