Awaken: It’s Time To Wake Up!

Posted by Tucker MacDonald on 02/7/07 in Applications, Giveaways, Home & Personal, Music

Every morning at 6 I get a pleasent wake up call. This nice wake up call comes from my computer. Specificly, the call comes from Awaken. Awaken is by far the best alarm clock program for the Mac. What does it use as an alarm? There are many choices, but you can use any iTunes song or playlist, the latest episode of your favorite podcast, or 6 sounds that are included in the latest beta. Awaken has many features, and the eye candy doesn’t hurt.

Awaken is great, and if you don’t believe me, just take a look at some of the showcased features:

Egg Timer
Use the egg timer for quick one-time alarms for taking a quick nap or timing the oven.

Backup Alarm
No more excuses, if iTunes has a problem at alarm time, the backup alarm will wake you.

Sleep Timer
Fall asleep with the sleep timer, which can also put your Mac to sleep.

Need to countdown the time until something happens, then have an alarm go off at that time? That is what an Egg Timer is for. Simply select Timers > Egg Timer from the menu bar and customize your Egg Timer.

An Egg Timer.

Another feature that is very nice that Awaken comes with is full screen alarms. When the alarm goes off, Awaken will go into a FrontRow-like interface (even works with the Apple Remote) with the song name, artist, and album displayed.

Awaken is a very lightweight, powerful, and loud (or quite) alarm clock. Alarms and timers are fully customizable. In the 3.1 Beta 3 version you can even have alarms launch any file. You do this by simply dragging the file you want launched into the ‘drop-well’ when creating or editing your alarm.

Launch Any Item!

You can get this amazing alarm clock for a mere $8.95 USD. If you want to try it out before you buy it though, there is a 14-day demo version available from EmbraceWare. To stay up-to-date on all Awaken related news, check out the blog.

Awaken is a great alarm clock application and has you covered, you can easily set up a backup alarm so if that first alarm doesn’t go off, the second alarm will be right behind it to make sure you get out of bed and get on your way. The current release is great, we can’t wait to see what Awaken has in store for the future. Check it out.

Giveaway Time:

We have five copies of Awaken to be given away. Just leave a comment on the post and our team here will review them, and the best five will receive a free copy.

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56 Comment(s)

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Sherb said on

February 7th, 2007 at 12:55 am

I got Alarm Clock Pro awhile ago and it wasn’t that great, but I am going to try Awaken… it looks beautiful.

Jeremy said on

February 7th, 2007 at 12:58 am

Ive looked at programs like these before, but I am always worried they wont work if my computer goes to sleep or what not.

Stretch said on

February 7th, 2007 at 12:59 am

Nice review. I’ve tried Aurora before, and I’m not very impressed. This looks like it may be somewhat better.

Zach said on

February 7th, 2007 at 1:09 am

I use Aurora now…it satisfies my needs but there are still some more things I’d like out of an alarm clock. Awaken looks like it fits the bill! Thanks for the review and the giveaway MacApper!

Michael Yurechko said on

February 7th, 2007 at 1:22 am

@ Jeremy.

That’s one of the great features of Awaken. It will wake your computer while in sleep mode minutes before and exactly at the time, it will set off the alarm.

Rennervater said on

February 7th, 2007 at 1:31 am

The good old radio alarm clock has never failed for me Though this looks awsome

Paul Stamatiou said on

February 7th, 2007 at 1:57 am

I don’t see why this is so popular.. I like my alarm clock. Also, what happens if at night the power goes out momentarily, causing my iMac to reboot and stay at the login screen. No wakeup call for me! (even if i had set it to launch it at boot it would still be hung at the login screen)

Justin Knowles said on

February 7th, 2007 at 3:40 am

@ Michael

Will Awaken wake my PowerBook when the lid is closed?

Yohannes Wijaya said on

February 7th, 2007 at 6:03 am

I have been using Aurora for some time now. It has tons of features and the price cant be beat although from gui interface, awaken is delicious no doubt.

alej744 said on

February 7th, 2007 at 7:08 am

Awaken is a very delicious app. It has some nice features and lots of eye–candy.

But I prefer Alarm Clock (http://www.robbiehanson.com/alarmclock/), because it does not need to open iTunes to play the alarm. And you can’t beat the price. It’s free.

wph said on

February 7th, 2007 at 7:12 am

Awaken is an awesome app. I tried it out once, but didn’t think it was worth the cash.
It’s ridiculous that we spend so much time with clunky alarm clocks when our macs are 100x more powerful and Awaken is 300x more elegant.

fcodc said on

February 7th, 2007 at 7:17 am

This program would be like a blessing for me, because I have to wake up every morning at 5am to the whining of an old alarm clock.

Indraneel said on

February 7th, 2007 at 9:20 am

I see why people would like this, but my alarm clock has set some sort of a twitch in me. Whenever I hear that BEEP I bounce into alertness. Even in the daytime.

Adam Harding said on

February 7th, 2007 at 12:01 pm

That looks nice. I tried alarm clock pro and it wouldn’t wake the computer up from sleep mode to get me up which makes it useless as an alarm program.
I’d love to give this a try, looks like it would go well with a macbook pro, but alas, I shall have to use it on my powermac g4 and, dare I utter it, 15″ crt monitor.
Nice site and review btw

Andre said on

February 7th, 2007 at 1:34 pm

@Paul: Use your MacBook. It’s got a battery, after all.

Jeremy S said on

February 7th, 2007 at 2:10 pm

I am thinking about getting this for my macbook. Anything would be better than having to wakeup to my annoying alarm. Can you stop and snooze the alarm with the apple remote?

Jerry Brace said on

February 7th, 2007 at 2:23 pm

@Jeremy: In the Awaken preferences you can set the Play/Pause button on the remote to function as stop or snooze.

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tomnook10 said on

February 7th, 2007 at 5:13 pm

Hmm…Awaken sounds awesome! I really like the Back-Up features and the feature that opens an app when the alarm goes off! The front-row-like interface is pretty awesome too! Good job, Embraceware!

Dave said on

February 7th, 2007 at 5:55 pm

A very polished app at a very fair price. I love the graphic on their site with the alarm clock sitting in the trash.

shadownight said on

February 7th, 2007 at 8:24 pm

I would truly love to use Awaken (or its free competitor, Aurora), but two issue arise: first, I don’t have a computer in my room… Of course, this isn’t the fault of the developers, but it’s fair to assume that not everyone has a computer in their room. The second issue is this: to wake me up, the music has to be reasonably loud. But what if I hear my brother’s heavy metal that I despise? You’re basically imposing your music choices onto the whole household, and at a very early hour. (That said, a traditional alarm clock ringing in another room while you’re trying to sleep is pretty disagreeable as well).

But all in all, Awaken and Aurora look like really great apps for the right audience. I’d love to be able to use it when I buy myself a Mac for my room, in the coming months…

Richard said on

February 7th, 2007 at 8:55 pm

I hear Awaken even protects us from meteors.

Jerry Brace said on

February 7th, 2007 at 9:35 pm

@ShadowNight: Several Awaken users who don’t have a Mac next to them are using an AirPort Express which has AirTunes. Since Awaken plays iTunes music you can have the it stream anywhere in your house with AirTunes. Just thought I’d throw that our there as a possible solution. G’night

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Aleksander R said on

February 8th, 2007 at 2:18 pm

Awaken is truly the best of all alarm clock for Mac.

Damien said on

February 8th, 2007 at 2:28 pm

Sure seems like a good idea, but is there a way to make it kick on at multiple times, e.g. every two hours? I’d like to leave my Mac on during the day while I’m at work, go into sleep when I’m not using it, and every e.g. two hours kick into gear to pull down my RSS feeds, email, etc.

minime said on

February 8th, 2007 at 2:45 pm

I really like its UI, so beautiful! It makes your day!

Daniel said on

February 8th, 2007 at 3:00 pm

Looks like a great app, I’d like to try it out.

Brad said on

February 8th, 2007 at 3:01 pm

I love it, I just can’t stand the beeping of my alarm clock!

Shawn Grimes said on

February 8th, 2007 at 3:13 pm

How does this compare to Alarm Clock Pro? I haven’t been to overly happy with ACP up to this point. I think I’ll give Awaken a try and see how it compares. From the screenshots it looks like a great application.

Charlie said on

February 8th, 2007 at 3:33 pm

I’d love to give this a try. My wife hates every alarm clock I’ve ever owned, it would be great to wake up to our iTunes library with Awaken.

ollie relph said on

February 8th, 2007 at 3:36 pm

Competition entry, hopefully this alarm isn’t as easy as my phone’s to turn off. There really should be some kind of simple puzzle added that needs to be solved before its turned off.

Horst Gutmann said on

February 8th, 2007 at 3:42 pm

Wow, if it even works when the mac is in sleep mode it could finally be a replacement for my wristwatch’s alarm

Jason T. Johnson said on

February 8th, 2007 at 4:08 pm

At the risk of developing hatred of my favorite songs for waking me up, I’d like to try this.

Son said on

February 8th, 2007 at 5:02 pm

This app looks good! I wonder how well it will work at waking me up in the morning.

Dustin Bachrach said on

February 8th, 2007 at 5:04 pm

Cool, I’d like a free copy!

CarLBanks said on

February 8th, 2007 at 5:39 pm

That sounds like a really cool idea. This would be great for naps and sleeping.

Ross said on

February 8th, 2007 at 5:42 pm

Sign me up! It’ll be fun to wake my wife with Zarvox saying “Get yer sleepy rear to work, slacker!”

Matthew said on

February 8th, 2007 at 6:18 pm

Wow this looks a lot better then Aurora, but Aurora is also free

Michael Schuermann said on

February 8th, 2007 at 6:44 pm

Count me in!

Dan said on

February 8th, 2007 at 6:50 pm

Looks good, less features than Alarm Clock Pro, but does its job well and its cheaper!

Chris A. said on

February 8th, 2007 at 7:38 pm

I tried Awaken before and it’s an awesome app. Would love to get the full version of this!

gayle t. said on

February 8th, 2007 at 9:40 pm

this looks really cool.. currently using aurora now..

Adam said on

February 8th, 2007 at 9:47 pm

My girlfriend was just complaining she needed a new alarm clock. Maybe I can convince her using her Mac Mini next to her side of the bed would be a good replacement. The desk is already 3 feet away from her, why not use it to wake her up?

Keenan said on

February 8th, 2007 at 9:55 pm

Count me in for the giveaway! I’m using Aurora and it’s good enough, but I’d like to try out Awaken.

Connor Cimowsky said on

February 8th, 2007 at 10:00 pm

Cool! I wish my parents would let me buy it with my OWN money, let alone buying me a little present

JM said on

February 9th, 2007 at 1:08 am

I need this! Something to get me to Genetics MWF…

Ryan Ponce said on

February 9th, 2007 at 1:27 am

I’m hesitant to purchase Awaken because I usually just use headphones on my MacBook, and I’m afraid that I won’t hear the alarm because my headphones are pluged in instead of my speakers.

Yong Hwee said on

February 9th, 2007 at 2:05 am

Awaken is probably the nicest looking alarm app on the Mac. A huge design change from version 2. SWEET!

Jon Kantro said on

February 9th, 2007 at 2:57 am

That sure is one beauty of an app. Probably one of the few things that would really cause to me wake up and go to class just by looking at it…that and it’s awesome iTunes integration.

Charlie Permezel said on

February 9th, 2007 at 3:22 am

Thank god someone invented such an application! I am sick of waking up to the extremely annoying alarm on my phone every morning. I think I might actually look into this program!

Edward Scherf said on

February 9th, 2007 at 5:02 am

I could most definitely use a good alarm clock program. I too have been using Alarm Clock Pro, and I have to say, I wasn’t that pleased with it… but this program; top notch for sure! Count me in on a free copy

Smaran Dayal said on

February 9th, 2007 at 8:05 am

I’d have to contest your claim of it being “the best alarm clock application for the Mac”. Aurora pwns it without even trying. And it’s free.

Dim said on

February 10th, 2007 at 1:13 pm

Hmmm. Waking up to my music instead of the old school annoying alarm clock sound? I’m in. =]

Enrique said on

February 10th, 2007 at 4:46 pm

Nothing beats waking up to the wonderful sound of my mac… I want a copy!

Babar said on

February 15th, 2007 at 6:33 pm

Hmm, looks beautiful! There are many alarm clocks out there but all are either too complicated or too expensive. This one seems to fit all the criterias. Good Work!

Sajid Fakir said on

February 20th, 2007 at 8:59 pm

I tried others and they failed me nearly to the point of losing my means of making a living. I demoed this appp and it is really good. It does wake your computer from sleep. I have tried it. It works. I hope I win. This is my first time posting on this blog.

rwebber said on

April 10th, 2007 at 4:12 pm

Definintely need another alarm clock. My “other” clock is not dependable. This one looks very good.