Helpful Focus Modes
iOS 15 brings what’s easily the most significant change to Apple’s notification system in years, allowing you to go beyond a simple Do Not Disturb switch to defining multiple “modes” to give you an unprecedented level of control over the people and apps that can reach you at any given time of the day.
Out of the box, iOS 15 will offer a few basic Focus Modes for things like personal, work, driving, and sleep, but you can customize these and even add more of your own. This means you can cover everything from “Quiet Time” and “Reading” to “Gaming” and “Exercise.”
For each Focus mode, you can control the people and apps that will be able to send you notifications, along with which calls will be allowed to break through. You can also choose to hide notification badges on your Home Screen and bring up custom Home Screen pages when the Focus is active to help reduce distractions and concentrate only on those apps you need.
After all, there’s less temptation to pop into Facebook and see what’s going on when the Facebook app isn’t luring you in with an unread badge count — or even on your Home Screen at all.
Special Focus modes are also available with appropriate settings for Driving, Sleep, Fitness, Gaming, and Mindfulness. The Driving Focus replaces the former “Do Not Disturb While Driving” feature, and the Sleep Focus replaces the Bedtime setting from iOS 14, but both can still be triggers in the same way — the Driving Focus will come on when you connect to your car’s Bluetooth or CarPlay system, and the Sleep Focus kicks in at Wind Down.
Along the same lines, a Fitness Focus can turn on automatically when you start a workout in a supported app, such as Apple’s Fitness+ app on the Workout app on your Apple Watch, while a Gaming Focus can engage as soon as a wireless game controller is connected to your iPhone.