A glitch with Apple Inc.'s iPhone alarm gave some users a late start to the new year.

The alarm application on the smartphone failed to work for alarms that were set for one-time use only -- as opposed to recurring -- on the first two days of 2011, triggering complaints of oversleeping.

Some iPhone-dependent sleepers, who found themselves late for work, church or other commitments because of the glitch, hopped on the social-networking site Twitter to complain.

'Dreaded iPhone alarm problem,' wrote someone who identified himself as a pastor. 'I guess [I] didn't need to be on time for church?'

Another person complained of missing a flight.

A spokeswoman for Apple acknowledged the issue, saying that 'customers can set recurring alarms for those dates and all alarms will work properlybeginning Jan. 3.'

Apple declined to comment further about the exact nature of the glitch, but some Internet blogs said the problem was primarilyaffecting the iPhone 4 and older models that were updated with the latest software.

Indeed, some iPhone users on Twitter boasted that their alarm clocks were working just fine.

This isn't the first time that iPhone users have had problems with the alarm function. Just a couple months ago, users in the U.S., Australia and Europe unintentionally overslept by an hour when their alarm clocks failed to register the end of daylight-saving time.

That time, however, the bug manifested itself when using the repeating alarm for a setting other than 'every day.' It didn't affect those who set their clocks for one-time use.

Meanwhile, some Twitter users took the episode as an opportunity to tweak iPhone fans, expressing relief for using a rival device such as Research In Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry or even more conventional methods.

One user asked, 'Whatever happened to actual alarm clocks?'