Patent ID: 8063751

Claim:
A method of controlling an alarm for providing alerts on a mobile device at predetermined times, the mobile device having an alarm application stored in memory and an alarm status indicator to indicate the status of the alarm at a particular location on a display of the mobile device outside of the alarm application, the method comprising: storing on the mobile device, one or more settings associated with at least three states for the alarm, a first of the states being off, a second of the states being active, and a third of the states being active and suppressed for a predetermined time period; upon the first state being active, the indicator being visually absent from the particular location on the display; upon the second state being active, displaying the indicator in the particular location on the display of the mobile device; and upon the third state being active, the indicator being visually absent from the particular location on the display for the predetermined time period, wherein the mobile device transitions between the second state and the third state according to the predetermined time period to thereby indicate that the alarm will only be triggered outside of the predetermined time period.