I'm pretty easy when it comes to an alarm clock. The one that's built-in to the iPhone actually serves my needs quite well when I travel and I have a Bose Wave Radio/CD Player as an Alarm clock at home. It wakes me to my favorite radio station. Life is good. However, being the gadget junky that I am I couldn't resist the chance to check out the new iA5 "app enhanced alarm clock". What makes this one so special compared to all the other iHome alarm clocks that have come and gone over the years is that this one integrates with an App on your iPhone or iPod touch. So instead of the traditional buttons for setting the alarm, time, brightness, etc. you do it all from the App. Also the App goes beyond just simple "wake up" alarms. You can setup multiple alarms and schedules. You can have certain information displayed upon wakeup. You can even have it tweet or update your Facebook status when you wake or go to sleep (OK, just say no!). The App will even keep statistics on your sleep patterns, so that if you fill tired all the time you can really see if you're getting enough or too much sleep.
Taking advantage of the iPhone OS 3.0 Hardware Integration Abilities
When iPhone OS 3.0 was introduced, one of the promises was that App developers would have more control over hardware through the dock connector. iHome has taken advantage of this in their App and iA5 alarm clock. Although the App can be used with ANY SPEAKER system or on its own, it really sings when you use it with the iA5. Speaking of the iA5 check out my video review here.
More info at a glance
The nice thing about this App is that you wake up to instant information. For example, it uses your location to give you an instant weather update such as the current conditions and temperature. You can also have it display your Facebook updates from your friends that took place while you were sleeping.
The Bottom Line
While this App is good and does what it says, it's a little complex at times. For example, I created a couple of custom messages that I wanted to update my Facebook status with upon wake and sleep, but I had no idea how to make that happen until I realized that it asks for the message upon wake or sleep that you want to use. One problem that any 3rd party Alarm app is going to have and it's not the developers fault and that is in order for the App to work, it needs to be running. So you need to make sure you launch it before going to sleep. The screen can go off/dim, but if the App is not running it can never wake you. It would be nice as a backup to have Push Alerts in case you forget to launch the App. At least the Push Alert could wake you with a beep instead of the alarm.
iHome+Sleep
iHome+Sleep allows you to set multiple alarms, wake to buzzers or your iPod, has social networking features and it integrates with the iHome iA5 alarm clock.
- SDI Technologies
- Get on App Store
- Free
All info was collected on 24th March, 2010 when the app was reviewed.
About Terry White
Terry is the co-author of The Best Selling "The iPhone Book" 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th editions. He has been active in the industry for over 25 years and is the founder and president of MacGroup-Detroit, Inc., Michigan's largest Macintosh Users Group, host of the Adobe Creative Suite Podcast and a technology writer - Terry White Tech Blog.
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