Apple talks every year about chips, AI, cameras, and performance.
As it turns out, one feature from iOS 27 that recently went viral in China’s social media circles is actually quite ordinary:
Alarms.
September 20 is the workday before China’s National Day holiday that’s been arranged due to make-up work. Even though it falls on a Sunday, people still have to go to work.
In the past, repeated iPhone alarms were set primarily based on the day-of-week, so when users ran into China’s unique make-up work/rest schedule, they often had to manually change their alarms.
iOS 27 adds a new setting called “Weekdays (including make-up work),” which lets you take statutory public holidays and make-up workdays into account together.
After I encountered a real make-up holiday for the first time yesterday, there were lots of discussions online about “Apple’s alarm finally rang.”
In fact, this is a great example of product design:
Localization doesn’t necessarily mean just translating the interface into Chinese.
What’s truly deep is understanding the local people’s life rules.
As it turns out, one feature from iOS 27 that recently went viral in China’s social media circles is actually quite ordinary:
Alarms.
September 20 is the workday before China’s National Day holiday that’s been arranged due to make-up work. Even though it falls on a Sunday, people still have to go to work.
In the past, repeated iPhone alarms were set primarily based on the day-of-week, so when users ran into China’s unique make-up work/rest schedule, they often had to manually change their alarms.
iOS 27 adds a new setting called “Weekdays (including make-up work),” which lets you take statutory public holidays and make-up workdays into account together.
After I encountered a real make-up holiday for the first time yesterday, there were lots of discussions online about “Apple’s alarm finally rang.”
In fact, this is a great example of product design:
Localization doesn’t necessarily mean just translating the interface into Chinese.
What’s truly deep is understanding the local people’s life rules.
