FEATURE Amazing iPhone hacks

Focus modes, Notifications, Settings & more

More deep cuts from your iPhone’s famous features

For fans of Focus modes, there are some interesting tips and tricks you can try. If you want to quickly change between Focus modes on the Lock Screen, touch and hold the name of the Focus mode you’re currently using, or if your phone isn’t locked, open the Control Centre (swipe down from the top-right corner), and tap and hold your current Focus mode from there. Either way, you’re shown a list of available Focus modes, from which you can choose a new one. Another quick and easy way of changing between Focus modes is by using Siri. All you have to do is say, “Siri/Hey Siri, turn on [name] focus” or “turn off [name] focus”. It’s excellent for turning off the Sleep focus first thing in the morning, for example.

You can customise Focus modes to suit your needs, and also create new ones from scratch. To edit a focus, go to Settings > Focus and tap the name of the focus you want to edit. From there, you can choose which contacts and apps you want to allow, even though all others are silenced, customise its Lock Screen and set a schedule to turn it on and off. Under Options, you can further set up the Focus by having silenced notifications appear on the Lock Screen, hide notification badges and more.

You can customise your notifications in the Settings app too. Go to Settings > Notifications, and you can choose how they arrive (as a count, a stack or a list),and you can set when scheduled summaries arrive. Scroll down for a list of apps that send notifications. Tap one to customise it on a per-app basis; set whether it arrives immediately or only in scheduled summaries, choose how alerts arrive, how they’re displayed and grouped on the Lock Screen and more.If you don’t want an app to send you notifications, turn them off using the Allow Notifications switch at the top.

You can manage a notification as it comes in too. Instead of opening Settings, simply swipe an incoming notification left to reveal two options; Options and Clear. The latter is pretty obvious, but if you tap Options you get a menu that lets you mute notifications from that app for an hour or the rest of the day, add it to your summary or turn off the app’s notifications altogether. Tap the Settings option to go straight to that app’s notification settings.

Talking of Settings, it’s a good idea to explore it again. You might be surprised. For example, in Settings > Music you