iOS 16 Focus Guide: What's New With Apple's Focus Mode

[4492865]

I was sceptical too but have started using it after severe notification fatigue, mostly messages and WhatsApp, and it works. And in the evening I hide entire home screens with work apps.

I like that in iOS 16 I can also hide work accounts from the calendar and mail, because that was still missing.

Wish they could also filter messages and phone calls by sim for dual sim configurations.

 

[x-evil-x]

The standard DND still exists with Focus Modes. There's even a default one named Do Not Disturb.


Focus Modes let you do exactly that. I use my Work mode to silence everything but a few apps and the rest go to Notification Center/Lock Screen instead of lighting up or vibrating my phone. There are options in iOS 15 to have silenced notifications go to the Lock Screen or not as well as hiding notification badges on the Home Screen.

But how? If I use any of the focus modes and allow the apps I want to show notifications those make the screen pop up with it.
I don’t want that. I want them to show on the lock screen without Turning on the screen. It hasn’t been like that since iOS 14 before all the focus stuff.

 

[BWhaler]

All these features, and I don’t see the one thing that I hate about the current implementation: ability to turn off notifications. The notification badges draw you in and distract you just as the much As the notification pop up’s. With all the features and complexity Apple added, they missed this?

 

[return2sendai]

I'm not sold on this entire focus functionality. Those seem so complex to set up. Tim I just need notification throttling so I don't get 10 beeps in a row from the same chat, while listening to music on my way to work.

It’s called an iPod Classic. Disconnect to reconnect.

 

[Octavius8]

Silly me using the “vibration” switch.
How about useful features?, like “up next widget?.
Another feature designed to make the phone slower by eating tons of RAM.

 

[Octavius8]

Is it still possible to have a plain “do not disturb” mode for the majority of persons who do not want to spend so much time an effort to understand how to put the phone in “do not disturb”?.
Make it simple!.
And this is the killer feature of IOS 16… super advanced OS.

 

[alexhardaker]

The focus feature in iOS 15 was too complicated for me, so I didn’t really set it up apart from sleep focus. It actually didn’t feel very Apple-like at all - it felt like I was using Android or Windows.

When I tried to set up the work one, I had to alter my Home Screen of apps for it and I didn’t want to mess with it, so I didn’t bother. It should let you swap out home screens - so you would essentially design a new Home Screen for that focus mode when setting it up, as though you were adding apps to your brand new phone for the first time.

I don’t know if focus in iOS 16 will be any easier to use, but I’ll check it out.

What also is really complicated is Siri Shortcuts. It takes a lot of effort to get your head around it.

I was getting annoyed with my Apple Watch not telling me my iPhone battery level when I asked it (after adding a shortcut for battery level), so I removed it and tried setting it up again. It took me a while to figure out how to set it up so that it spoke the battery level out loud. I tried it on my watch again, but the battery level was wrong again.

I ended up searching online for how to do it. I found out that the watch reports the battery level of the watch and you can’t set it to tell you your iPhone battery level. That makes the shortcut completely useless to me. If I’m going to ask Siri on my phone, I might as well just swipe down from the top corner to view it myself.

All of this ‘advanced’ set of features and I couldn’t even get my idea to work. I think this has happened a few times; every idea I have had has not been possible.

I do have some set up for when I’m going to do a workout or when I can’t see if it’s dark etc, but I never use them. I’ll forget the commands for them because I don’t run my life with everything organised to every second of the day where automations and shortcuts would be really useful. We’re not robots.

 

[cupcakes2000]

Ironically enough, people won't be able to focus enough to get Focus modes set up!

Are you suggesting a focus mode for the focus modes? 😂🤯

 

[virgiliolagrela]

If you take some time that’s the best feature they intrude in years for productivity and lower screen time on my phone.

 

[sdz]

Wow this looks like an over-engineered mess.

 

[SenorWhyMe]

i always wanted to learn focus mode now i’m just going to ignore it entirely

 

[FelixDerKater]

Next it will present just the notifications and lock screens you need based on an assessment of your facial expression via the FaceID camera.

Maybe it could also link up with the heart rate monitor in the watch to keep you as stress-free as possible.

Ok, they’re sitting down. It’s time to display the charged text message.

 

[svish]

Revamped focus mode is good. So many changes.

 

[femike]

Focus mode as it is now is unnecessary complex and it's a mess. As people have commented above.
Can I assume staff with university degree with a sharp tongue have designed this? If so, they need to replace them with people who can and understand design from the point of view of the user, of course.

 

[agostonbarna]

I'm already a big fan of Focus mode, and the new features look pretty exciting.
It's true that it requires some set up, but only need to do it once, and it helps a lot with focusing on the things that are the most important. The Focus modes also sync well between my Apple devices: Mac, iPhone & Watch so it's a quite seamless experience. Most of the time there is even an automatic trigger that enables/disables it without having to do anything, so I only have to enable it manually in some special cases like in the cinema, and then I can schedule e.g. for 1h, until the evening, etc, and probably I could also set up a location based automation for this, I just don't trust that too much.

• Sleep focus: It helped me to achieve a consistent sleep pattern. Configured it to remind me to wind down x minutes before sleep and to hide the notifications and badges from some of the apps that I know would just keep me awake, and it worked pretty well. I sleep and feel so much better since I use this feature.
• Morning focus: I like to e.g. read in the morning, and don't want to start the day with a 100 notifications, mails, etc, because those will make it harder to concentrate on my morning goals, so I have a focus mode that turns off the notifications in the first 2 hours of the day and then turns them on again (used a time-based automation).
• Work focus: it helps me to work without unnecessary distraction: it can already turn off the notification for some specific apps, but still receive the important ones (also a time-based automation).
• Fitness focus: I can workout without distraction: I don't want to get calls & notifications during workouts. The focus mode automatically turns on when I start a workout in a fitness app (e.g. Workout, Intervals Pro) and turns off when I end it.
• Movie focus: automatically turns on when I start a movie on my Mac and turns off when I quit it, so I'm not annoyed with notifications. Actually, this is a bit buggy and sometimes I still get a notification during a movie, but it could be a bug in my choice of video player (IINA) too. This is the only Focus mode bug that I have experienced so far, and I can live with it (but of course I hope Apple/IINA will fix this bug in the next release).

The focus filter look quite powerful to me, but the Focus mode specific lock/home screen also look interesting, will try that out too.
Thanks Apple!

 

[chucker23n1]

I take it setting DnD to locked-only is still gone? https://www.macrumors.com/2021/09/21/ios-15-do-not-disturb-feature-removed/

 

[Unami]

This seems like far more trouble than it's worth. As a somewhat "power user" it looks like an overly complicated way to still not get exactly what I want. A little like using MS Windwows. Fortunately, for most users this is just a little feature bloat in the already crowdes, confusing settings app.

I just counted: When I go to system preferences on my desktop, there are 31 options to click on. When I'm in the Settings of my iphone, there are 50, sometimes six layers deep (Plus another 60 app settings to go into).

 

[Slix]

But how? If I use any of the focus modes and allow the apps I want to show notifications those make the screen pop up with it.
I don’t want that. I want them to show on the lock screen without Turning on the screen. It hasn’t been like that since iOS 14 before all the focus stuff.

If you allow those app’s notifications to go through, of course it lights up the screen. It sounds like you want the default Do Not Disturb and the option for “Show on Lock Screen” on.

 

[mdatwood]

I'm already a big fan of Focus mode, and the new features look pretty exciting.
It's true that it requires some set up, but only need to do it once, and it helps a lot with focusing on the things that are the most important. The Focus modes also sync well between my Apple devices: Mac, iPhone & Watch so it's a quite seamless experience. Most of the time there is even an automatic trigger that enables/disables it without having to do anything, so I only have to enable it manually in some special cases like in the cinema, and then I can schedule e.g. for 1h, until the evening, etc, and probably I could also set up a location based automation for this, I just don't trust that too much.

• Sleep focus: It helped me to achieve a consistent sleep pattern. Configured it to remind me to wind down x minutes before sleep and to hide the notifications and badges from some of the apps that I know would just keep me awake, and it worked pretty well. I sleep and feel so much better since I use this feature.
• Morning focus: I like to e.g. read in the morning, and don't want to start the day with a 100 notifications, mails, etc, because those will make it harder to concentrate on my morning goals, so I have a focus mode that turns off the notifications in the first 2 hours of the day and then turns them on again (used a time-based automation).
• Work focus: it helps me to work without unnecessary distraction: it can already turn off the notification for some specific apps, but still receive the important ones (also a time-based automation).
• Fitness focus: I can workout without distraction: I don't want to get calls & notifications during workouts. The focus mode automatically turns on when I start a workout in a fitness app (e.g. Workout, Intervals Pro) and turns off when I end it.
• Movie focus: automatically turns on when I start a movie on my Mac and turns off when I quit it, so I'm not annoyed with notifications. Actually, this is a bit buggy and sometimes I still get a notification during a movie, but it could be a bug in my choice of video player (IINA) too. This is the only Focus mode bug that I have experienced so far, and I can live with it (but of course I hope Apple/IINA will fix this bug in the next release).

The focus filter look quite powerful to me, but the Focus mode specific lock/home screen also look interesting, will try that out too.
Thanks Apple!

Agree. I also use a Camera focus so I don't get notifications while in the camera app and trying to frame a shot.

It's interesting to see the people who think the new options are too complicated. I always though DnD was too blunt to be useful. Where Apple is headed with Focus is exactly what I wanted allowing certain apps and people to punch through while limiting other stuff.

I wonder if the people who don't see the point, just don't get many notifications? I ruthlessly manage notifications, but still get a lot from personal and work.

 

[adrianlondon]

• Movie focus: automatically turns on when I start a movie on my Mac and turns off when I quit it, so I'm not annoyed with notifications. Actually, this is a bit buggy and sometimes I still get a notification during a movie, but it could be a bug in my choice of video player (IINA) too.

I don't know whether the bug still exists, but in Ventura B1, Mail notifications still played a sound regardless of any Focus setting. In B2 you can remove email accounts, per Focus mode, you're not interested in so that could be a workaround in this case.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

And Focus is the feature I have had the most issues with. It seems to assume far too much, and tries to be too helpful. The wife enabled Sleep, and it all went off the rails, and trying to turn it off was a mess too.

People hate it when others say this, but under jobs, these kind of issues (it's believed) were looked at and dealt with. His (imagined?) attention to detail was legendary, and usually seemed to avoid a lot of cumbersome and illogical UI issues. macOS has a lot of issues that I believe wouldn't have been allowed under earlier leadership. Having a megalomaniac leader does have its benefits.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

I don't know whether the bug still exists, but in Ventura B1, Mail notifications still played a sound regardless of any Focus setting. In B2 you can remove email accounts, per Focus mode, you're not interested in so that could be a workaround in this case.

Wow. It seems like Focus has become a huge complicated mess. I shared a calendar with the wife, and Focus was enforcing her meeting DND's on me, frustrating getting calls and messages. I couldn't seem to find a way to stop it from happening, and ended up not sharing the calendar. Oddly, her meetings weren't DND'ed on her account, but they were on mine. Weird...

 

[FooArk]

Any setting that has legacy DND? Receive notifications while phone is locked; silenced when phone is locked.

It was all so simple...

 

[FooArk]

The standard DND still exists with Focus Modes. There's even a default one named Do Not Disturb.


Focus Modes let you do exactly that. I use my Work mode to silence everything but a few apps and the rest go to Notification Center/Lock Screen instead of lighting up or vibrating my phone. There are options in iOS 15 to have silenced notifications go to the Lock Screen or not as well as hiding notification badges on the Home Screen.

This is an inaccurate statement.

 

[agostonbarna]

I don't know whether the bug still exists, but in Ventura B1, Mail notifications still played a sound regardless of any Focus setting. In B2 you can remove email accounts, per Focus mode, you're not interested in so that could be a workaround in this case.

It's nice that it will be possible to allow/disallow the notifications for specific mail accounts, though I expected that to be optional, and by default the notifications to be disabled globally for the app, but have an option to also set up a more fine grained focus filter if one has more specific needs.
Hope that is just a bug in the beta release as it's still in early stages. Or maybe your focus mode had the Allow time sensitive notifications enabled?
Thanks for sharing this, can't wait to see the final version.