New Filters and a Streamlined Setup for Focus on the iPhone with iOS 16

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In this video, we’re going to look at what’s new with focus in iOS 16 on the iPhone. Now, if you’re not familiar with focus, I consider focus a customized version of Do Not Disturb. Let’s go over to my iPhone and just take a quick review at what focus is. When I’m looking at my phone here, what I’m able to do is set who I want to receive notifications from, I can set which apps I want to receive notifications from, I do this through focusing, to put my phone into focus mode, what I can do is go down to the control center, and then we go over to focus here. And I can set which focus mode I want. And again, each one of these is set up to allow specific people and specific apps to notify me. So that’s the basics of what focus is. Well, with iOS 16, they introduced a new features, and it’s easier to set up, I think these features that they’ve added will make focus more widely used. Let’s go over and set up a new focus to review some of these new features.

To do that, what we do is we go over to our settings app. Now what we need to do is go over to focus here, this is nothing new, this was introduced in iOS 15. From here, I can set up or modify any of these focuses here. But what we’re going to do is we’re going to create a new focus to do that I tap on the plus. From here I go and set what I want to focus on, I want to create a custom focus, we’re just going to start from scratch. But I do have some predefined focuses here that I can use. So let’s go to custom. And I’m going to call this school I work at a local school for a few hours a week. And I’d like to have my focus turned on when I’m at that school, maybe allow certain people to message me or allow specific apps to message me, or new and iOS 16.

I can allow specific apps to not notify me so we can reverse that. So let’s go and set this up their colors are maroon and we’re going to go with the school icon here. So now I have my new focus setup, or the name of it. The next thing that we do is we tap on next here, we have a little information card explaining what we’re going to be doing, I’m just going to tap on Customize focus. And we’re going to step through this. The first thing we have here as people now with people, what we’re able to do is set if we want to allow notifications from specific people, or if we want to silence notifications from specific people, this is New in iOS 16. Prior to iOS 16, all we could do is allow notifications from specific people. Now what I’m able to do is silence notifications from specific people. So we can reverse that. But what I’m going to do is I’m going to allow notifications from bat.

So I go and find Beth in here. tap on Done. So that’s the first thing that we set up as our people. And in this case here, when I’m at the school, what’s going to happen is as Beth is going to be allowed to send me notifications, or I will receive notifications from Beth, I tap on Next. Then next thing that we can do is set who we want to allow calls from, we can have it from everybody, we can have it from allowed people only have what is this? Well remember how I added Beth in the last step. That’s basically what this is going to do. This will only allow Beth to call me everyone else who will now go into my voicemail.

I can also just add our favorites, context only, or a context group or list. With the Contacts app in iOS 16, we can now create groups or what they call lists. So if I have my coworkers in a specific list of school list or a school group, I’d be able to turn this on and then select which group I want. So I can choose my school list. I’m just going to go with Beth here. We’re going to keep this simple. The next option here is apps. This is very similar to people. So I’m going to go to apps here. And what we’re able to do is allow notifications from specific apps. So let’s say I wanted to allow FaceTime calls, messages, and spark which is my mail app. I can also set if I want to silence notifications from specific apps. This is New in iOS 16. So I’m going to tap on this. And let’s say I didn’t want to have notifications from the music app. I’m at the school I don’t want to receive notifications from the music app. I tap on Add apps. I go over to music. And now it’s going to silence all notifications from the music app. So we can set if we want to allow them or silence them. Again New in iOS 16 a tap on Done.

Let’s take a look at our options here. From here, I can set if I want to show notifications on my lock screen, I do not. So I’m going to leave this off, I do want to dim the lock screen, I don’t want to draw attention. If a notification comes across, maybe it’s sitting on my desk, and I have a student there. So let’s just go on dammit. And I do not want to hide notification badges. So this is going to be specific for this school focus. Let’s go back. Our next option here is customize screens. What we can do with iOS 16 is create different lock screens. So I’m going to choose my lock screen that I want, we’re going to go with this one here.

Again, their colors are Maroon. So when I am in this focus, when I’m at the school, this is what my lock screen is going to show. I’m going to tap on Done. And I’m not going to change my home screen, I can change the home screen as well. We can have it turned on automatically. So the iPhone will figure out when the best time to turn it on, all I have to do is tap on this and then turn it on smart activation. And I can also set if I want to have it turned on at a specific time, this is nothing new here, I can have a turnout at a location. So when I arrive at the school, it will turn on. And then if I open up a certain app, if I were to set Google Chrome in here, when I open up that app, what it will do is put it into the focus mode, the school focus mode automatically, I’ll just tap on this and then select Google Chrome. I’m going to leave it at automatic. So I’m gonna cancel this, we’re going to go to smart activation. And I’m going to turn this on. Our next option here is focus filters.

So this is New in iOS 16. What we’re able to do with this is focus specific calendars. So we can only see specific calendars, or specific mail accounts, I can only receive messages from specific people. Or I can set it to go to a specific tab group. Let’s say I have a tab group with all of my school tabs, I can have a go to that tab group and Safari, I can also set the appearance and turn on low power mode. So let’s go and set up a couple of these, we’re going to go to calendar. And what I would like to do is set my calendar for work. You can see I have quite a few calendars here. I tap on Done, we go to add. Let’s go and add another filter. With this one, we’re going to go to mail. And I’m going to go to iCloud so all I see are my iCloud accounts when I’m at the school.

Let’s add a couple more, we’re gonna go with add filter again, this time, we’re going to go with messages. And I’m going to filter by people. What are people? Well remember that step I did earlier, where I only allow notifications from Beth? Well, when I turn this on, she’s going to be the only one that can message me. So I’m going to add that. Let’s go with Safari here. And we’re going to choose a tab group, I’m just going to go with untitled three, I don’t have them named, but we’re going to see how this works. Tap on Add. And now I have my focus all set. So basically, what’s going to happen here is I will only receive notifications from Beth, I will not receive notifications from the music app, it’s going to go to the orange lock screen. It’s going to turn on automatically.

And then I have a few filters, I will only see my Work calendar, it’s going to go to iCloud automatically from my mail. It’s going to set my tab group to untitled three, and Beth will be the only one that can message me. So that is my focus now. So let’s go and see how this works. I’m going to swipe up. And now let’s go to that focus. Watch what happens. So I’m going to swipe down from the upper right hand corner. And I’m going to choose my focus here. Let’s go over to school and watch what happens. We can see it turned orange. So that lock screen changed. Remember all those calendars I had. Let’s open up my calendar app and you’re going to see when I go down to calendars. I have my one calendar. Let’s take a look at my mail app. We go over to mail here. Remember I had iCloud and Gmail. All inboxes it’s filtered by focus and again, I only see my iCloud accounts. If I wanted to see all my accounts, I could go and turn that off. So I am able to see all of my accounts just by tapping on this. But by default, it’s just going to show me my iCloud account. What about Safari? When I go to Safari, it’s going to go to my untitled three tab group. Now when I turn my focus off, let’s swipe down, I’m going to turn this off.

And we can see that the lockscreen changed. Let’s go and take a look at my calendar real quick. We can see all of my calendars there. So that is the new focus in iOS 16. They added some new features we can now set if we want to receive notifications from specific people or specific apps. Or if we want to silence notifications from specific people or specific apps. We can also set if we want to change the lock screen so we can easily see when we’re in a specific focus. And then we can also filter our mail or calendar, or even Safari tabs. So that is what’s new with focus in iOS 16 on the iPhone