Fatigue caused by mobile notifications is a reality. It seems that all apps are optimized to capture our attention as often as possible and at all times of the day.
The notification settings that mobile phones have configured by default are very intrusive, so that they flood the screen with hundreds of constant notifications.
It is true that you can go to ‘Settings’ and silence or block notifications for each of the applications installed on the mobile, but in reality hardly anyone does, probably for fear of losing something important.
As a result, notifications end up being annoying and in many cases unnecessary due to their importance. With the exception of a few sounds we’ve learned to recognize (like our SMS notification), our lock screens are inundated with so many alerts that in most cases we end up ignoring them.
With iOS 15, Apple is testing a new approach, so that all the old notification settings stay there, but with a new feature called “Notification Summary” that aims to narrow down the notifications that are less interesting to you.
In this way, it is possible to choose which applications to include in the summary and the possibility of defining how often to receive them (the default is twice a day). These apps will deliver their notifications at the usual time, but will silently enter a “Notification Summary” lock on the lock screen.
In this way, they will highlight the notifications of the apps that each user has defined as the most important. In other words, those for most apps will pile up silently so that you don’t distract you from your daily tasks.
How to activate the ‘Notification summary’
It is likely that by the time you install iOS 15, the operating system will already ask you to turn on the daily notifications summary. If you don’t or if you skipped this part when booting the iPhone, you can enable it in “Settings”.
- Go to the “Configuration settings” of your iPhone
- Click on ‘Notifications’
- Press “Scheduled summary”
- Finally, activate the scheduled summary
This is all you need to do to activate the ‘Notification summary’. By default, the summary arrives twice a day, at 9:00 a.m. and at 7:00 p.m. Supposedly, it is possible that the final version of iOS 15 will allow you to modify these times as you wish.
How to adjust times and applications
You can change the value of each at any time by simply touching it and selecting a new one, and you can add overtime by tapping the line (+) Add summary, or remove an hour by tapping the icon. (-) next to it.
You can also get a dozen notification summaries per day if you want, although that really defeats the purpose for which the new feature was granted. Also check how to view notifications on a locked iPhone.
Click on “Summary of Applications” to select which applications will be delivered silently in your next scheduled summary and which ones you wish to receive immediately for more relevance.
Your apps can be sorted from A to Z or by the average number of daily notifications. This is useful because you can see exactly how often each app you have installed annoys you and can more easily reduce clutter.
The recommendation is to put everything in the ‘Summary’, unless it is an app that sends notifications that you just need to act on immediately. Messages, FaceTime, Find My Phone are obvious examples, but the car alarm or app are also good exceptions.
How to use the notification summary
Frankly, using the “Summary of Notifications” couldn’t be simpler. At selected times, you will receive a notification pop-up containing the entire notification group that you selected to appear in the summary.
If the time has passed it will appear as a small pile, otherwise it will be a large box. Just tap on it to expand the notifications and see them all, then tap the (x) then ‘Clear’ to remove them all as a group.
Throughout the day, notifications that are included in the summary are not lost; you will see a “Future Summary” box indicating what to expect in your next scheduled summary.
Enabling this feature does not mean that notifications will be missed, only that they will be collected without any visual or sound signals.
The “Notification Summary” is displayed as a large block with a number indicating the number of new notifications. Tap to expand and interact with them as you normally would.
So far, everything you need to know about the new management provided by the “Notification summary” function. If you want to know about another series of news that iOS 15 brings, take a look at our article on iOS 15: these are the big news.
Original article published in MacWorld US.
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