iOS 27 Beta Adds Separate Alarm Volume Control After Years of iPhone Complaints

Q: iOS 27 fixes the iPhone alarm, but why does it ignore the most important one: your morning wake-up call?

It does not ignore your morning wake-up call; that alarm is already handled separately. Apple’s new iOS 27 fix adds a dedicated volume slider for standard alarms and timers under Settings > Sounds & Haptics > Alarms and Timers. That solves the long-running problem where alarm loudness could be unintentionally changed along with the iPhone’s ringtone volume, causing missed alarms or alarms that were too quiet. The exception is the Sleep Schedule or Wake Up alarm, the one many people use as their morning alarm. Apple did not fold that into the new system because it already has its own independent volume control. In other words, the wake-up alarm was not left out by mistake; it was already separated from the general ringer setting before iOS 27. Users can adjust that morning alarm by going to the Clock app, opening Alarms, tapping Change in the Sleep/Wake Up section, and then using the Sound & Haptics volume slider there. That setting remains distinct from the new iOS 27 alarm-and-timer slider. So the practical change in iOS 27 is this: ordinary alarms and timers now get the same kind of dedicated control that the Wake Up alarm already had. The update improves reliability for most alarms, but it does not add individual volume controls for each separate alarm.

3 articles · Updated · Boy Genius Report · Jun 13

A new iOS 27 beta setting lets iPhone users set alarm and timer volume independently instead of tying it to ringtone volume.
Under Sounds & Haptics, Apple added an Alarms and Timers section with a “Match Ringtone Volume” toggle; turning it off unlocks a dedicated volume slider.
The change targets a long-running complaint that alarms could be missed because users accidentally lowered shared system volume, making troubleshooting unreliable.
Though small, the feature closes a gap with some Android phones and could reduce guesswork around missed alarms as Apple readies the broader iOS 27 rollout.