9:47 PM
Kakrona Chan
Although the iPhone’s alarm clock is functional, it has limited features. If you use your phone to wake up in the morning instead of a standalone device, then you’ll want to get the most out of it.
There are a large number of alarm clock apps available in the App Store, but, almost unbelievably, not all of them work, and some of them are downright duds.
We’ve tried and tested five great alarm clocks apps for the iPhone and iPod touch that can’t make getting out of bed any easier, but at least you’ll be woken in a way of your own choosing.
1. Radio Alarm
Radio Alarm may be at the higher end of the pricing scale, but it’s a good looking creation that packs in a lot of functionality — you really do get what you pay for (and then some!) with this app.
As far as looks go, you’ve got a great retro design with a flip calendar, analogue clock and two “dials,” one for volume, which can be controlled in-app and — essential for a bedside alarm clock — a brightness control. There are three knobs that represent the three main functions: the alarm clock, the radio and the sleep options.
The “radio” can be listened to as a standalone Internet radio option and offers more than 30,000 stations from SHOUTcast Radio that be be browsed via genre, country or search, although you can manually add your personal fave Internet radio stations via their URL.
Alarm functionality is superb — you can choose to wake to a variety of what we’d call standard alarm sounds, your own music stored on your iDevice, one of the many Internet radio stations, one of the sleep sounds (more on that later), and there’s even the fab option to record your own sound or message to wake up to.
Alarm options include some nice touches such as vibration, the ability to “fix” the volume so you can’t turn it down accidentally, different snooze durations, and the option to have the sound “fade in” so you don’t wake with a start.
Finally, there’s an excellent selection of soothing sleep sounds, including waves, rain on a window, a campfire or the sound of seagulls. You can set the timer to turn the audio off after whatever amount of time suits you, and you can make it fade out quietly. This also works with the radio and your own music too.
There’s some design thought gone into this app — when you hit the radio knob a little analogue tuner comes on screen accompanied by tuning noise, and you can opt to shake your iPhone a certain number of times to stop the alarm. It’s little touches like this that make you smile.
Developer: EnSight Media
Cost: $1.99
Cost: $1.99
2. iFlipClock Plus
There’s more retro to be had here with a classic, realistic flip clock design that can be jazzed up with a choice of 65 backgrounds, three colors for the numerals, portrait or landscape display and two different time display formats.
That’s it as far as the app goes for looks; simplicity is the key word here, and that theme continues with the settings which are bound to only one screen.
We can imagine the one-screen design will be too fiddly for anyone with big fingers, but it works for us — you can just zip around the screen touching various areas to change the settings. With the ability to set two alarms, you can leave the default alarm noise to wake you or select a song from your device.
Features include a snooze button, the ability to dim the screen for use on a bedside table and sound effects for when the time flips over. With simple, but perfectly decent alarm functionality, it’s a good-looking app for design lovers.
Developer: Exedria
Cost: $0.99
Cost: $0.99
3. Nightstand Central
Another good-looking app, Nightstand Central’s design is somewhat reminiscent of HTC phones. With a big, easy-to-read flip clock, the date and the weather for your current location are also displayed. You can choose backgrounds from a selection of beautiful pre-loaded images or ones from your device, either as a static display or slideshow of multiple images.
The customization is great — you can move the clock and change its size by tapping on the screen with two fingers, have it display portrait or landscape, have alarms displayed, and to keep up with the weather, show the temperature in Celsius or Fahrenheit or not at all.
On the alarm front, you can set as many alarms as you’ll ever need with an interface that’s very similar to the iPhone’s. There’s also “background alarms” that can be set up for those who want to be super-sure to get out of bed. You can give alarms names and wake to a range of sounds or music from your library. Snooze times can be changed and you can make the sound fade in so as not to be too abrupt.
The sleep timer will see you dropping off to a relaxing soundtrack (though without nearly as wide a selection as Radio Alarm, we must say), or your choice of music, while brightness control is very swanky — slide your finger on the screen to dim it.
Lastly, Nightstand Central’s bonus feature is the “flashlight” (a white screen basically, but adequate illumination in the dead of night), which you can turn on and off by shaking your handset.
And if you’re not picky about using your own music as an alarm, or want to try before you buy, there’s a limited but decent free version of this app available too, although we think $0.99 for the full app is very reasonable.
Developer: Thomas Huntington
Cost: $0.99
Cost: $0.99
4. Alarm Clock Pro
There’s more great design here with the Alarm Clock Pro, which shares a similar feature set to Nightstand Central, but has a very different, yet equally stylish look.
Alarm Clock Pro looks like a classic bedside alarm clock with a digital display. You can change the color of the numerals and what info is actually displayed, but as far as looks go, this app keeps it clock-like and simple.
Behind the scenes you’re looking at a very familiar iPhone interface that makes setting alarms easy. The options are similar to those we’ve seen in other apps — some pre-loaded alarm sounds, the ability to use your own music, snooze settings, fade-in options, background alarms and the great option to dim the screen with the slide of your finger.
Alarm Clock Pro also produces a white screen as a flashlight if you shake it and a sleep timer is promised in a future update, which will be a nice addition to a very competent, no-nonsense alarm clock app.
Developer: iHandySoft Inc
Cost: $0.99
Cost: $0.99
5. The Alarm Clock
This alarm clock option doesn’t give you any meaningful way to customize the display, so it’s just as well the three-dimensional white letters on a blue background look as good as they do.
Alarm options are simple to set up and what you’d expect. You can name alarms, set them up to go off regularly on certain days, choose from pre-loaded sounds or use your own (we had a few crashes with this part, but did get there), set snooze times, auto-snooze, and there’s a sleep timer too.
However, where this app really shines is its ability to tell you the time at a touch of the screen. Hidden away in the app’s “Advanced Options” menu are some nifty perks that will let the app speak the time, say how long until the next alarm or speak the next alarm time.
You can set these up to work with one, two or three taps of the screen, and the robo-voice will speak up — a really nice feature for when you’re half-asleep fumbling with your iPhone to try and work out how much longer you’ve got in bed.
Developer: Kirk Andrews
Cost: $0.99
Cost: $0.99
BONUS: Nightstand – The Professional Alarm Clock
This app gets an honorable mention as it offers some nice functionality. In addition to being a fully featured alarm clock with radio, there’s weather data and a “news and Internet” section that you can set up to display all your favorite sites from one page, so you can quickly get your dose of morning news from within your alarm clock.
Developer: hubapps.com
Cost: $1.99
Cost: $1.99
[via mashable]
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