In the iOS 26 beta, Apple has rolled out a revamped design for the Clock app’s alarm screen, featuring a more streamlined appearance. The time display has been enlarged, and the buttons are now significantly bigger. When an alarm sounds, users will see two large, equal-sized buttons labeled Stop and Snooze, placed side by side at the bottom of the screen.
This redesign aligns with Apple’s ongoing visual refresh in iOS 26. However, it also appears to revisit a previously addressed issue: the risk of inadvertently pressing the Stop button rather than Snooze when you’re in a half-asleep state. Interestingly, past internal testing suggested that having both buttons of the same size could lead to more mistakes.
Jack Fields, a former Apple engineer and head writer at Kernel Extension, noted that the new layout contradicts findings from research he conducted during his time at the company. This testing involved tracking user interactions in a version of the Clock app, which used heat maps to determine where users were tapping on the screen as they woke up. The results were somewhat surprising; when the Stop and Snooze buttons were identical in size and placed closely together, users were 30% more likely to hit Stop accidentally.
This data ultimately led to the design choices in recent iOS versions, which feature a prominent, centered Snooze button, with a smaller Stop button further down the screen. Fields explained that this configuration requires users to be more awake to accurately hit the Stop button. While it is important to remember that this is beta software and changes may still occur before the final release, the redesign raises questions about whether a more symmetrical, simplified user interface is always beneficial.
Additionally, Apple has introduced a feature allowing users to customize the snooze length, which is a welcomed improvement. This flexible adjustment can range from 1 minute to 15 minutes, replacing the previous fixed snooze time of nine minutes.
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