iOS: ZenAwake ditches loud, sharp alarm sounds or music in exchange for a kinder, gentler way to bring you out of a night's sleep. Ten minutes before you're scheduled to wake, the app sounds a gentle chime. That chime increases in frequency slowly over the following ten minutes to draw you up out of a deep sleep naturally instead of just jarring you awake.
You can see the idea behind ZenAwake in the video above. We're not totally sold on whether there's real science behind the whole "golden ratio" calculation behind the wake-up chime, but it can be nice to hear a gentle sound to begin the waking process that slowly gives you time to rise out of a deep sleep and get to the point where you're ready to reach over, turn the alarm off, and get up to start your day. Once you do wake up, ZenAwake greets you with an inspirational quote or passage to get your day off on the right foot.
ZenAwake is brand new, and currently iOS-only. The developers told me that they're interested in seeing how the iOS version does first and how much interest there is in an Android version. You can sign up at their site (link below) to be notified when the Android version is available. In the meantime, iOS users can grab the universal app for $2 in the iTunes App Store.