You probably use the iPhone’s “Alarm” app every day or almost every day. Morning wake-up, reminders, the early beep… But have you ever explored all its corners? Recently, a discovery made by the famous YouTuber Marques Brownlee highlighted a little-known feature… and quite surprising. It isn’t a groundbreaking gadget, but a small detail in the interface that could intrigue curious users. This detail appears precisely when creating a new alarm. You tap “+”, you set the time using the wheels (hours / minutes), as usual. So far, so good. But by scrolling, for a long time, in the hours or minutes column, you notice something: these wheels are not looping.
In other words, they do not automatically snap back to zero after you cycle through all the numbers. A visual detail? Not only: it reveals a somewhat different behavior than what many are used to on “scrolling” interfaces.
What this discovery reveals
What first strikes users is that this non-cycling wheel is unexpected. On many devices, the hour or minute wheels are in a loop, allowing you to go back to 0 or 59 after a full rotation. Here, that’s not the case. Scrolling up or down triggers continuous scrolling, with no automatic return.
Marques Brownlee illustrated this discovery in a video: he scrolled the wheel for a long time, showing that contrary to what many people imagined, these wheels do not “loop.” Since then, several users have tested it on their own iPhones and confirmed. Apple has not officially commented on this point, fueling speculation. Is it a deliberate choice (to avoid getting lost between minutes/hours)? A coding legacy? Or simply a bug left behind in older versions, but tolerated?
Why this iPhone secret might interest you?
Maybe you’re thinking, “Why should I care?” In practice, this detail doesn’t have a major impact on the alarm’s effectiveness. It still rings, it reminds, etc., as usual.
But there is a morphological and UX (user experience) angle that matters. This type of wheel continues to slightly change how you interact with the time setting. For some people it may feel smoother, for others, a bit confusing at first.
In the end, this Apple Alarm app secret doesn’t radically change your wake-up routine, but it does remind you that smartphones still hide plenty of little quirks. Details like this, once uncovered, add a touch of charm to everyday usage, and sometimes even a better understanding of what we use every day.
If you own an iPhone, take a moment to test this infinite scroll in your alarm settings. Try it, have fun, and share.
