Don't Depend on iPhone Clock's Alarm on January 2 [UPDATED]

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Twitter was abuzz with complaints and comments about the iPhone bug that failed to wake up those who depended on it Saturday morning, so we wanted to be sure you knew about the problem so you wouldn't make the same mistake when setting your alarm.

UPDATE: There's a workaround: If you still want to use the iPhone clock as an alarm for January 2, set a recurring alarm and it'll work normally, Apple told Engadget (see quote below).

The good news? You won't need to fiddle with this forever, because the iPhone bug will somehow right itself Monday, as soon as the calendar changes over to January 3, 2011. Even so, this was a rude awakening for New Year's Day. Come on Apple, fix this bug.

Meanwhile, might I suggest an alternative alarm clock for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch? It's Best Alarm Clock, a trusty $.99 app that wasn't affected by this bug. It lets you choose to wake up to a variety of sounds, iPod music, or my favorite, a single vibration.

While I could do without most of its garish colors and sound effects accompanying each tap of an icon, it has other virtues, such as helpfully displaying a current weather report. I especially like the way you can program different wake-up times for each day of the week, great for those of us with flexible schedules:

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Don't like that one? Here are five free clock apps that can do the job, and here are five other worthy choices.

UPDATE: Engadget got the following response from Apple: