iOS 15 will be bringing a significant revamp to iPhone notifications later this year, according to today's livestreamed WWDC Apple event. They are calling it the "Focus" revamp, as it's all meant to improve your ability to focus on what you want to be doing in a given moment, and block out unnecessary distractions.
For the visual changes, Apple is adding contact photos to appear alongside their related notifications, along with larger app icons from automated notifications—so you won't have to squint to see who's sending you what.
Furthermore, iOS 15 will finally begin sorting those endless columns of notifications into groups, so you know which ones to prioritize, and which ones can go on the back burner.
The Notifications Summary
A new feature, called the Notifications Summary, will be collecting those grouped notifications and keeping them at the ready so you can view them at any time you choose. You can even schedule to receive them at a specific time of day of your choosing.
For example, perhaps you want to take most of the day to focus on your work and other tasks, but you want to be able to sort through what's new in the morning as well as during your lunch hour. You can tell your iPhone to collect all of it for you and deliver it at exactly those times.
How does Apple know which app notifications to categorize where? It turns out it's native artificial intelligence that Apple is employing to analyze the way you use your apps throughout the day, in order to deliver you their summary and notifications in the most optimal way possible for you.
Rather than chronologically sorted, these summaries will be organized by priority, so that you will see the most important ones first.
Messages from real people, on the other hand, will appear as normally, so you won't have to worry about missing any of those.
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People can now see if you have Do Not Disturb on—and choose whether to respect it
Additionally, not only can you use Do Not Disturb mode to silence all notifications and summaries, but Apple now allows your friends to see when you have DNB turned on, in order to let them know that you need to focus and will see their notification at a later time.
If their message is extremely urgent, however, Apple gives friends a way to get through your Do Not Disturb barrier and notify you anyway.
FOCUS lets you choose what it is you want to focus on right now
The new Focus feature is essentially a hugely upgraded and diversified Do Not Disturb feature, which lets you choose whether you want to concentrate and only deal with either work, or personal things, or fitness, or absolutely nothing—if you just want to sleep and have some peace from the everyday hassle.
You can fully customize exactly what you want each mode to filter through, although Apple uses the pre-gathered analyses to suggest relevant apps to you to make the Focus setup easier.
The Work Mode in Focus, for example, can be used to only allow coworkers' messages and work-related media apps to send you notifications.
The Personal Mode, on the other hand, can be customized to block out work-related or other notifications, and only let in personal messages and entertainment. Apple intelligently suggests you enter a certain mode if it recognizes it may beneficial to you—such as the Fitness mode if it senses that you're working out.
You can also create your own personalized notification filters aside from the default ones which Apple has prepared for you.
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