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Today’s smartphones are powerful computers we carry around in our pockets.

The list of impressive iPhone features is far too long to list, but I have always been stumped by one glaring omission. How, in the year 2021, can you still not adjust the length of time of the ‘snooze’ feature on the alarm?

I mean, even those old-school Nokias, which doubled as self-defence weapons in time of need, allowed you to tinker with the length of a snooze.

Ideally, I would be looking at a seven-minute snooze duration (that’s my personal preference, honed over years of trying to put off waking up to face the world), but you have your own choices to make, and you should be allowed to exercise them.

The added bonus of a seven-minute snooze is you can activate it twice, and your snoozing still comes in at under 15 minutes.

Someone at Mashable is similarly frustrated, and decided to look into why we are having nine minutes thrust upon us:

The main theory behind why the snooze period was set to nine minutes is a technical one. The snooze function had to be worked in around the existing gearing of a small alarm clock, and keeping the time period as high as it could go while remaining in single digits is said to have presented a more logical technical solution.

The secondary reason, which may be due more to user experience, is that nine minutes is a satisfactory time for a brief rest. If you get past the 10-minute mark, your body may start to fall into a deep sleep, making waking up again more unpleasant.

I care not for either of these excuses.

The most obvious and simple workaround, without having to download anything or tinker too much, is to set multiple alarms.

Set one for 6:45AM, for example, and then another for 6:52AM.

Importantly, make sure you deactivate the snooze option on the alarms:

Image: Mashable / Amy-Mae Turner

The second option is to use a song with the duration of your preferred snooze time as your alarm.

Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ is just under six minutes, but if you would prefer to snooze a little longer, you could go for something like Lynyrd Skynyrd’s ‘Free Bird’ (just over 10 minutes) or Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Voodoo Child’ (15 minutes).

Those are the lengths of the official songs downloaded from iTunes.

Once you have your song sorted, here’s what comes next:

…go into your Clock app and tap edit, then tap on the alarm you want to change from a tone to music.

Halfway down the screen, you’ll see the option to change the alarm’s “Sound.” Tap this. In the next screen, tap the “Pick a song” option.

Your iPhone will now bring up all your music options. Simply tap through to find and select the song you want to wake to.

The idea here is that when the song finishes playing, you’ll know it’s time to rise.

I think this is a risky approach, and there’s also the fact that you’ll grow to resent whichever song you have chosen with a deep passion.

Finally, you could always download another alarm app, many of which are free.

‘Alarm Clock‘ is one of those, and under ‘Snooze Interval’, you can pick the exact length of time you desire.

Once you’re up, remember to carpe diem and all that, too.

[source:mashable]