(Images by Adam Engst; heron added by ChatGPT)

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The easiest, built-in solution to this admittedly first-world problem for Apple users is Safari Reader on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac, which you can use to “hide navigation menus and other distracting items.”

Apple is careful not to say that Reader hides ads—which it does, most of the time—to avoid conflict with publications that rely on advertising, some of which may even be placed by Apple itself.

Beyond hiding distracting items, Reader displays articles as a single page and automatically generates a summary and table of contents for longer articles to make navigation easier.

Even better, you can configure Safari to show articles in Reader automatically for specific websites, so you don’t have to turn it on manually for each article.

Here’s how to use it.

Switch to Reader

Since Reader’s reformatting would break many non-article Web pages, Safari offers Reader only when you’re viewing a page that it can reformat. As a reminder, Safari on the iPhone and iPad shows a brief “Reader Available” mention in the address bar when you open a Reader-compatible page.

To display a compatible page in Reader, tap the website button at the left of the address bar ➊, then tap Show Reader ➋. Safari immediately reformats the page, removing many extraneous items and potentially changing the background and font.

The reformatting can be even more significant in Safari on the Mac, where websites often add columns of ads, pop-ups over the text you want to read, and more.

When Reader decides a page is long enough and has enough headings, it automatically generates a summary and table of contents, displaying them in expandable sections at the top. This feature is, frankly, a little random. We couldn’t always predict when Reader would generate those sections, and it even sometimes varied by device.

Adjust the Look of Reader

By default, Reader uses a white background with Apple’s San Francisco sans-serif font. That’s entirely acceptable, but you can switch to a sepia, gray, or black background, choose from a selection of serif and sans-serif fonts, and increase or decrease the font size.

Tap the page icon at the left of the address bar to pick from those options.

The presentation looks a little different on the iPad (left) and Mac (right), but the options are essentially the same.

Use Reader Automatically

For websites you regularly read, it’s best to set Reader to kick in automatically. It won’t reformat pages that don’t make sense, such as section pages that contain links to multiple articles. How you enable this option varies by platform:

• iPhone and iPad: Whether or not you’re in Reader, tap the icon at the left of the address bar, tap the ••• button, scroll down in the page menu, and turn on Use Reader Automatically.
  
• Mac: When you’re not in Reader, click the website icon at the left of the address bar, choose Website Settings, and select “Use Reader when available.”
  

If you want to manage which sites use Reader automatically all together, on the iPhone and iPad, open Settings > Apps > Safari > Reader (way at the bottom), and on the Mac in Safari, choose Safari > Settings > Websites.

Helpfully, Safari syncs appropriate website settings between devices via iCloud, so once you set a site to use Reader automatically, all your other devices will default to that as well.

Switch Back to Standard View

Although Reader works well most of the time, it’s possible to run across an article with interactive elements that don’t display in Reader. If something seems wrong about an article in Reader, you can switch back to the standard presentation of the page. Just tap the page icon at the left of the address bar and tap Hide Reader.

The hardest part of using Reader is getting started. Once you’ve become accustomed to switching into it and setting it to trigger automatically for websites you visit regularly, you’ll find reading the Web easier, more relaxing, and less likely to tempt you down a rabbit hole of additional content.

(Featured image based on an original by iStock.com/Tippapatt)

Social Media: Tired of ads and pop-ups interrupting your reading? Safari Reader reformats Web articles for distraction-free viewing on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac—and it can even activate automatically.

If you mostly ignore Control Center on your Mac, it’s worth another look in Tahoe. The big win of Control Center is that it provides quick access to numerous controls without occupying valuable space in the menu bar, a limitation that MacBook users regularly encounter. Now that you can personalize Control Center, it’s much more useful than before.

Before we explain how to customize Control Center, let’s look at the basics.

Open and Use Control Center

To open Control Center, click its icon at the right side of the menu bar or use its Fn-C keyboard shortcut. It always appears in the top-right corner of the screen (below left). You may notice a colored dot next to the Control Center icon: orange means the microphone is in use, green tells you a camera is in use, purple indicates that system audio is being recorded, and an arrow means an app is using your location.

Some controls, like Dark Mode and Screenshot, are simple buttons that you click to toggle a setting or trigger an action. You’ll also see sliders, such as for Display Brightness and Sound Volume. Many controls, such as Display, open separate panels with additional controls (below right).

Customize Control Center

To begin customizing Control Center, don’t look in System Settings anymore—instead, click the Edit Controls button at the bottom of Control Center. That displays a ⊖ button on each control, adds eight empty single-button slots at the bottom, and opens the Control library.

Once here, you can:

• Remove existing controls: Click a control’s ⊖ button to remove it from Control Center. You can always put it back later, although the lack of a label in Control Center can make it tricky to find in the Control library, because you may not know what you removed.
• Resize controls: You can usually resize a control by Control-clicking it and choosing Small, Medium, or Large. Small controls occupy a single slot; medium controls occupy two side-by-side slots; and large controls occupy four slots, either as a 2-by-2 grid or a 4-by-1 line.
• Rearrange the order: Drag controls in the grid to reorder them. You can move one only to a position where it’ll fit, so you may need to resize other controls to make space.
• Add new controls: More on this below, but in short, you add new controls from the Control library window that appears to the left of Control Center when you click Edit Controls.

When you’re finished customizing Control Center in these ways, click Done at the bottom of the Control library.

Adding Controls to Control Center

Apple gives you two ways to add controls from the Control library:

• Drag a control in the main pane to the desired Control Center spot.
• Hover over the desired control, click the green ⊕ button that appears, and choose Add to Control Center. You can also choose Add to Menu Bar to put the control there for even quicker access.

To discover what controls are available, either scroll through the All Controls collection or select a particular category in the sidebar. You can also search for controls by name.

Nearly all the controls have been added to the library in advance by Apple, but there are two exceptions:

• Third-party controls: Independent developers can create their own. For instance, Flexibits’ Cardhop provides controls for adding and searching for contacts.
  
• Shortcuts: Apple’s automation app, Shortcuts, enables you to open any app from Control Center, run any shortcut, or show a collection of shortcuts. Anything you can create in Shortcuts can be triggered from Control Center. (Don’t be intimidated by Shortcuts; you can ask any AI chatbot to help you develop a shortcut.)
  

Don’t worry about messing up Control Center while you’re experimenting with different controls. You can always reset it in System Settings > Menu Bar by scrolling to the bottom and clicking Reset Control Center.

One final tip. A little control may appear at the top of Control Center at times. It’s a privacy notification that tells you whether an app has used your location recently (like Weather), used the camera (like FaceTime), recorded your screen (like Screenshot), or engaged in some other activity Apple thinks you might want to know about. Click it to learn a little more.

(Featured image based on an original by iStock.com/guteksk7)

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(Featured image generated by Adam Engst with ChatGPT)

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Text expansion speeds up typing words or phrases that you use regularly, and it’s especially helpful for character combinations that your fingers find awkward—just try touch-typing “Hyundai IONIQ 5” or “acetaminophen.” Apple has long offered text expansion capabilities in macOS, iOS, and iPadOS, and third-party utilities take them even further.

Configuring and Using Text Expansion

To configure the built-in text expansion on the Mac, look in System Settings > Keyboard > Text Replacements; in iOS and iPadOS, go to Settings > General > Keyboard > Text Replacement. In each, a text replacement consists of a shortcut and a replacement phrase.

Then, in almost any app, type the shortcut, followed by a space or a punctuation character, and its phrase will replace it. If text expansion doesn’t work in a Mac app like Mail or Safari, make sure Edit > Substitutions > Text Replacement is selected.

If you’re signed into the same Apple Account on all your devices, text expansions sync between them automatically. So, you can type omw and tap the Space bar to have “On my way!” typed out for you, regardless of what device you’re using.

Tip: To create replacements more quickly, you can export a list of text replacements, edit the list, and re-import it; Apple provides instructions. This export/import capability also lets you share text replacements with someone else.

What Text to Expand

Replacements can be as short or long as you like—up to about 1900 characters—and can contain anything you can type from the keyboard, including spaces, returns, symbols, accented characters, and emoji. It can be hard to know where to start, but once you try text expansion, possibilities quickly become obvious. A few common categories include:

• Your email address, phone number, and postal address
• Boilerplate text for common email replies (“To subscribe to our mailing list…”)
• Email signoffs (“Sincerely, your close personal Internet friend…”)
• Frequently shared URLs or email addresses (https://www.apple.com/feedback/)
• Long scientific, medical, or technical terms (esophagogastroduodenoscopy)
• Proper nouns with unusual spelling, capitalization, or accents (Zoë Saldaña)
• Words you consistently misspell or mistype (teh)
• Unix commands with arguments (ls -la)

Shortcuts are usually shorter than their replacements, but you can also use text expansion to simplify entering individual characters that are hard to access.

• Commonly used emoji (🙄 or 👍)
• Special characters (½ or →)

One helpful convention is to start shortcuts for special characters with a colon. For example, :roll for 🙄 or :tu for 👍. The colon prefix makes these shortcuts easy to remember and prevents accidental expansions. Make sure not to create shortcuts that you’ll also want to type normally. It might seem like a good idea to use mm for “Mickey Mouse,” but that will get in the way of writing about 35mm film.

Third-Party Text Expansion

With such a useful feature built into macOS and iOS, why would you want to spend money on a third-party utility like TextExpander (macOS and iOS), Typinator (macOS and iOS), or TypeIt4Me (macOS)?

Apple’s built-in text expansion works well for most everyday uses, but it has some limitations—its interface is cramped, it doesn’t work in every app, and you can’t include formatted text or images in your expansions. Third-party utilities fill those gaps.

They can include styled text and graphics in expansions, insert the current date and time, respect case when expanding abbreviations, include the contents of the clipboard in expanded text, automatically fix common typos, and much more.

So think about which bits of text you might want to expand automatically, and give Apple’s built-in text expansion feature a try today! If it seems constraining after a while, a third-party app can take text expansion to the next level.

(Featured image generated by Adam Engst with ChatGPT)

Social Media: Tired of typing the same email address, phone number, or tricky words over and over? Text expansion on Mac and iOS can save you keystrokes every day.

To access the controls, you either lightly press the Camera Control or swipe along it. From there, lightly double-press to enter a setting, swipe to adjust it, and lightly double-press again to go back. A full press takes a photo no matter where you are in the controls.

While the Camera Control’s default configuration provides access to everything it can do, that can be overwhelming for people who want to take quick snapshots without inadvertently changing settings like exposure and depth. We recommend taking a spin through the options in Settings > Camera > Camera Control to configure it for your needs. Here’s what each option does and when you might want to change it.

Launch Camera

Although most people use Apple’s Camera app, you can configure the Camera Control to open other camera apps as well. (Plus, if you want to disable the Camera Control entirely, select None.) Apps must be specifically designed to work with the Camera Control, so not all third-party camera apps will appear in this list.

Click to Open Camera

By default, a single click on the Camera Control opens the Camera app. If you often find yourself accidentally opening the camera—perhaps when pulling it from a pocket—you can switch to Double Click, which requires two presses to launch the app.

Require Screen On

The Require Screen On switch provides another way to reduce inadvertent camera activations. When selected, pressing the Camera Control opens the Camera app only if the screen is already on. If it’s not, the first press of the Camera Control turns on the screen and a second press opens the Camera app. Leave this switch off if you want one-click access to the camera even when the iPhone’s screen is off—ideal for the fastest shots.

Customize Controls

Along with launching the Camera app and taking a photo, the Camera Control lets you access and adjust numerous camera-related settings using its touch-sensitive surface. If you often find yourself accidentally enmeshed in camera settings when you just want to take a photo, consider turning off Camera Adjustments entirely.

But for those who like tweaking settings, the Camera Control provides a shortcut that doesn’t require tapping the screen. In the Customize screen, you choose which settings appear when you lightly press the Camera Control while using the camera.

Above the list of controls, you’ll find a gesture setting that determines how you access them—via a light press, a long swipe, or both. You can choose one or both, but turning both off blocks access to the controls entirely.

The available controls include:

• Exposure: Brightens or darkens the overall scene
• Depth: Adjusts background blur intensity
• Zoom: Switches between zoom levels
• Cameras: Switches between the front camera and the rear cameras
• Styles: Changes the active Photographic Style
• Tone: Adjusts the mood by lightening or deepening tones

You can turn each setting on or off and drag them into your preferred order. If you rarely use Tone but frequently take selfies, for instance, you might turn off Tone and move Cameras to the top of the list. Fewer options mean faster access to the ones you actually use.

Don’t feel shy about using only one or two controls, or about turning off the adjustments completely. There’s nothing worse than missing a great photo because you’ve inadvertently gotten lost in the controls.

One final note: enabling the Clean Preview switch hides the Camera app’s on-screen buttons and overlays—like the shutter button, zoom controls, and mode switcher—while you’re making adjustments using the Camera Control, giving you an unobstructed view of the scene.

Lock Focus and Exposure

When enabled, this option lets you lock both focus and exposure. Lightly press and hold the Camera Control, and then keep your finger on it to maintain those focus and exposure settings as you reframe the shot. (You’ll see AE/AF LOCK at the top of the viewfinder.) This option can be useful when shooting a subject against a bright background or in changing light conditions—the camera won’t readjust as you reframe. Release your finger to unlock. If you’ve never needed this feature, leave it off to simplify Camera Control behavior.

Launch Visual Intelligence

There are two more settings at the bottom of the Camera Control settings screen. Outside of actively shooting a photo, pressing and holding the Camera Control provides access to Visual Intelligence, the Apple Intelligence feature that lets you point the camera at an object and learn more about it. It can be a quick way to ask ChatGPT about something you see or do a Google search for similar items, but if you don’t find it useful, turn it off.

Accessibility Options

This option is a shortcut to Settings > Accessibility > Camera Control, where you can adjust the pressure sensitivity and timing for the light press, light double-press, and double-click gestures. If you find the Camera Control too sensitive or not responsive enough, these options let you fine-tune it to match your preferences.

Overall, we like how the Camera Control makes it easier to take photos quickly, but from what we’ve seen, many people get confused by the many possible adjustments. If that’s you, turn them off so the Camera Control becomes a straightforward shutter button.

(Featured image by Adam Engst)

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You switch between views in the active window by choosing View > as Icons, as List, as Columns, or as Gallery. Alternatively, click one of the view icons in a window’s toolbar. It’s worth memorizing the keyboard shortcuts for List (Command-2) and Column (Command-3) views so you can switch to them quickly if a particular window isn’t in your preferred view.

Icon View

Viewing files and folders as thumbnails is the most visual approach and works best for people who think spatially—this icon is below that other one. Such people often prefer to arrange icons manually to create memorable groupings, but the Finder can also automatically arrange them in a grid, sorted by different criteria. Icon view works well for:

• The Desktop: The desktop can only display its contents in Icon view, though you can open the Desktop folder in a window and use any view in that window.
• Folders with few items: When a window shows only a handful of items, icons make selection easy. That’s why most software distribution disk images use Icon view to display the app and an icon in the Applications folder.
• Photos or other images: Because icons for images can show a preview of the image (rather than just the document type thumbnail), Icon view with a relatively large icon size provides a useful visual preview.

To customize Icon view, choose View > Show View Options. You can adjust icon size, grid spacing, text size, label position, and background color—or even a background photo. Group By organizes icons into categories, while Sort By keeps them organized by name, date, or other metadata. For folders containing images, increasing the icon size creates a more useful visual preview.

The main limitation of Icon view is that it shows minimal metadata—just the filename and, optionally, item info such as image dimensions. It also becomes unwieldy with more than a few files, since scrolling through numerous icons is inefficient.

List View

When a folder contains more than a few items, List view is usually the most efficient way to work with it. It displays files in rows with sortable columns showing metadata such as date modified, size, kind, and more. List view is ideal for users who think about files in terms of attributes—when something was created, how large it is, or what type it is—rather than visual appearance. Use it for:

• Folders containing many items: Once a folder has more items than fit without scrolling, List view makes it easier to view and select items.
• Sorting folders by date or size: Whenever you want to see the most recent files at the top, or quickly identify which consume the most disk space, you can click the Date Modified or Size column header to sort by that criterion.
• Work with nested folders: Disclosure triangles let you view the contents of multiple nested folders without opening a new window, making it easier to see and move items between them.

Customize the visible columns by choosing View > Show View Options or by Control-clicking any column header. You can add columns for tags, version, comments, and other metadata. Drag column headers to rearrange their order, and drag the dividers between headers to adjust column widths. Sort columns by clicking a column header; click it again to reverse the sort.

Column View

Column view shows your folder hierarchy as a series of columns, with each column representing one level of the hierarchy. Selecting a folder reveals its contents in the next column to the right, while selecting a file displays a preview and metadata in the rightmost column. Column view is popular with power users who frequently navigate between folders and appreciate seeing the path to the current location. It’s perfect for:

• Navigating deep folder structures: Move through nested folders quickly without opening multiple windows.
• Understanding file locations: The column layout shows exactly where a file sits in your folder hierarchy.
• Quick previews: Select any file to see a preview without opening it or using Quick Look.
• Drag-and-drop organization: Easily drag files between folders visible in different columns.

One useful option in View > Show View Options is “Resize columns to fit filenames,” added in macOS 26.1, which automatically adjusts column widths to accommodate the longest visible filename. Alternatively, you can manually resize all columns at once by Option-double-clicking any column divider. You can also set a default column width and choose whether to show icons and the preview column.

Gallery View

Gallery view dedicates most of the window to a large preview of the selected file, with a row of thumbnails along the bottom and a metadata sidebar on the right. Those who work primarily with images find it useful. It’s designed for:

• Reviewing photos and videos: The large preview makes it easy to evaluate images without opening them.
• Previewing documents: PDFs, presentations, and other documents display their first page, which can help with identifying similarly named files.
• Quick Actions: The sidebar includes Quick Action buttons for common tasks such as rotating images, using markup tools, creating PDFs, and trimming video.
• Checking metadata: The sidebar can show detailed information, including EXIF data for photos.

Gallery view becomes less useful for folders containing mostly text documents or applications, where the large preview adds little value. Honestly, we seldom use it.

Setting Default Views

The Finder remembers your view preferences for each folder individually, so once set, they should stick. However, if you’re in Column or List view and open a folder set to appear in Gallery view by selecting it or clicking its disclosure triangle, you’ll stay in the previous view. To open the folder in its assigned view, double-click its icon.

When you create a new Finder window with File > New Finder Window, it opens the folder specified in Finder > Settings > General. Set that folder to your preferred view so new windows open as you like.

To ensure a specific folder always opens in a particular view, select it, choose View > Show View Options, and select the Always Open In checkbox. To have its subfolders open in that view too, also select Browse In, if available.

You can also apply view settings to other folders. In View Options, configure the settings exactly as you want—icon size, text size, visible columns, and so on—then click Use as Defaults. This makes those settings the default for any folder displayed in that same view type (Icon, List, or Gallery) that doesn’t have its own custom settings. You must set defaults separately for each view type; Column view lacks this option entirely. To revert to system defaults, hold the Option key and the button changes to Restore Defaults.

There’s no need to commit to one view. Switch freely based on what you’re doing—List view for finding recent files or cleaning up, Column view for navigating a folder hierarchy, or Gallery or Icon view for reviewing images. The best view is whichever helps you accomplish your current task most efficiently.

(Featured image generated by Adam Engst with ChatGPT)

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(Featured image based on an original by iStock.com/czekma13)

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Apple’s Focus feature on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac can silence those interruptions, but Focus is considerably more complex than the straightforward Do Not Disturb feature it replaced in 2021. Misconfiguring Focus such that it activates unexpectedly can cause you to miss important calls, messages, and other notifications.

What Focus Does

Focus lets you create customized notification environments that block unwanted interruptions while allowing important ones through. You can have a Focus for different situations—when you’re at work, eating dinner, at the gym, and more—each with its own rules about when it activates and which people and apps can reach you.

When a Focus is active, it can:

• Silence notifications from selected people and apps
• Allow specific people and apps to break through
• Change your Lock Screen appearance
• Hide certain Home Screen pages
• Automatically reply to messages explaining you’re unavailable
• Filter content in apps like Mail, Calendar, and Messages
• Make a certain profile or tab group active in Safari

Focus can share your settings across all your Apple devices, which saves you from having to configure it on each device but can also create confusing interactions.

The Built-In Focus Modes

Apple provides three essential Focus modes that cover most people’s needs:

• Do Not Disturb: A general-purpose Focus for when you need to ensure your iPhone doesn’t interrupt you. It’s ideal for doctor appointments, workouts, movies, and similar situations. You can schedule it, but it’s often best to activate it manually from Control Center for a specific amount of time or until you leave the current location.
• Sleep: This Focus activates according to the Sleep schedule you set on the iPhone (in either Settings > Focus > Sleep or in the Health app) to minimize nighttime interruptions. It lets you choose a specific Lock Screen, Home Screen, and Apple Watch face to limit distractions at night.
• Driving: Automatically activates when your iPhone connects to a car’s Bluetooth system or detects driving motion. (The Bluetooth connection may be best if you’re frequently a passenger and want to use your iPhone while being driven.) It blocks nearly all notifications to keep your attention on the road and can send custom automatic replies to people who text you.

For further customization, you can create additional Focus modes—Apple suggests modes for Gaming, Mindfulness, Personal, Reading, and Work. For instance, if you take a spin class every Tuesday at noon and yoga on Thursdays at 7 AM, you could create a Focus for Working Out that would automatically activate during those times.

Configuring a Focus

To set up a Focus, go to Settings > Focus on your iPhone or iPad, or System Settings > Focus on your Mac. Select the Focus you want to configure or create a new one, then:

1. Choose allowed people: Decide whether to allow or silence notifications from specific people. You can also specify whether phone calls from certain groups (Allowed People, Favorites, Contacts, or Contacts groups) can break through.
   
2. Choose allowed apps: Similarly, allow or silence specific apps. You can also enable Time Sensitive Notifications, which lets urgent alerts (like delivery notifications or security alerts) come through even from disallowed apps.
   
3. Set a schedule: Have the Focus turn on at certain times, locations (on when you arrive, off when you leave), or when using specific apps (but not when apps are in the background). App-based triggers are useful for presentations, live performances, and games. A Smart Activation option on the iPhone can automatically turn on a Focus based on your location, app usage, and time of day.
   
4. Add Focus Filters: Customize how Calendar, Mail, Messages, Safari, and others behave when the Focus is active—for example, showing only certain Safari tab groups and your work email accounts during a Professional Focus.
   
5. Intelligent Breakthrough & Silencing: If you have Apple Intelligence enabled, this option “intelligently” allows priority notifications to interrupt you and silences others. It doesn’t override your explicit settings for allowing or silencing notifications.

The Complexity Problem

While Focus is powerful, its complexity can create unpredictable behavior. Here are common pitfalls to avoid:

• Unexpected activation: With automatic schedules based on time, location, and apps, it’s hard to predict when a Focus might turn on. You may not realize notifications are being silenced until you’ve missed something important. This is especially important if your routine is interrupted. Perhaps you normally work out at noon, but today you are at a professional conference or dealing with a family emergency.
• Cross-device confusion: By default, Focus syncs across all your Apple devices via the Share Across Devices option. Syncing means a Focus activated on your iPhone—such as Sleep—might also silence notifications on your Mac when you’re working late and need to communicate with colleagues. Consider turning off Share Across Devices unless you’re certain you want synchronized behavior.
• Unpredictable AI: Focus includes two features that rely on machine learning—Smart Activation and Intelligent Breakthrough & Silencing—to make contextual decisions about when Focus should activate and which notifications are important enough to bypass it. We recommend against using them because they make an already unpredictable scenario even more unpredictable.
• Silenced notifications indicator: When a Focus is active, people who text you in Messages see that your notifications are silenced. While this can be helpful, it can also confuse others when a Focus activates unexpectedly.
  
• The forgotten Focus: A Focus that activates automatically when you go to a specific location or open a particular app might remain active longer than you expected. For instance, what if a Focus activates when Mail is your frontmost app, but you have to leave unexpectedly and your Mac doesn’t sleep automatically, so Mail remains the active app over the weekend? That might be particularly confusing when a Focus Filter hides certain accounts or data.

Practical Recommendations

To get the benefits of Focus without the confusion:

• Keep it simple: Start with Do Not Disturb, Sleep, and Driving. These three cover the needs of most people and have the most predictable behavior. If you created Focus modes you’re not using, delete them.
• Be conservative with triggers: If you add schedules or triggers based on location or apps, keep them to a minimum. The more triggers you add, the harder it becomes to predict when a Focus will be active.
• Allow more calls: These days, unexpected calls from people you know well are fairly uncommon, and those that do happen are more likely to be important. So consider allowing calls from family and close friends (perhaps via Favorites or a Contacts group) and enabling Allow Repeated Calls, which lets someone through if they call twice within three minutes.
• Check Focus status when troubleshooting: If you or someone you know is missing notifications, check whether a Focus is unexpectedly active. The easiest place to check is Control Center.
• Review Share Across Devices: If you experience unexpected Focus behavior, turn off Share Across Devices and configure each device’s Focus settings independently.
• Control notifications directly: Rather than rely on Focus, limit notifications to just those that are actually important to you. Many apps are unnecessarily chatty.

Focus is a powerful tool for managing the constant stream of notifications from our devices, but it requires careful configuration. When in doubt, keep it simple: Sleep to protect your sleeping hours, Driving to block distractions in the car, and Do Not Disturb for ad hoc appointments and performances may be all you need.

(Featured image by iStock.com/DragonImages)

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