I don’t want to brag, but I sleep without they tyranny of a daily alarm clock. I usually wake as the sky begins to lighten, turn on an FM news station to see what the world did to itself overnight, then roll out of bed when I need to. Unless I have an early morning conference call, I just don’t need an alarm clock.

Freedom from alarms ends when I travel. I don’t trust any hotel to wake me on time, so I set the alarm in my Nokia. I miss the radio, but I don’t trust the hotel or their clocks.

For a grand total of $0.99, now I continue to trust my Nokia without giving up my NPR. FM Alarm Clock from DSS lets me set multiple alarms, and I can chose to wake to a tone of my choosing or an FM radio station of my selection. It even allows me to select a screen saver that displays the time and alarm status, just like a clock radio.

The opening screen is simple enough. Set an alarm with New Alarm, see what alarms are already set with Active Alarms, and allow FM Alarm Clock to supply a screen saver with Display Settings. I went straight to New Alarm.

The first three fields let you set the date, time, and title (description) of your alarm. For example, a 6:00 AM that repeats every morning might be “wake-up”, you could set up other repeaters to remind you when to take medications, etc.

I was most interested in the Alarm Type field, where you can change the default setting of Tone to FM Radio. At this change the app pops up a momentary message reminding you to attach a Headset. The N97 does not include an internal FM antenna — it uses the wires in the headset as an antenna. Don’t worry the app knows enough play the station through the Nokia speakers, not through your headset.

Now it’s time to select FM Radio Station and tell the app about the NPR station I want to listen to in the morning.

You can Set stations, or if you have already set some stations you can select one from the list. If you have not yet set up any stations you will not see the Station list option.

Minor glitch

During station set-up I encountered a problem with the app. To enter the FM frequency of KUAZ, my local NPR station, I need to type in ” 8 9 . 1 “. However, when I press the key sequence I would expect to accomplish this, the app instead enters ” 8 9 ‘ 1 ”

I was able to compensate for the keyboard configuration error by pressing the Fn key before pressing ” . ” The Fn key is that little blue arrow. It was a minor problem for me, but in reading online comments at least one user gave up on the app, convinced it was impossible to enter a valid FM frequency.

Image courtesy NokNok.TV

Aside from the keyboard issue it was smooth sailing. Sure enough, now I can set an alarm that turns on an FM radio station.

Other features

• When you have one or more alarms set, the app’s home screen changes to give you a fast way to disable the next scheduled alarm:
  
• You can see and manage all active alarms in one screen:
  
• You can set up a screen saver that looks a lot like an alarm clock, but one that can let you know if you have any missed calls or unread text messages:
  

Minor glitches #2 and #3.

There are two other minor problems with the app: 

1. The screen saver is by default set to portrait orientation, and there is no way to set it for landscape. As a clock radio, the natural position for my N97 is on the nightstand, slide open to make it easier to read when in bed. In my opinion portrait only makes sense for devices such as the Nokia 5800 Xpress Music, but not for the N97.
2. This next item is more of a tip than a glitch. Users report the app tends to run down the battery of the N97 overnight. That’s not a problem for me, as I usually plug in my device to charge overnight. I make sure I use an efficient charger so I don’t waste too much energy.

Minor glitches aside, I’m happy with FM Alarm Clock. It allows me to continue to rely on my Nokia to wake me when I travel, without forcing me to give up my daily dose of NPR.