Terms of Use

Last updated: November 11, 2026

In short

The Alarm is free and works without an account. The Alarm Pro is available as a subscription, which you take out through the App Store and can cancel at any time in your Apple Account settings, or as a one-time purchase.
Your data lives only on your iPhone. We have no copy and can't restore anything – so set up a backup.
We do a lot to make your alarms ring on time, but we can't guarantee it: in the end, iOS decides. For appointments you mustn't miss under any circumstances, turn on the safety net and set a second alarm.
Apple's license agreement for apps from the App Store applies in addition to these terms.

1. Provider and scope

(1) These terms apply to The Alarm app on iPhone and to The Alarm Pro (together “The Alarm”). The provider is Luca Efinger, Friedrich-Ebert-Ring 16, 97072 Würzburg, Germany, email contact@lacodea.com (“we”). More details are in the legal notice.

(2) You get The Alarm from the App Store. Apple's Licensed Application End User License Agreement (standard EULA) applies to it. These terms add what applies to The Alarm; where the two conflict, the standard EULA prevails.

(3) How we handle data is explained in the privacy policy.

2. What The Alarm offers

(1) The Alarm is an alarm app that works like a calendar: alarms for any day, with rules, exceptions, public holidays, vacations and shift rhythms – plus a world clock, stopwatch and timers. The app and its App Store page describe what it currently does.

(2) You use The Alarm without an account. What you enter lives on your iPhone; The Alarm doesn't need a server of ours for this.

(3) We keep developing The Alarm. We may change The Alarm if there is a valid reason – such as new technology, security, a change in the law, changes to Apple services The Alarm uses, or new features –, if this causes you no additional costs and if we inform you clearly about the change. If a change affects your access to The Alarm Pro or its usability more than insignificantly, we inform you in good time beforehand about the nature and timing of the change and about your right to end the contract free of charge within 30 days of this information or, if later, of the change (Section 327r of the German Civil Code, BGB).

3. Your data and backups

(1) The Alarm keeps everything on your iPhone. We receive none of it – and therefore can't restore anything either. If you lose your iPhone or delete the app, your data is gone unless you have a backup.

(2) So set up a backup under Settings › Backup, in a place you choose. If you set a password, nobody can open the backup without it, not even us. Keep it in a safe place.

4. The Alarm Pro

(1) The Alarm is free, without ads and without a limit on the number of alarms. What reliable waking needs – including the evening check, the safety net and the trial run – stays free. The Alarm Pro unlocks more, such as shift plans, important alarms, the wake-up check, your own and talking sounds, the good-morning card, the morning routine, alarms by your calendar and by the sun, and the designs. The app shows what's included before you buy.

(2) The Alarm Pro is available as a subscription – monthly or yearly – and as a one-time purchase. You buy it through the App Store; Apple handles the payment, and Apple's Media Services Terms and Conditions apply. You see the prices in the app before you buy, including VAT.

(3) Subscriptions renew automatically for the chosen period unless you cancel at least 24 hours before it ends. Payment is charged to your Apple Account when you confirm the purchase, and for each renewal within 24 hours before the end of the period. After you cancel, the subscription stays active until the end of the paid period. You manage and cancel subscriptions in your Apple Account settings.

(4) If you haven't had a subscription to The Alarm Pro before, you can try the yearly subscription free for 14 days. Unless you cancel at least 24 hours before the end of the free trial, the paid subscription begins. The monthly subscription and the one-time purchase have no free trial.

(5) You pay for the one-time purchase once; it doesn't renew. If you also have a subscription, it keeps running until you cancel it with Apple.

(6) You can share The Alarm Pro with up to five other family members through Apple's Family Sharing – both the subscription and the one-time purchase.

(7) If you switch between the monthly and the yearly subscription, Apple governs when the new subscription applies and how the current period is credited.

(8) When Pro ends, your alarms keep ringing the way you set them up – including everything you set up with Pro. Your data is kept. Without Pro, you just can't change Pro settings or turn them on again. Designs, colors, fonts and app icons from Pro go back to the default; with Pro, your settings come back.

(9) Because Apple handles the purchase, refunds and the right of withdrawal are governed by Apple's rules. You can request a refund at reportaproblem.apple.com. Your statutory rights remain unaffected.

5. Your content

(1) What you add to The Alarm belongs to you. It lives on your iPhone; we don't receive it.

(2) Only import sound files you're allowed to use, and only record other people's voices with their consent.

(1) You share a shift plan without a server: as a QR code or as a file, through apps you choose. It only contains the plan's name, pattern, start and kinds of shifts. We don't see shared plans and don't store them.

(2) Only share a plan if you're allowed to pass it on. If you open a plan someone sent you, check the alarm times before you save – everyone needs different ones. You save a new shift plan, including a shared one, with Pro.

(3) The same applies to a single alarm you share as a QR code or as a file (“.thealarm”) and to a running timer or a stopwatch you share as a QR code or a link: no server of ours is involved, and we don't see or store them. Only share what you're allowed to pass on; The Alarm only takes over what someone sends you once you confirm it.

7. What The Alarm reads, calculates and suggests

(1) The Alarm reads rosters automatically – on iPhones with Apple Intelligence also with its help, on the device. Apple Intelligence also fills in alarms in your own words. This can be wrong: check every day and every setting before you save. More in the AI notice.

(2) The Alarm works out the snooze coach, bedtime, the sleep plan and the sleep shown in the week view from your alarms, shifts and mornings. These are suggestions, not medical advice.

(3) The shift count and rest times count what's in your plan. What gets paid and which rest times apply to you is governed by law, collective agreements and your employer. The Alarm is no replacement for legal advice or payroll.

(4) The Alarm comes with public holidays for the years 2026 to 2028, from the free date-holidays collection. They may be incomplete or change, especially regional holidays. Check under Settings › Public Holidays whether they're right for you. For later years, The Alarm needs an update.

(5) Weather forecasts come from Apple and can be wrong. The weather lead only asks you whether your alarm should ring earlier; it doesn't change anything by itself.

(6) Alarms by your calendar follow the events The Alarm finds in your calendar. If you add an early event at short notice, briefly open The Alarm afterwards so it can reschedule the alarm.

8. Reliability of alarms

(1) The Alarm sets your alarms through AlarmKit, the alarm system of iOS. In the end, iOS decides when an alarm rings. We do a lot to make your alarms ring on time, but we can't guarantee it. An alarm may ring late or not at all – for example because of a bug in iOS (there are reports that iOS sometimes fires alarms late on locked iPhones at night), if your iPhone is off or its battery is empty, if you take back the permission for alarms, or if your iPhone's date, time or time zone are wrong.

(2) For appointments you mustn't miss under any circumstances – a flight, an exam, the start of a shift –, don't rely on a single alarm: turn on the safety net (a notification at the same time as the alarm), use the trial run to check that you hear your alarm, use a backup alarm with Pro, and set a second alarm as well, ideally on another device.

(3) The Alarm schedules alarms with rules for the next 30 days at a time and keeps rescheduling them: when you open the app, after every change and in the background, as far as iOS allows. So open The Alarm every now and then; the evening check tells you whether everything is scheduled.

(4) We can't promise that the Apple services The Alarm uses – such as weather, Home or Apple Intelligence – are always available. If one fails, only the feature that needs it is missing; your alarms still ring.

(5) Your statutory rights in case of defects of digital products (Sections 327 et seq. BGB) remain unaffected. We provide the updates needed to keep The Alarm in line with the contract (Section 327f BGB). Install updates to use The Alarm securely and reliably.

9. Liability

(1) We are liable without limitation for intent and gross negligence, for damage resulting from injury to life, body or health, under the German Product Liability Act, and where we have given a guarantee or fraudulently concealed a defect.

(2) In the case of slight negligence, we are only liable for breaches of essential contractual obligations – obligations whose fulfillment makes the proper performance of the contract possible in the first place and on whose fulfillment you may regularly rely – and only for the foreseeable damage typical for the contract.

(3) We are only liable for the loss of data to the extent that it would also have occurred with regular backups.

(4) These rules also apply if an alarm doesn't ring or rings late.

(5) Otherwise, our liability is excluded. These rules also apply in favor of our representatives and vicarious agents.

10. Term and termination

(1) The contract of use runs for an indefinite period. You can end it at any time by deleting The Alarm from your iPhone; before that, Settings › Privacy › Delete all data removes everything The Alarm has stored. This doesn't end a running subscription – cancel it with Apple.

(2) We can terminate the contract of use with four weeks' notice, for a subscription no earlier than the end of the paid period. We don't terminate the one-time purchase with notice: you can use what you bought as long as The Alarm runs on your iPhone. Both sides' right to terminate for good cause remains unaffected.

(3) Your data lives on your iPhone. If you want to keep it, back it up first.

11. Changes to these terms

(1) We may change these terms for the future if there is a valid reason, such as new features, a change in the law or security reasons.

(2) We inform you about changes that affect you in the app at least six weeks in advance. Changes that only benefit you or that the law requires apply from the announced date. For all other changes, we ask for your consent; if you don't agree, the previous terms continue to apply to you, but we may then terminate the contract under section 10(2).

12. Final provisions

(1) The law of the Federal Republic of Germany applies, excluding the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. If you are a consumer habitually resident in another country, you keep the protection of that country's mandatory provisions.

(2) If you are a merchant, a legal entity under public law or a special fund under public law, the place of jurisdiction is Würzburg.

(3) We are neither willing nor obliged to take part in dispute resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration board.

(4) These terms are available in German and English. If the versions differ, the German version applies.

(5) If a provision is invalid, the rest of the contract remains valid; the statutory provisions take the place of the invalid provision.