Mobiles usher in phoney daylight saving's sleep-in

Mobile phones and PDAs may be loaded with more gadgets and gigabytes than ever, but a mountain of mobiles that adjusted for daylight savings a week early proved they can still be foiled by the tick of a clock.

Mobile phones and PDAs including makes from Nokia, Blackberry, Siemens and Motorola, new and old, wound-back clocks an hour according to the old daylight savings system which has been pushed forward a week for NSW, Victoria, the ACT, Tasmania and South Australia.

The decision, made last year, was factored into many carrier network clocks, but some mobile devices either refused to accept the changes or were configured by default to update without checking cellular networks.

“I was having a barbecue and people showed up an hour early as far as I was concerned,” Nokia user Jessica Ross said.

Abigail Swabey, a Nokia e65 and 3 Network customer said she woke up Sunday morning and "thought I was going mad when I woke up late and the clocks were out”.

BlackBerry 8310 user and Vodafone customer Serena Leith said the bug, which updated the clock again this morning, caused her to miss crucial appointments.

“It’s a real pain! And [my phone] did it again this morning when I switched the power off and on,” Lieth said.

“How to screw a persons weekend, lose, gain, lose an hour, reset appointments and generally completely [messed] with your life! Smartphone my arse!”

Retail salesman Jamie Sulman said he was alerted to the glitch when his friend rang his Telstra Nokia N-Series phone to ask why he was an hour late to training.

“He's technically illiterate, and he thought blaming the clock was just a cop-out,” Sulman said, adding he lost a rather lucrative bet for missing training.

GoodGearGuide journalist David Ramli was also affected when his BlackBerry 9707G wound back an hour.

Older Motorola and Siemens phones were affected along with a mix of Nokias.

Telstra warned users in affected states and Western Australia - which remained on the traditional day light savings switchover - to double check mobile clocks were correct.

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