Apple Just Changed the Way You Turn Off Alarms on Your IPhone.
If you’ve been using an iPhone for a while, you might remember the “swipe to unlock” feature. To unlock your iPhone, you had to physically swipe your finger across the screen. This was a clever way to ensure that your iPhone wouldn’t unlock in your pocket or by accidental touch.
In iOS 10, Apple ditched the swipe-to-unlock feature, replacing it with pressing the Home button and then swiping up from the bottom of the screen. For nearly a decade now, swiping right on the lock screen simply opens the Today view with widgets. Change is a good thing, and I don’t think Apple necessarily needs to bring back swipe-to-unlock, but sometimes I miss the way things worked on my old iPhone 3GS. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug.
To my absolute surprise, the company brought back the slide-to-slide feature, but not for unlocking. Instead, you can now swipe to turn off the alarm , which might surprise anyone accustomed to the usual alarm clock routine. Imagine: one morning, you tap the screen to turn off the alarm as usual; the next morning, your taps are useless, and the alarm continues to blare. Bleary-eyed, you stare at the screen, searching for the new “Slide to Stop” feature. If you’re like me, you’ll follow the instructions, swiping to turn off the alarm, only to forget the whole ordeal a moment later, doomed to repeat it the next morning.
This change arrived in iOS 26.1 , released on Monday, and Apple isn’t giving you any say in the matter, at least at first. After updating to the latest update, your next alarm or timer will include a “Next” slider (though the “Snooze” and “Repeat” buttons will remain), but I’m perfectly happy with this switch. I like it, and it brings back a fun feature from iOS’s heyday. But if you don’t like this change and would rather just tap a button to turn off alarms and timers, the good news is that’s still possible.
How to disable the swipe to stop alarm feature
Apple has hidden the option to restore alarms and timers, so I wouldn’t blame you for not even knowing they exist. You won’t find them in the Clock app’s settings page, which is a bit confusing. Instead, they’re part of a hidden system setting called “Prefer single-tap actions.”
This setting disables sliders in iOS and replaces them with buttons. In our case, it turns “Slide to Stop” into a simple toggle button. To find it, go to Settings > Accessibility > Tap and turn on the switch next to “Prefer Single Tap.”