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Fixit: iPhone displays wrong world time

iphone thumbnail Well, of all the things, I though you could at least count on a phone to give the right time.

I had never bothered to actually check the world times on my iPhone. I just assumed they were correct. I mean, what’s the point of technology if you had to double check everything, right?

I was fiddling on my phone during a boring meeting in office and to while away the time I started adding places to my world times list. I thought I would add Abu Dhabi (that’s in UAE for the geographically challenged) to the list even though I knew very well it was 1.5 hours behind Indian time. Heck, I grew up there, I should know. 

 iPhone showing wrong world times

Stuck in a time warp

To my surprise it showed the time several hours ahead of Indian time. So much for technology. I checked the time and date on my phone; right on the dot. What could be wrong, I wondered.

I navigated to Settings > General > Date & Time and I saw that the Set Automatically option was turned ON. I turned it OFF, set the time zone, time and date manually (don’t forget to do this) and well, that was the end of that little glitch.

iPhone world time problem fixed

Sign of the times

I wonder how I know these things. Hmmm.

Alex

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  1. Stategic IT Planning and Training
    May 8th, 2009 at 09:33 | #1

    This is a new information for me about the world clock in a iphone
    is it applicable only to apple iphone or any other iphone i am using HTC can i set this clock in this phone ?

  2. Bobby Alexander
    May 8th, 2009 at 11:41 | #2

    ‘apple iphone or any other iphone ‘ – eh? As far as I know, only Apple makes the iPhone.

    Since this seems to be a firmware issue and since the firmware is the same for the iPhone 2g and the iPhone 3g, it would be safe to assume that the problem exists for both generations of the phone. I hope this is what you meant by your statement.

    I am not sure what you meant by ‘can i set this clock in this phone?’. The world clock application shown here is for the iPhone and is available only for the iPhone.
    If you are facing the same problem on your HTC, then a similar fix might help. If this is indeed the problem, then let me know your phone model and I’ll try to help.
    Cheers.

  3. Hampton Bays
    June 21st, 2009 at 08:04 | #3

    after doing all this the phone still has the wrong time for St Barts (Gustavia). I rest the Iphone as described but the world clock still shows 7:32PM when it should show 10:32 AM ; the same as NY during the summer. they are an hour apart in the winter as ST. Barts does not use Day light savings time. How to we make them aware of this or fix it???

  4. Bobby Alexander
    June 21st, 2009 at 09:34 | #4

    The phone ought to support it. The DST changes are handled automatically by the phone and I dont think there is a provision of setting it manually.
    You can try contacting Apple about this but I am not sure how much it will help.
    Alternatively, you can check the app store to see if there are world time apps available there.

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