File photo - Actor Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson poses after putting his hands in cement during his hand and footprints ceremony in the forecourt of the TCL Chinese Theatre in celebration of his movie "San Andreas," in Hollywood, Calif. May 19, 2015. (REUTERS/Danny Moloshok)
Waking up early can be tough, but this morning I learned there's no better ally in the fight to get out of bed than Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, or at least his new app. The pro wrestler-turned Hollywood megastar has released Rock Clock (free, iOS and Android), an alarm clock aimed to push you into the morning with a full tank of motivation.
Normally when an alarm clock beeps at me to wake up, I tumble over to slap its snooze button and steal a few more minutes of sleep. At 6:30 a.m. this morning, Rock Clock gave me no such chance, because "The Rock is not a fan of that button."
The alarm tone I chose (Classic Alarm) also prevented me from going back to sleep (there are 25 alarm options). It's a recording of The Rock saying the word Beep over and over again. It's such a confusing and strange sound to wake up to that it forced me to think about how to make this stop. And once my brain starts working, sleepy time is over.
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The Rock Clock can also motivate you to achieve your personal goals, which you enter into the app. To that measure, Johnson includes daily videos, in which he provides motivation and positive affirmation. In one video, The Rock and a friend named Johnny sat on a roof at sunrise and rapped a song about getting up. The whole thing reminds me of the TNT show hosted by The Rock called "Wake Up Call," in which Johnson tries to motivate folks to get healthy.
Other Rock Clock alerts include "Good Morning Sunshine," in which Johnson serenades you with acoustic guitar riff that starts out gentle and ends with the phrase "get your candy ass out of bed." Fans of The Rock's days spent feuding with Stone Cold Steve Austin and Hulk Hogan may prefer the "Old School" alarm, which is an audio collage of his WWE catchphrases.
Dog lovers may want to turn on "Beats By Hobbs," an alarm compiled using sounds from The Rock's dog. Johnson's app also includes a tone for those who prefer felines. "Battle Cat" will wake you up with meows set over a drum-beat that reminded me of "We Will Rock You."
If you want to live life at The Rock's fast and furious pace, the alarm will also wake you up at Rock Time, which is at reportedly the same early hour that Johnson wakes up. This morning's time was 4:45 a.m., which is too early for me.
The one annoying part of Rock Clock is that it requires you to keep it open all night, which keeps your phone's screen illuminated. While this may deter some, I made it tolerable by setting my brightness to zero and turning my phone upside-down.
Maybe after a while I'll get used to The Rock beeping at me in the morning and the alarms will lose their ability to keep me awake, but for now, I'm ditching iOS's built-in alarm clock for Rock Clock. What alarm clock app do you use?
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