iOS 6's 'Do Not Disturb' Not Shutting Off Automatically on New Year's Day

Some iOS 6 users who use Apple's scheduled "Do Not Disturb" feature may find that their iPhone, iPad or iPod touch hasn't automatically disabled the feature on New Year's morning.


The issue was reported on Whirlpool forums as well as our own MacRumors forums. The "Do Not Disturb" feature silences calls, alerts and notifications when it is enabled. Users may optionally schedule "Do Not Disturb" to activate between specific hours. This allows you to automatically disable calls and notifications while you sleep.

It's this scheduling feature that appears to be misbehaving on New Year's Day. MacRumors reader Spacesamurai posted about his experience:

I am in Japan so it is 2013, and I am finding that my iOS devices (iPhone 4 and iPad 2) are showing "Do Not Disturb" even though it is outside of the time I set for them. Not sure if this is related to the new year. Reloading the devices does not help and the software is up-to-date.

Spacesamurai's experience has been echoed by others, but not everyone.

Apple has had other bugs in the past related to New Year's day. In years past, Apple has had issues with alarms not going off into the new year. Fortunately, the "Do Not Disturb" feature does not disable alarms set with Apple's built-in Clock app.

Parisian Apple Store Robbed of 1 Million Euros in Merchandise on New Year's Eve

The Apple Store Opéra in Paris, France was robbed by four masked gunmen on New Year's Eve. The thieves made off with more than 1 million euros worth of iPhones and iPads.

Christophe Crepin, an Unsa police union official, told Le Parisien newspaper that 'the four hooded and heavily armed criminals made their move very quickly. Most of the police forces were being mobilised to monitor the Champs Elysees, so the robbers have clearly benefitted from this opportunity to strike.'

Mr Crepin said the robbers mainly took 'a lot of goods' and very little money. Early estimates were that the haul was worth well over 1 million euros, or close to 1 million pounds.

With Apple gadgets fetching such a high price on the secondary market, thefts of individual devices in muggings are common. However, organized robberies on Apple Retail Stores are more uncommon.

The Covent Garden location in London was attacked by a group of armed motorcycle riders in 2011, while an Apple Store employee was shot at a Virginia Apple Store back in 2009. Smash and grabs are more common, with thieves using vehicles to crash through the barricades at outdoor stores to steal merchandise.

OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion Tops Lion as Most Popular Mac Operating System

According to Web analytics firm Net Applications (via Computerworld) Apple's OS X Mountain Lion is now the most popular version of OS X, just five months after its July 2012 release.

During December, 32% of all Macs that went online were running OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. Usage of Lion, the previous iteration of OS X, dropped from 30% to 28%.


OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, first introduced in 2009, remains widely used despite its age. As of December 31, it still represented 29% of Mac Internet usage. Snow Leopard remains for sale on the online Apple Store and has been lauded for its stability.

Easily accessible and reasonably priced upgrades have always enticed Apple users to embrace operating system updates. Apple famously boasted about selling a million copies of OS X 10.7 Lion in its first day of availability, and Mountain Lion also saw rapid adoption numbers.


Net Applications collects its data by tracking browser usage of 160 million monthly visitors from around the world on approximately 40,000 websites, offering a picture of the active user base of browsers and platforms at any moment.