What are the changes to iPhone Notifications as of iOS 16?

Brittany talks about why you should care about notifications, the impact they have on your brain every day. Then go on a deep dive journey into the Notifications settings: what they are, why you might use them, and what settings aren't worth your time.

Let's walk through all the notifications settings!

Main Notifications Settings:

• Lock Screen / Notification presentation
• Stack vs count vs the "old" way of viewing lock screen notifications (You can’t change this by Focus mode/lock screen)
• How time sensitive notifications work with the stack, as of iOS 16
• Scheduled Summary
• Show Preview
• Announce Notifications
• Siri Suggestions

Notifications Settings by App:

• Allow notifications at all?
• Scheduled Notifications?
• Show on Lock Screen? Show in Notification Center? Have a Banner? How temporary?
• Is it allowed to make a sound that interrupts you?
• Does it get a red number badge?
• Does it go in CarPlay?
• Do you want this app to verbally announce notifications?
• Do you want to see sneak previews of the message?
• Group notifications?
• Get extra alerts?

Go out there and tame your notifications!

In this video, Brittany shows how to quickly turn off notifications without even opening the settings app on your iPhone. Tired of seeing annoying notifications that you don't want to deal with right now?

Swipe down on the top left side of your iPhone, and you can access the Notification Center and see all of your recent notifications. You can also customize your notification settings if you still want to receive the notification but without any noise. And get to them quickly!

Don't let annoying notifications distract you from what's really important – take control of your iPhone with this simple trick!

If we see a distracting app, we're way more likely to open it. We can move these distracting apps to thwart the built-up muscle memory a bit.

By changing the app layout, where an app lives, that can make the app less visible to launch and stop reminding us to open the app. We could move the app to another iPhone screen or only put it in the App Library?

We could also hide a whole page of distracting apps until it's the right time. Maybe just when you need to focus, so only in a particular Focus Mode. This might be while working, or in the evening, when natural willpower is lower.

What's the deal with the App Library? Find out!

The App Library on iPhone is now the place where your apps "really" live. It contains the truth of the apps installed on your phone.

Now the Home Screen pages are something to have for decoration or a quick access point because you want to access apps there. Or you're just really accustomed to Home Screens and haven't changed anything yet.

In fact, you don't have to use more than one Home Screen at all. You can use the App Library to "hide" all the other apps and only keep out the "good" apps on your Home Screen and Dock at the bottom of the Home Screen.

The App Library contains all your apps, where they are organized automatically by app categories. Watch an App library walk-through, how apps are automatically organized there, and setting options.

• Suggestions
• Recently added
• By Category

App Store categories are up to the developer to choose, not you. The arrangement is not 100% constant over time (say if you delete all of a type of app, it will go away.)

Tap on a category to expand and see the rest of the apps there. Use the top search bar to find and launch apps very fast because it's ONLY searching for apps installed on your device. (Unlike spotlight, which is looking for tons of stuff, locally, and on the web.)

If you need them, App Library settings are in the Settings app, under "Home Screen"

Brittany shows you how you can never organize your iPhone apps again-- let your iPhone organize your apps automatically!

You can have all new apps automatically organized for you by exclusively using the App Library. Okay, you still need one Home Screen. But keep only what you want on that one Home Screen! For example, you could have only a photo and the dock, with no apps at all, if that's what you want.

If you don't really care where your apps are, but don't want your iPhone to look like the cluster it currently is, try using only the App Library. You can always go back to the cluster-thing if you hate the App Library.

Brittany will walk through how to setup to only use the App Library and turn off your regular home screens:

• A setting to install new apps only in the App Library
• Delete or hide all other app pages
• And how to go back to using all the Home Screens if you change your mind

Enjoy having a lot less cluttered iPhone Home Screen, without a lot of extra work!

You can have temporary or occasional screens of apps on your iPhone. Maybe you only want to use that page of apps when you're on vacation, or maybe you're just fed up with the clutter and distraction of having random apps everywhere. You can quickly hide those app screens!

Brittany will show you how to turn these app pages off! (Or back on, again!)

Examples of pages you might only want to see sometimes:

• Work apps
• Routines apps
• Bedtime apps
• Wind Down apps
• Travel apps
• Disneyland apps

Of course, you can also use Focus modes to choose which app pages you can see in different focus modes.

Do you ever get distracted because an app was recently used? You see it there, taunting you, saying, "Just one more TikTok..."?

Turns out, you can hard close it! Brittany will show you how in this super quick Tech Tip!

You can do this either with an iPhone that has a home button, or the newer iPhones with FaceID.

Hard closing apps on your iPhone won't usually save amazing battery life or make your device significantly zippier, as is commonly believed. But it can save you a little brain space if it's a tempting or distracting app. Or even a reminder you can't do anything about right now.

Whether you've been diagnosed with something like ADHD, or you've simply been caught up in Bedtime Revenge Procrastination one too many times, let's avoid these extra distractions!

Let's hard close some apps!

Brittany will walk you through how to make a custom Focus Mode for Evening Wind Down routine.

You can use a Focus Mode to create the mood and customize who, and what, can notify you when that Focus Mode is turned on. What do you want to be able to see when that focus mode is on? What do you want to not see?

As of iOS 16, we can set up either exclusion or inclusion criteria for notifications. Either you can specifically get notifications from some specific apps or people, or you can get notifications from everyone except certain apps or people.

What type of app might be distracting depends on what you’re trying to do. If it’s time to wind down after work or spend time with loved ones and you see a notification from work, that’s distracting. Just like how personal text threads about someone's amazing cat can be distracting when we're trying to work.

To create a custom Focus Mode from a scratch:

• Picture what you see yourself doing in this mode-- is it relaxing? Is it work? What is the function of this time?
• With your purpose in mind, what you don’t want in the way?
• Who shouldn't bother you?
• Are there apps you don't want to see they even exist? Or pages that you don't want to see at a particular time?
• Is there a look and feel you want to cultivate to remind you of what you would like to do at this time?

Focus Mode features to set up we go through:

• Custom Focus Mode from scratch
• Pick the color and icon for Focus Mode
• Who can notify you?
• What people can notify?
• What apps can notify?
• Who do you get calls from?
• What apps can notify you?
• Other notification options, like Show on Lock Screen, Dim Lock Screen, and Hide Notification Badges
• Link a custom Lock Screen with a Focus Mode and what Home Screens and apps are visible
• Smart Activation
• Automatically turn on Focus Mode by:
  • Time
  • Location
  • By app
• Focus Filters in a Focus Mode to see only parts for that Focus Mode

When you don’t want to see a whole page of apps in a certain Focus Mode, you can turn them off!

I might want to only see certain app pages while I'm doing my morning or evening routines. My routines are boring. And if I see anything else more tempting, I’ll be there, instead.

You get to decide: What app screens are okay? What apps do you need? I'm selecting app pages for my Wind Down Focus Mode.

What apps does your routine need? What apps are most likely to get in the way? That should help you decide on your routine home screens for your own Focus Modes!

If you’re finding yourself spending a bunch of time in an app when you didn’t mean to even open the app, sometimes it comes from a widget.

When you find yourself pulling out of an app rabbit hole, take a moment to figure out how you fell down the hole in the first place. That way you can learn from it, and figure out how to avoid it next time. Was it a widget that grabbed your attention?

Types of Home Screen Widgets:

• Widgets you created
• Widgets added by Apple for you

What's distracting about widgets created by you?? Maybe it’s just the wrong time to remind you of something that sounds more fun, or just less pressuring, than what you're supposed to be doing right now.

Maybe that widget you added isn’t a good idea, after all. I like the photos widget. But when I was going through some tough times, personally, my friend pointed out that the photos widget was probably reminding me of things I didn't need to see at that time in my life. She encouraged me to take them off until that time had passed-- and she was right!

Or, if you don’t want to delete the widget entirely, you could customize your home screens with Focus Modes, so you only see the distracting widgets at a convenient time.

The widgets Apple added for you can also be distracting. Just because Apple gave you a widget to get you thinking up ideas for your own widgets, doesn’t mean you have to keep it. (I'm looking at you, News Widget!)

There are also suggested widget stacks. These suggestions are based on either what Siri thinks you might like, or what Apple wants to promote. The suggestions from Siri assume that your previous behavior is what you want to keep doing in the future. That might not be true.

You can turn off suggested widgets. That way only the widgets you actively choose are on your iPhone. You can remove app widgets from screens if they’re luring you in at the wrong time, or just flashing distracting information (like the news).

Remove the widgets that aren’t helping you. Or change the rotation of a stack of widgets to manual, so you select when to see each yourself.

You can delete widgets, add your own, or whatever! It’s your Home Screen! Go nuts! What widgets do you like on your Home Screen?

• Which help you get stuff done?
• Which are distracting?

What's the weird screen to the left of your iPhone?

That thing to the left of... everything. Whether you're in Lock Screen or your first page of the Home Screen, this is what you get when you swipe left. It’s called the Today View. A lot of people ignore the today view, rather than taking advantage of it.

Apple likes to put on defaults like news. Gross. That is not going to help your focus, attention, or mood. News should be a choice, not... this. I believe in News consent.

Customize the way you want them to look! If you see anything you don’t want, there might be a way to stop it. You paid a lot for your iPhone. You deserve to have the phone do what YOU want!

What do you have on your “today” screen? Did you know it was there?

Want a more general walkthrough on adding and removing widgets? Watch this! (Already know this? Skip it!)

Are you looking for a way to manage your time on your iPhone better? With iOS’s Screen Time feature, App Limits can help you take control of your app usage. In this video, I walk you through how to set up and customize App Limits on your iPhone to make more mindful choices about the time you spend on apps and websites. Whether you’re trying to cut back on social media or want to manage your screen time across all your devices, I’ve got you covered.

Revenge bedtime procrastination beware!!!

First, I’ll show you how to navigate to the App Limits settings in Screen Time, where you can set daily limits for specific apps or entire app categories like Social Networking. You’ll learn how to customize these limits by day of the week, so you can give yourself more time on weekends if you want.

What happens when you hit your limit? I’ll show you how the iPhone dims the app icon and what options you have when you’re out of time—whether you choose to take a break or add just a few more minutes. I’ll also cover how to lock your Screen Time settings with a passcode to prevent easy overrides, and we’ll discuss more advanced strategies like having someone else set the passcode to make it harder to ignore your limits.

But what if App Limits start feeling more like a nuisance than a help? I’ll give you tips on what to do if you’ve built the habit of bypassing your limits and how to reset your approach to make these tools work for you again.

Stick around to learn how to make App Limits a tool that actually helps you achieve your goals.

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Go to Settings > Scroll down to Screen Time.
2. Tap App Limits > Choose “Add Limit.”
3. Select Apps or Categories > Pick specific apps like Pokémon Go or categories like Social Networking.
4. Set Time Limits > Customize the amount of time per day, or adjust per day of the week.

If you’re struggling with app usage, App Limits can help—but only if you use them right.