【Terms of service】

It always hits me when I'm least expecting it. When I'm standing in a crowded room,Terms of service say. Or, when I pop out for my lunch break to grab a quick sandwich.

I'm talking about the skin-crawlingly intrusive sound of the iPhone alarm clock being emitted from a stranger's phone. A sound that, to me, is akin to nails on a blackboard.

My alarm clock is the oh-so-familiar default "Opening" sound. It sounds once at 7am, then again at 7:05am, and then again at 7:10am. And, let's be real, at 7:15am, too. At this ungodly hour of the day, this alarm clock is far from pleasant. But, it jolts me out of my very deep sleep and brings me (unwillingly) into the land of the living.

I don't really have an issue with "Opening"—the sound that yanks me from my peaceful slumber each morning—but I do take exception to hearing this sound when I am conscious.

In fact, when I'm up, awake and doing my thing during the day, the very last thing I want to hear is "Opening" as a ringtone on someone else's phone. Whenever it happens, my heart races, my face reddens, and angry thoughts rush to my head.

And, yes, I'm aware that one simple touch of my finger could change my alarm sound to something completely different. But, this is the sound that's been waking me up for the past six years of my life. Why should I change? Why can't people set themselves a new ringtone? Or, even better, how about Apple removed Opening from its ringtones altogether?

It seems that I am not alone in my extreme reaction to the sound of the iPhone alarm. A viral tweet posted by @Y2SHAF attracted over 239K likes and 79K retweets, which suggests it struck something of a chord.

"The sound of the iPhone alarm clock literally makes me feel sick," he wrote. Literally, same.

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Another tweet by @shedyrskin went further, and I have to agree with it. "Fuck ppl who have radar as their ringtone," read the tweet. "You have no idea the emotional damage you do to people around you."

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But, if we're being truly fair, then perhaps we shouldn't blame the humans who unwittingly go about causing nausea, emotional damage, and who-knows-what-else in us poor iPhone alarm users.

It's Apple's fault for allowing people to set alarm tones as ringtones. Keep ringtones and alarm tones entirely separate. Problem solved, right?

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