Best Alarm Clock Apps For The iPhone

2011/12/16 | Filed under: Featured Stories,Top Apps | Posted by: Colm Barker

Sure, your iPhone comes with an alarm, but how effective is it at getting you out of bed and to class or work on time? If you’re hitting the snooze button and waking up in a panic day after day, it might be time to try something new. Here are five of the best alarm clock apps for the iPhone.

1) Sleep Cycle alarm clock – Maciek Drejak Labs ($.99)

Sometimes even when you’ve had your eight hours, you just don’t feel rested. When we sleep we cycle through 90-minute phases of deep and light sleep. In lighter sleep periods, we move around more than in deeper ones. This app uses a sensor in the iPhone to detect movement, then wakes you with an alarm when you’re in a lighter sleep period – eliminating that sluggish feeling.

The app also collects data about your sleeping habits and presents it to you in the form of a graph, which can be useful for figuring out how to improve your sleep patterns. For example, you might learn that when you watch TV before bed it takes you longer to fall asleep.

The downside is that you have to sleep with your phone, putting it at the corner of the mattress or under your pillow. But if you’re turning off that alarm clock every morning and sliding back into sleep because you feel exhausted, it may make sense to give this app a try.

2) Wake N Shake – The Merciless Alarm Clock Pro Shaker Edition – Andres Canella (free with ads, $.99 without)

There’s nothing like a burst of movement to really force you awake. With the Wake N Shake app, you need to shake your phone – vigorously! – for a few seconds before the alarm will switch off. Hopefully, by the time you’ve given it a good, hard shake, you’ll be properly awake and ready to spring out of bed.

Wake N Shake has also taken drastic steps to make sure that users can’t work around the shaking: there’s no snooze button, you can’t turn the alarm off by hitting the “home” button and you can’t lower the volume. No cheating allowed! Combine the 24 (loud) alarm sounds with some blood-pumping shaking and your system will be too frazzled to let you go back to sleep.

3) Alarm Clock Pro – iHandySoft Inc. ($.99)

This app does everything a basic alarm does, and much more. You can set the alarm to play your favorite songs or playlists – choose a song that you hate, to make you turn it off quickly, or try some classic heavy metal to get the heart racing. It’s a lot harder to go back to sleep when you have Robert Plant screaming in your ear. Extra bonuses: This app can turn the phone into a flashlight, which is great for midnight trips to the bathroom. It also comes with a Sleep Timer, which you can set to play music or audiobooks for a set period of time to help you fall asleep. Remember, the sooner you fall asleep, the easier it is to wake up.

4) Snooze – LetGive, Inc. (free)

This one’s perfect for cheapskates. With Snooze, every time you’re feeling lazy and hit the snooze button on your alarm, the app will donate $.25 of your money to a non-profit organization. With this app, even if you do decide to sleep in, at least you’re doing a bit of good in the world. And if you just can’t bear parting with your pennies, Snooze will force you up and out of bed.

5) Radio Alarm Clock-MP3/Radio/Nature Sound Alarm + Sleep Timer – EnSight Media ($1.99)

This popular app has won a lot of fans with its ability to wake you with a choice of 50,000 radio stations from around the world. You can search for stations by keyword or by country. If you prefer to wake up to a song from your music collection, or a recording of your mother calling you for school, you can do that instead. Radio Alarm Clock also has a control for screen brightness, which is definitely a plus for something you keep on your bedside table. It’s got an appealingly retro design that captures the soon-to-be-extinct experience of fiddling with an old-fashioned radio.

If you’ve tried every app under the sun to get yourself out of bed and nothing works, you may need to experiment with something more extreme.

Like the bomb clock! Cut the wires to stop the countdown: defusable-clock

How about an alarm clock that throws a ball at you before emitting a loud sound? You have to find the ball and put it back in the clock to stop the noise: led-alarm-clock

Or an alarm clock that makes you answer logic questions before it switches off the sound? iq-alarm-clock

And one that has wheels! If you hit the snooze, it throws itself off the nightstand and races around the room. You’ve got to run after the alarm clock to turn it off: clocky

Finally, for heavy sleepers in Japan, an app that sends an embarrassing tweet to the user’s Twitter profile: okite

What wakes you up in the morning? Tell us about your favorite app (either one listed here or another one that you’ve found useful) in the comments!

Main image from iTunes

All thumbnails from iTunes

By Colm Barker

28 Responses to Best Alarm Clock Apps For The iPhone

SoYoung 2011/12/16 - 11:52 am

good!

admin 2011/12/16 - 9:20 pm

I like it!

soyoung 2011/12/19 - 8:38 pm

really!

Bonhui Cho 2011/12/26 - 2:45 am

I like the defusable-clock

Psych geek 2012/09/11 - 1:52 pm

Our sleep cycles are actually not all 90 minutes long. They change throughout the night – the longest ones are at the beginning of the night, and they get shorter as morning approaches. If you google image “sleep cycle” you can find a bunch of nifty graphs from various scientific sources. I would be interested if this app actually works…

01OtGknrFlgi 2012/12/16 - 10:52 pm

899588 245162I truly appreciate this post. I

ilmaiseksi 2012/12/27 - 3:02 pm

893414 696075Hello. Neat post. There is an issue with your site in firefox, and you may want to test this

κατασκευη e shop 2013/01/07 - 5:32 pm

591338 731274Keep all the articles coming. I adore reading via your issues. Cheers. 574977

wordpress spain 2013/01/08 - 12:03 am

275002 836579An incredibly intriguing read, I may possibly possibly not agree completely, but you do make some really valid points. 665100

get it 2013/01/08 - 10:37 am

167788 612930Woh I like your posts , saved to fav! . 780999

הובלות משרד 2013/01/13 - 9:45 am

826399 990254If I should say something, then nothing will stop the chatter within 251328

κατασκευη e-shop τιμες 2013/01/14 - 2:49 pm

779166 897988For anyone among the lucky people

sbobet casino 2013/01/17 - 1:22 am

181078 598459Paper rolls

sweater korea 2013/01/22 - 2:27 am

323052 582993hey, your internet web site is superb. We do appreciate your function 149693

jaket korea 2013/01/22 - 10:43 am

172395 222463Some genuinely intriguing data, effectively written and normally user genial . 631066

cheap online car insurance quote 2013/01/24 - 3:03 pm

734217 4886You produced some decent points there. I looked on the net to the issue and discovered most people go together with together with your web website. 794930

best car insurance rates 2013/01/29 - 1:31 am

286782 492832You

how much is car insurance 2013/01/29 - 5:55 pm

612069 655008You can surely see your skills inside the function you write. The world hopes for far more passionate writers like you who aren

reverse phone lookup 2013/01/30 - 10:12 pm

221484 105781Some genuinely nice stuff on this web site , I it. 652842

phone psychic readings 2013/02/03 - 11:43 am

978783 540083A really fascinating read, I may well not agree totally, but you do make some quite legitimate factors. 701270

car insurance quotes 2013/02/03 - 7:29 pm

7508 788002Maintain all of the articles coming. I really like reading by way of your items. Cheers. 424599

http://www.inkasso-abc.org 2013/02/04 - 11:30 pm

612848 969124It is hard to uncover knowledgeable men and women on this subject even so you sound like you know what you are talking about! Thanks 818116

http://www.inkasso-abc.org 2013/02/05 - 6:49 am

680752 49038A truly exciting examine, I might possibly not concur entirely, but you do make some truly legitimate points. 44196

better than reddit 2013/02/05 - 7:29 am

950061 950148Hello there! Excellent post! Please inform us when I will see a follow up! 623139

here 2013/02/05 - 9:13 pm

777525 911517Hello, Neat post. There

http://smartcarinsurancequotes.net/ 2013/02/06 - 10:47 pm

433864 83253Youre so cool! I dont suppose Ive learn something like this before. So good to search out any person with some exclusive thoughts on this topic. realy thank you for starting this up. this internet internet site is 1 thing that

auto insurance 2013/02/07 - 5:19 am

281916 831734Thank you for another informative website. Where else may I am getting that kind of info written in such a perfect method? 858867

no no reviews 2013/04/07 - 8:08 pm

Happened upon your blog. I’m very happy with your materials! no no reviews