Awaken: Alarm Clock Salvation?
If you trawl the archives of this blog (why?), you might find me bashing just about every alarm clock application for the Mac. Most of this animosity is based on flaws in design that caused me to oversleep and miss some important event.
A while ago, I gathered all of this alarm-hate into a blog comment that won me a copy of Awaken, which is made by Jerry Brace.
I feel I have an obligation to write a short review this software, since I basically got a free copy just for bitching about how everything else sucks.
Awaken can run as a daemon without the application open or the menubar icon present, which is my preferred method, but you can have either of those things showing if you wish.
I’m not sure I like the big clock on the main window, but I really like the way the interface is segregated. Unlike Alarm Clock, there is a nice window dedicated to management, rather than just a menu. Unlike Aurora, the alarm management window isn’t also the interface that appears when an alarm goes off. It’s the best of both worlds.
The fullscreen alarms are nice for waking up, and any trace of Awaken vanishes when you shut off the alarm, just as it should be.
Like Alarm Clock, it can play sounds without opening iTunes, which removes the annoyance of quitting iTunes every morning and ensures you don’t sleep through a hanging iTunes Store quest that prevents music from playing.
Also like Alarm Clock, alarm settings are global, making it virtually impossible to screw up a new alarm (by forgetting to set “wake from sleep,” for example).
Awaken can’t set my default output to override headphones or function with a closed laptop (two things I love to complain about), but since I’ve never seen a solution to these two problems, I’m assuming they are limitations imposed by the operating system and thus can’t be helped without hacks that might hurt the dependability of the application.
For solving existing problems of competing alarm applications, adding none of its own, and having a great fullscreen setting, I give Awaken a thumbs up.