The recent Knesset decision to extend daylight savings time in Israel until 27 October 2013, will bring frustration to many smartphone and tablet owners in Israel. Many phones are set to change over to standard time this motzei Shabbos, 3 Tishrei 5774. This is because in previous years the country ended DST on the last Shabbos before Yom Kippur.
For many of the devices, the date to changeover was programmed into the phone or tablet in line with the norm in Israel, which changed this year. Last summer the Knesset decided to change the date from September 8th to October 6th, but that was not sufficient and another change was voted into law months later. Therefore, some devices will change over on September 8th, this coming motzei Shabbos.
Some cell phone companies have begun sending SMS text messages to clients to change their device time zone to Athens, Greece until October 27th, at which time they change back to the Israel setting.
Samsung announces that it is working on sending out an update that will take care of all the phones imported by the official importer in Israel. All other Samsung owners will have to change manually. Apple announces new devices are updated and in the coming weeks, its version 7 of the operating system will be released and this will contain the new dates for standard and daylight savings times. This update is for iPhone model 4 and higher and iPad 2 and higher.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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2 Responses
It should not be hard to adjust since the dates of the switch very between countries, and vary from year to year. It would be a serious flaw to make a device that couldn’t be adjusted to reflect such variety.
The same rocket scientists who couldn’t figure out that the fast on Yom Kippur will still be 25 hours, whether they start an hour earlier or later, will also be the ones challenged by how to reset the time zone of their phones. Moral of the story is to stop tying to make the world for 99 percent of the Yidden in EY so complicated to accommodate the chumrahs or preferences of a small minority.