Rather than sounding like they were composed by a demonically possessed clown and intended for torture, each of them sounds like a pillow company start-up hired Brian Eno to make custom alarms for their app. Here are the names of some of the alarms in Bedtime: “Early riser,” “Birdsong,” “First light,” “Springtide.” I guess they aren’t that much better than the regular alarm names now that I’m looking at those (“Illuminate,” “Ripples,” “Silk”), but I do think you can tell they’re more soothing.

The best part of Bedtime, though, is that it offers an entirely different set of alarms from the main alarms tab of the clock app. This is to the enjoyment of no one, but you have to fill silences somehow. And if the notification happens while I’m out in public, it gives me something to say, which is: “Oops, it’s my bedtime!” At which point I show that, on my phone, it says it’s my bedtime. The push-alert reminder about bedtime feels sweet - like my phone is looking out for me, telling me to go to bed. As I keep my phone on my bedside table, I am not sure how it would have any of this information, but also I don’t need it, because I know how I sleep, which is: not great. The Bedtime section also offers various data about the quality of your sleep, apparently by tracking your movement in bed.

At bedtime, your phone chimes with a few notes from Brahms’s Lullaby and tells you that, if you’d like to get however many hours of sleep there are between your set bedtime and wake-up times, it is now time for bed.

There’s a tab in your clock app called “Bedtime.” Have you looked at it? Inside, you can set a bedtime and a wake-up time for yourself. (There’s a particularly bad one called “By the Sea,” which is a harsh seaside-themed tone-song, in case you’d like to feel frightened awake but also like you’re on vacation.) I don’t know why anyone would want to wake up to any of these, but luckily you don’t have to, and I will tell you how not to. Or they’re like “Marimba,” which is even worse.

You know how all of the iPhone alarm options are like this: HONK, HONK, HONK, HONK, REEEEAAAR, REEAAAR, WHOOOOOP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, or whatever? They’re so awful, just a bunch of jarring boops and beeps. This is so boring but please keep reading.

Soft alarm ringtones