Tabulator: Alarm clock showdown

Mac users must be extremely heavy sleepers, because there is no shortage of alarm clock software for your Mac. If you need to wake up, your Mac will get you up. But which one rules the rooster?

Aurora, a popular choice, recently updated to version 4, and went from donationware to a licensing setup (a single copy will now run you EU$15.00. And Awaken was recently included in the Macheist bundle, but could it be that a donationware app like Alarm Clock 2 will do what you want, or is Koingo Software's Alarm Clock Pro the way to go?

We decided to wrap them all up into one big table-- app vs. app vs. app vs. app for a wakeup showdown. After the jump, find our first Tabulator battle (thanks to sister site Joystiq for the slick formatting) and discover which clock and timer program deserves to press play on your wakeup playlist.

	Alarm Clock 2	Alarm Clock Pro	Awaken 4	Aurora 4
Authorship and Pricing
Made by	Robbie Hanson	Koingo Software	Embraceware	metaquark
Version	2.4.5	8.2.9	4.0.11	4.0
Price	Donationware	$19.95	$12.95	EU$15.00 (US$22.09)
Trial	N/A	15 days	14 days	14 days
Requires	10.4 or later	10.4 or later	10.4 or later and iTunes 6.0 or higher (10.3 can use version 3)	10.5 only
Universal	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Wake up!
One-time alarm	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Weekly alarm	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Relative alarms	No	Yes	No	No
Set alarm exclusions	No	Yes	No	Yes (skip next occurence)
Name alarms	No (uses default time and date)	Yes	Yes	Yes
Setting to wake computer on alarm	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Snooze alarm	Yes (adjustable)	Yes (adjustable)	Yes (adjustable only in 5-10 min increments	Yes (adjustable)
Adjustable alarm duration	Yes	Yes	Yes (adjustable only in 5-10 min increments	Yes
Wake up to...
iTunes playlist	Yes	Yes (can pause/resume as well)	Yes	Yes
iTunes podcast (without playlist)	No	No	Yes	Yes
iTunes/MP3 stream from URL	No	Yes	Yes (using scripts)	Yes (using launcher)
Custom sounds (without iTunes)	No	Yes (audio or video. ajustable playback speed)	Yes (updated)	Yes
System functions	No	Many, including screensaver, screenshot, shell commands, internet functions, and system alerts	Run application	Launch any file
Multiple events per alarm	No	Yes (many)	Yes (can play sound and launch item)	Yes (can play sound and run app)
Fade-in	"Easy Wake" (adjustable)	Yes (adjustable per alarm)	Yes (adjustable per alarm)	Yes (adjustable)
Sleepy time
Sleep Timer	No	No	Yes	Yes
Sleep out of...
iTunes	No	No	Yes	Yes
DVD Player	No	No	No	Yes
Quicktime movie	No	No	No	Yes
Extras
Egg Timer	Yes	Yes	Yes	Kind of (can use sleep timer to count down)
Stopwatch	Yes	Yes	No	No
Menubar item	Yes (no other main GUI)	Yes (shows time and can create and edit alarms)	Yes (shows upcoming alarms)	Yes (shows upcoming alarms)
Alarms outside of program	No	No	Yes	Yes
Hourly chime	No	Yes	No	No
Fullscreen mode	No	No	Yes	Yes
Apple Remote support	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Growl compatibility	No	Yes	No	No
Album display during playback	No	No	No	Yes
Automatic updates	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Other extras	Not really	Chronoindex (whatever that is), Time zone calculator, Task list (with speakable events), Uptimer, Swimclock-- there's a lot of stuff in here	Good looking interface, backup alarm	Impressive sleep timer, nice display, EyeTV compatibility

Update: Ironically, I stayed up late doing a post about programs that help you wake up early, so if there are changes that need to be made, just post them in the comments, and I'll make sure the table stays updated. Already, we've identified one problem (a series of features in the table were listed under the wrong app), so if you see more, let me know and I'll fix it.

Also, this table reflects the defaults for the app's UI-- lots of things can be accomplished with Applescript or other tweaking, but the features listed in the table are according to whether the app itself offers an option, without extra coding.

Finally, already one developer has appeared in our comments and promised to update their app, so thanks to all the developers for going under the microscope for us-- all four of these are great pieces of software.
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