Alarm Clock Pro, Virtual Alarm Clock

OS X does not have any sort of built in alarm or event handling features other than the schedule options in the Energy Saver preference pane, which are also not that complex. Some pieces of software can be configured to do certain things at certain times, but most of them are simplistic and fall prey to the unpredictable state of your computer which could very well be sleeping or shutdown at the time the event triggers. Furthermore, while iCal can be set for example to remind you of a certain event, there are only a certain limited amount of things it can do when that reminder triggers.

As such, for a comprehensive event reminder and alarm handling solution you need to turn to third party solutions such as Alarm Clock Pro.

What it does

The core functionality of Alarm Clock Pro is to be a virtual alarm clock. It has several functions related to this such as the ability to remind you of events and perform a large number of actions when an alarm is triggered, as well as other time related features such as a timer, stopwatch, calendar and chronoindex. While the base functionality is pretty simple and there are many other programs that do the exact same thing, what sets Alarm Clock Pro is the attention to details.

Working with it

The core functionality of Alarm Clock Pro revolves around events. Other features of the program such as the stopwatch are more like widgets that have a set functionality and that are not really configurable except on the most basic of levels.

Events are quite simple to work with. Every event needs a name, which will also help you identify the event at a later time, and a time and date. The way you set up the time and date, depends on what kind of alarm you want to have, the choices being Regular, Relative, Chime and Timer. While this program offers a lot more flexibility than Apple's default solution, it does not have the same approach. Alarm Clock Pro focuses more on precision, using months, and dates, but not letting you choose 'every Wednesday' for example.

Once a date and time have been set, you can tell the program what you want to happen when that event triggers. The choices here are many, ranging from bouncing the application icon to taking a screenshot. Of course, in that long list of options is the ability to play a sound or movie or an iTunes Playlist.

Alarms can behave in one of two ways; they can react to user input by either stopping or snoozing. An alarm that snoozes can ring up to five times, and you can set the delay between each snooze on an event-by-event individual basis. As such, the program can function exactly like a regular alarm clock.

Actions

The actions that are performed when an alarm triggers are many and very varied. The list visible in the window itself is quite long, but that is a shortened list as many things are often grouped or have additional options that make them quite versatile.
Unlike actions in other alarm keeping applications, which are susceptible to the state of the computer that may very well be shut down or sleeping, with Alarm Clock Pro there are no such issues. This is because of the built in Power Manager, which can be used to ensure that your alarms will be triggered.

Configuration can be done automatically, with just one click. The program will look at all the alarms you have set up and configure OS X's built in power management to wake the computer up or power it on, two minutes before the event, over the next 31 days. This ensures that the computer will always be on to perform all the things you set it up to do. However, if you simply want your computer to be in a certain state at a certain time, you can manually add the Power Management entry.

The Good

Very comprehensive solution with all the bells and whistles you could wish for. Has all the functionality of a regular alarm clock and more in, an easy to use interface.

The Bad

While the interface is easy to use, it is not the most well structured one I have ever seen. Most of the time, to do something, you have to go through several other 'pop-up' windows where you set additional features. While this approach does save window space, in the main window all the extra steps and additional windows make things seem over complicated.

The Truth

If you want one application that can handle just about any event or alarm related desire you might have, take a look at this one.

Here are some screenshots, click to enlarge: