Israeli daylight saving time is ending. If you changed your smartphone settings, it will soon be time to switch back.
Fall back 2013
Daylight saving time (שעון קיץ / sha’on kayitz) will end this weekend, and we will be operating on standard time (שעון חורף / sha’on choref). Before you head to bed on Saturday 26 October, set manually-adjusted clocks – alarm clock, oven clock, wall clocks, and wristwatch – one hour back.
Officially, the time change takes place on Sunday 27 October 2013 at 02:00, when you will be magically granted the ability to redo everything you did wrong over the previous hour as the clocks will be moved back to 01:00.
Updating your smartphone
Many of you made changes to your smartphone such as moving your phones to the Athens time zone. Athens, like Israel, will move their clocks back an hour – just slightly different from Israel. Instead of moving at 02:00 to 01:00, at 04:00 they will change their clocks to 03:00. So, unless you are planning to be up before 04:00, there is no need to worry about changing time zones before Sunday morning.
To return your smartphone to its original settings, take the following steps:
- For Android users, go to “Settings,” then “Date and time.” Select “Automatic time zone.”
- For iOS users, go to “Settings,” then “General,” then “Date and Time.” Select “Automatic setting.”
Looking ahead to the next change
Clocks will change again on 28 March 2014.
iOS users don’t need to do anything. Apple updated the zones originally so the time would have been correct if the city was set to Jerusalem.
Raphael, I believe you are correct for those who never switched their iPhone settings or already returned them to the original settings. But, not everyone has upgraded to iOS7 (there were problems for those users earlier this month), so it is important for those users to return their settings to how they were previously set.