Notifications

It's easy (and annoying) to be distracted by your phone's alerts and incoming calls. Follow this tip on turning on your iPhone's silent mode if you need some peace and quiet but don't want to enable Do Not Disturb. Here's how to put your iPhone's ringer on silent while the baby is napping or you're watching a show, or if you just find the sound of a phone ringing unpleasant.

With the latest iOS update, you can do more with your iPhone even before unlocking it. Here's how to respond to your notifications directly from the Lock screen. For iPhone 6s or later, you'll use 3D Touch. For the iPhone XR, you'll just use long press or swipe and tap. 

When your phone is locked, you can glance at the notification previews to see if you need to respond to something. But that means other people can too. Fortunately you don't have to turn off notification previews altogether to ensure your privacy. Instead you can set your notification previews to only be visible when your iPhone is unlocked. For iPhone X and later, Face ID works to keep your information secure. But if you have an older phone and have at least iOS 11 or later, this tip also works by using Touch ID.

iPhone notifications and alerts can be really helpful, or they can be disruptive; luckily there's a way to change the way we receive Lock Screen notifications on iPhone, so we're not overwhelmed. With previous operating systems we'd have to go into the Settings app to change email, app, and iMessage notifications, but with iOS 12 on iPhone, a Lock Screen notification is easy to customize without entering Settings. Apple calls this process Fine Tuning; let's get started learning how to Fine Tune your iPhone notifications without leaving the Lock Screen. 

I love getting Notifications from News in my iPhone's Notification Center, but I get new ones so quickly that a story I didn't have time to read right away can get buried. That's why I was excited to find out that I can save these stories for later, so I don't miss out on the news I really want to read. Let's get started learning how this feature works so you can do the same! 

The iPhone's latest operating system, iOS 12, groups notification topics and message threads together in the Notification Center to help users see all their updates at a glance. But what if you don't like how your Notifications are sorted and want to ungroup them? If you don't like the way your Notification Center is organized in iOS 12, it's easy to ungroup some or all of your Notifications. Let's get started learning how to ungroup Notifications in your iPhone's Notification Center now. 

If you're an Apple Watch user you can check your battery level right on your Watch, but did you know you can also check the battery on your Apple Watch from the iPhone it's paired to? This tip will come in especially handy during colder months when it might be easier to pull out your iPhone than to pull up the long sleeve covering your watch. If you've been wondering how to check the battery on an Apple Watch from your iPhone, read on to find out. 

You've been trying to get in touch with a friend or family member, but they haven't returned your calls or messages. Are they just busy, is something wrong with their phone, or have they blocked your number? How can you tell if someone blocked your number? There's not a surefire way to know if your number is blocked, but there are a few telling signs that indicate someone blocked your number from texting or calling. We've already gone over how to block a number, as well as how to block your number or call privately, now let's go over the clues that calls and messages from your iPhone are being blocked.

In a previous tip, we covered how to access Control Center on your iPhone X. I talked about the notch at the top of the iPhone X, which naturally divides the top left and right of your screen. Apple uses that simple divide to the fullest by giving you access to both Control Center and Notifications with a swipe down from the top. Here’s how to access Notifications on iPhone X.

We’ve talked before about how to schedule Do Not Disturb on your iPhone, but did you know that certain alerts can barge right through that setting? These include AMBER Alerts (America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response), and government alerts about imminent threats, such as extreme weather. These alerts are extremely important to leave on as they can literally save lives, but you may have the occasional need to turn them off.  One recent example I can recall is when a tornado warning set my phone blaring.  My kids, dogs, and I went to the basement and were as prepared as we could be, but the alerts kept going off.  This was not helpful in my efforts to calm everyone down, and I didn’t want to turn off my phone because I was messaging friends and family to tell them we were safe.

Notifications center on any iPhone previous to the iPhone X is accessed by simply swiping down from the very top of the screen. But the iPhone X has a notch at the top that creates a distinct top left and top right of the iPhone X. As such, Apple gave each separate side its own function. So where are notifications on the iPhone X? Just a swipe away. Plus, there’s another interesting feature pertaining to notifications on iPhone X that utilizes facial recognition for futuristic privacy. We’ll go over both in our continued journey covering all the new gestures and features of the iPhone X. Here’s how to find the notification center on iPhone X and the hidden iPhone X privacy feature that’ll blown your mind.

For awhile now on iPhone, you’ve had the ability to hide message previews when receiving a notification from the Messages app. Now, with iOS 11, you can also disable previews for notifications from all your other apps. For example, say you have Facebook notifications enabled and a friend comments on your photo. Normally, you’d receive a notification that tells you that person commented on your photo. But when you disable notification previews, you’ll simply see that you have a Facebook notification, with no further info being displayed on the Lock screen. Here’s how to disable notification previews for all apps with iOS 11 on iPhone.

What does Do Not Disturb While Driving mean on your iPhone? It means that with this "car mode" feature turned on, your iPhone won’t receive notifications while you’re driving so you don’t get distracted. You can turn off Do Not Disturb if you're a passenger and would like to use your iPhone. Your iPhone's driving mode also allows you to turn on and customize an Auto-Reply message that’s sent to whomever is texting you when you’re driving. Here’s how to set up an auto-reply message to texts while you’re driving .

There are several reasons why you might want to see comments on a Facebook post—I often want to see comments if the poster is asking a question I'd like to know the answer to. You can receive notifications about future comments by leaving a comment yourself. Indeed, I often see people comment "following" or "commenting because I'd like to receive updates" on Facebook status updates. But did you know that you can easily subscribe to updates without commenting on a thread? Here's how to follow a Facebook thread and receive notifications of comments without leaving a comment.

You don't have to leave a group message just because you want your iPhone to stop buzzing with new message notifications. Instead you can turn on Do Not Disturb for that message thread and read all the messages about planning your brother-in-law's birthday party later. Here’s how to mute group messages without leaving the conversation.

The Apple News app on iPhone allows you to keep up to date on all the topics and publications that interest you. You can also sign up for breaking news alerts on your iPhone, which appear as notifications. You can choose which news sources are allowed to send you breaking news alerts. You can see news alerts for publications you follow or other large, well-known channels that often cover breaking news. If you don’t have a favorite source of news, you can turn on News Top Stories as a means of getting breaking news notifications from a wide range of media outlets. Here’s how to turn on breaking news alerts in Apple News on iPhone.

How do you keep your text messages private when reviews of incoming texts appear as banners or alerts on your home screen? Message previews can be handy if you want to quickly decide to reply to a message now, or wait and reply later. But how can you have private text messages on your iPhone with all these previews popping up? After all you don't want friends and family catching sight of private text messages you'd rather they hadn't. Sometimes it's not even an unintentional glance! We all have that one friend or coworker who thinks nothing of grabbing your iPhone to check out the text notifications on your home screen. Luckily, within your Settings app, there’s an easy way to make texts private. You can disable text messages from being displayed on your Home screen while still receiving notifications. Here’s how to keep your messages private and prevent your text messages from being on display for all to see.

This year at the World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) Apple announced some significant changes to the way the iPhone will behave while its user is driving. The new Car Safety features in iOS 11 arrive in response to increased pressure from the National Highway Safety Traffic Administration, which has urged Apple and other cellphone manufacturers to develop safeguards to reduce death and injury attributed to distracted driving. Distracted driving has been an issue in at least some capacity for over 20 years without much response at the developer level. Distraction related accidents, whether involving gadgets or otherwise, killed nearly 3,500 people in 2015, according to the National Highway Safety Traffic Administration, with 391,000 lesser injuries.

Sometimes, I think Apple Pay works too well. Never have I been more able to impulse buy things. But if you’re not sure where your money is going, you can check the history of your Apple Pay purchases for each credit card you have set up. When you make a purchase, Apple Pay will notify you of recent activity on any of the cards set up for Apple Pay. But you may want to see a list of recent transactions, which you can view in the Wallet app. Here’s how to view recent credit card activity for Apple Pay on iPhone.

One of the Apple Watch's many benefits is the ability to manage incoming messages and notifications from your wrist. But if you've let the notifications pile up, don't worry about going through and dismissing them one by one; there's an easy way to dismiss all your notifications at once. When your Apple Watch notifications start to pile up, here’s how to clear all of them at once.