Your iPhone Automatically Changes Time For Daylight Savings Time

BY Jason

Published 4 Nov 2012

Daylight Savings Time

We’re seeing a number of users on Twitter wondering if iPhone’s clock will automatically move back an hour to mark the end of Daylight Saving Time.

The short answer is “Yes”, your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and even your Mac will automatically move back an hour on their own.

You don’t need to set the time back manually as long as you have correctly set the timezone.

But it is not surprising to see users worried about the timezone change as until last year there were bugs that resulted in all sorts of issues. The good news is that Apple has fixed the daylight savings related bugs in iOS 5 or later so you shouldn’t see an issue this year.

In case, your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch did not move back an hour automatically, then you probably need to check the following:

  • Ensure that Location Services for “Setting Time Zone” has been enabled (Settings -> Privacy -> Location Services -> System Services > Setting Time Zone). You may have disabled it to improve battery life. If it was not enabled, then enable it and reboot your device.
  • Your iOS device is on iOS 5 or later.
  • You iOS device is not in airplane mode. If it was in Airplane mode, turn it off and reboot your device.

Let us know if your iOS device moved back an hour correctly today.