iOS 26.1: How to get rid of the hard-to-turn-off alarm
Apple has introduced a small hurdle with the latest iOS update when you turn off your alarm in the morning. Fortunately, it's not mandatory.
The iOS 26.1 alarm can be turned off with a swipe: Not everyone likes this.
(Image: heise medien)
Anyone who has updated their iPhone to iOS 26.1 will be confronted with a new feature in the early morning (or when setting other time-controlled signals): instead of being able to deactivate the alarm with a simple button press, you now have to perform a swipe gesture. The idea behind this “Slide to Stop” is to prevent sleepy users from accidentally turning off the alarm—as is apparently supposed to have happened before. Only the snooze function is accessible with a simple click as usual. However, there is a way to reverse the behavior.
Swipe gesture returns
Apple had already been tinkering with the alarm design for some time. With iOS 26, there were two equally sized buttons for “snooze” and ending the alarm. Although the end button was colored dark and thus, at least subjectively, harder to hit even when tired, there seem to have been cases where users deactivated the alarm completely instead of snoozing. In iOS 18, Apple had a different solution: the snooze button was centrally placed and large, while the alarm deactivation was small at the bottom.
Videos by heise
Why the design change occurred in the first place is unknown. In any case, iOS 26.1 now features the aforementioned change: the old swipe gesture, with which you could previously unlock your iPhone (“Slide to Unlock”), returned for the alarm. But this also doesn't seem to please some users, as they may lack the necessary coordination skills in the early morning. People with disabilities and/or mobility impairments may also not be happy with the new design.
Press instead of slide
Apple does not allow changes to the new function within the alarm settings. Instead, the iPhone manufacturer has hidden the deactivation well, and it doesn't just apply to the alarm. Anyone who wants to get rid of the swipe gesture should first go to System Settings and then to the “Accessibility” section. Here, look for the second main section, “Physical and Motor,” and go to “Tapping.” Then scroll all the way down: Here, “Prefer single tap actions” must be activated.
This ensures that “a single tap is required for the user interface instead of a swipe action,” according to Apple. The result is the old behavior from iOS 26: When the alarm rings, you see two large buttons again: “Snooze” and “Stop.” The only difference: The stop button is darker and therefore harder to hit. It should also be considered that all swipe actions will become buttons in the future.
Empfohlener redaktioneller Inhalt
Mit Ihrer Zustimmung wird hier ein externer Preisvergleich (heise Preisvergleich) geladen.
Ich bin damit einverstanden, dass mir externe Inhalte angezeigt werden. Damit können personenbezogene Daten an Drittplattformen (heise Preisvergleich) übermittelt werden. Mehr dazu in unserer Datenschutzerklärung.
(bsc)
