Hello!
When setting an alarm in an AlarmKit app, the alarm will not fire properly/reliably (the alert presentation is not shown) while the device has an app foregrounded in the landscape orientation. This behaviour has been present since the betas, however until the first party Reminders app showed the behaviour in the iOS 26.2 beta I suspected the issue was in my own code.
The behaviour is exhibited when scheduling alarms in several AlarmKit apps:
- The Reminders app
- The AlarmKit WWDC Demo Project
- My own AlarmKit app
However alarms scheduled by the stock Clock app do not seem to exhibit the behaviour.
Minimal repro with first party app:
- Be using iOS 26.2 beta
- Open Reminders app
- Create an urgent reminder for a time in the not too distant future
- Open Mail.app
- Change to landscape orientation
- Wait for the fire time
- Observe the phone vibrates at the correct time but no alarm is fired
- Drag the notifications pane down, observe the LiveActivity has been started
- Change to portrait orientation
- Observe alarm fires
I have noticed this behaviour from the AlarmKit apps mentioned while foregrounding other apps besides Mail, both first and third party:
- Photos
- YouTube
- Netflix
The behaviour does not seem to occur when the foregrounded app is restricted to portrait mode, no matter the actual orientation of the device.
In the case of my own app I have tried a multitude of ideas to get it to work reliably, getting alarms to fire in landscape is very intermittent at best and most often works after a fresh reboot.
I've submitted a Feedback for the Reminders app: FB20956492.
Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated!