'Alarm Clock' is a free application that can transform your Mac into an alarm clock.
The name of this application is pretty suggestive. The main functionality of this program is to control your Mac and make it behave like an alarm clock.
The alarm can be easily set from its panel. You have to provide the time and the type. There are two types of alarms. It can be a one-time alarm or a repeating alarm. The repeating alarm is based on weekdays. You can also turn the alarm off, on a certain day of the week.
The alarm clock functionality can wake up your Mac, if it's sleeping. To wake up your Mac, the application provides authentication functionality in the 'Preferences' panel. The wake up feature requires a one-time user authentication.
The alarm clock feature can also play songs. If you provide a playlist from iTunes, the application will play it when it wakes up. The application doesn't depend on this functionality. It can play the regular alarm clock sound.
Besides the alarm clock functionality, the application has several other features. The program has a built-in timer and stopwatch. The timer can play a sound when the countdown ends. The stopwatch doesn't have the support for tens or hundreds of a second, but it can display the lap time.
The 'Preferences' panel doesn't have many options, so it won't be hard to configure. You can customize some of the alarm clock functionalities. You can use an 'easy wake' functionality that uses incremental volume increase, when starting the alarm. The 'Advanced' area allows you to use a one-time authentication, which is required by the wake-up functionality. It can also modify the keyboard's behavior, it can enable the support for Apple remote, or it can have Alarm Clock launch at login.
Pluses: The program has some interesting features, like the alarm clock with wake-up support, a stopwatch, and a built-in timer.
Drawbacks / flaws: The stopwatch functionality could be improved.
In conclusion: This application is comparable to
Aurora. Alarm Clock has fewer features, but it's more stable and it uses less resources.
version reviewed: 2.4.2
