notifications

Pro Tip: Don’t lose track with persistent notifications

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Don’t let important stuff slip by
Take control of your notifications.
Image: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac

Pro tip bug You can set all notifications from a specific app to stick to the top of your screen, so you won’t lose track of them in the junk drawer of Notification Center. When your phone is unlocked and something important comes in, it’ll stay visible at the top of the screen until you acknowledge it.

This can be super handy for medication reminders or if you’re the sort of person to ignore notifications once they’re gone. Junky apps will spam you with notification bait; unless you seriously cull what’s allowed to appear in Notification Center, it can train you to ignore those banners.

I’ll show you how to make your notifications sticky.

iOS 15 brings welcome enhancements to FaceTime, notifications, more

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iOS 15 brings welcome enhancements to FaceTime, Notifications, more
Apple took the wraps off iOS 15 on the opening day of its WWDC conference.
Screenshot: Apple

iOS 15 just made the jump from rumor to reality. Apple is bringing major new features to FaceTime, Messages, notifications, and more. Many of the applications that come bundled with iPhone are getting updates, like Apple Maps and Weather.

However, some features people had been hoping for didn’t make the cut, like interactive widgets.

How to get new music notifications in Apple Music

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new music notifications
Never miss new releases from your favorite artists again.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

You may have seen a notification from Apple Music at some point. It popped up, told you about a new album from a favorite artist, and you thought, “Thanks Apple Music! That’s great news.” Finally, you thought to yourself, this is a machine doing what machines are supposed to do. Then maybe you clicked on that notification, and the Music app launched, but didn’t go to the artist or album. Or perhaps you dismissed the alert, and when you opened the Music app later, you were confused because you couldn’t find the notification anywhere.

Now, Apple has (maybe) fixed this problem. Instead of just plain old lock-screen notifications, the Music app will now show you new music alerts inside the app itself. Here’s how to switch them on.

How to mute annoying email threads in iOS 13

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Mute email
Mute entire email threads as easily as muting your music.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Have you ever been part of one of those threads where your boss sends out a fairly benign yet pointless email, and then one of your less-smart co-workers hijacks the thread with reply-alls about dress code for the upcoming office team-building excursion? Before long, the thread is an embarrassing morass of arguments on whether sneakers count as casual shoes, and who will sit where during dinner.

Your moronic co-worker (hopefully) ends up getting a do-not-promote mark in their personnel file. While you, thanks to today’s tip, manage not only to stay above the fray, but to completely ignore it. That’s because you’re about to see how easy it is to mute an email thread so you never have to see it again.

How to add an hourly taptic chime in watchOS 6

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bell
Ring my be-e-ell, ring my bell!
Photo: Luís Perdigão/Unsplash

One of the defining characteristics of digital watches in the 1980s was the hourly chime. Every morning during school assembly, 9 o’clock would arrive, and with it a chorus of chimes, like electronic tweety birds at dawn. The double beeps filled the school hall. The teachers had long since given up trying to make us turn them off.

Now, you can experience the same thing with your Apple Watch. You can even make the chime sound like a real little birdie!

Stop Apple’s spam notifications with this hidden setting

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Nobody likes spam. Here's how to stop Apple spam notifications, i.e. marketing notifications.
Nobody likes spam. Nobody.
Photo: Jesper Sehested/Flickr CC

On a podcast this week, I heard the hosts complaining that they get all kinds of spam notifications from Apple. Their iPhones pop up promotional alerts about Apple Pay, apps, Apple Music, Apple Pay, podcasts and more.

“WTF?” I thought, because I don’t get anything like that. I checked through my notification preferences, sure that I’d find something in there, but no. So why wasn’t I getting all this Apple spam?

Because Apple hid the setting. You can turn off all those junky Apple spam notifications. You just have to know where to look.

How to stop Apple Card from bombarding you with notifications

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Apple Card with iPad
Switch off those pesky Apple Card notifications
Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac

Are you enjoying your new Apple Card? Isn’t running up debt great when it is accompanied by a titanium card and a stylish app? But what you might not be enjoying are the Apple Card notifications that started to pop up on your iPhone.

Here’s how to stop them. But beware: It’s an all-or-nothing proposition that clearly illustrates an annoying problem with iPhone notifications.

3D Touch a folder to see only apps with notifications

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Perhaps the greatest 3D Touch trick ever.
Perhaps the greatest 3D Touch trick ever.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

You’re going to L-O-V-E this tip. You know how sometimes you see a folder on your iPhone’s home screen, and there’s a red notification badge on the folder itself? That badge is a summary of all the unread notifications of the apps inside the folder. Of course, at this point you just ignore it, because you don’t want to swipe through the pages of never-used apps inside the folder, just to see which apps have unread alerts.

But what if there was a way to quickly see which apps in that folder have outstanding notifications. Well, there is! And you’re going to kick yourself when you see how easy it is.

Tame your notifications with iOS 12’s Instant Tuning

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Instant Tuning lets you tweak alert settings as you get them.
Instant Tuning lets you tweak alert settings as you get them.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

“Instant Tuning” is the rather odd name that Apple gave an excellent new iOS 12 feature. You know how some apps on your iPhone keep popping up notifications you never want or need? And you keep telling yourself that you will dig into the Settings app and switch them off? Only you never, ever get around to this annoying busywork? Instant Tuning is for you.

Now, when a notification comes in, you can access the notifications settings for that app right there in the notification itself. This is huge, and makes culling your notifications way easier. Which in turn makes your most important notifications, like text messages or that sweet eBay auction you’re following, stand out more.

Showdown! iOS 12 vs. Android 9 Pie

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Which wins the features arms race, Android 9 Pie vs. iOS 12? Here's how they compare.
Which wins the features arms race, Android 9 Pie or iOS 12? Here's how they compare.
Illustration: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Android 9 Pie has landed on Google Pixel devices just a month before Apple rolls out iOS 12. Both come with a long list of new features and improvements, but is one better than the other?

Here’s how Android 9 and iOS 12 compare.

WhatsApp is bringing media previews to iOS notifications

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WhatsApp on iOS
WhatsApp users have been waiting for better notifications.
Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac

WhatsApp notifications on iOS are about to get a lot more useful.

The popular messaging service is now testing media previews that let users view images and even animated GIFs before opening a message. Today’s update has also added the ability to use Siri to send messages to groups.

WhatsApp’s newest feature fixes group chat notification chaos

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WhatsApp group notifications
The WhatsApp dream might one day come true.
Photo: WhatsApp

WhatsApp’s group chat function can be incredibly useful for all kinds of things. But when a bunch of people are talking, your phone gets bombarded with notifications and they suddenly become unbearable.

WhatsApp’s newest feature hopes to fix that by allowing only selected people to send messages.

Gmail for iOS just got a big notifications upgrade

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Gmail iOS
View all your messages individually if you prefer.
Photo: Google

Some of us need to have email notifications enabled, but we don’t want our iPhone to ping every time a spam message hits out inbox. Gmail just got a big notifications upgrade that solves this problem.

Its official iOS app now uses artificial intelligence to provide notifications for your most important emails only.

How iOS 12’s smartest features put users firmly back in control

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Time for bed screen time downtime
Time for bed. iOS 12 lets you choose who can disturb you.
Photo: Apple

WWDC 2018 bug Cult of Mac Maybe the most important new feature of iOS 12 is something that helps you to do less with your iPhone, not more.

If any other company had introduced Screen Time, the new system-wide toolset for limiting phone distractions, then it would (rightly) be dismissed as a gimmick, a sop to the increasing worries about phone addiction. But as is typical of Apple, Screen Time looks like it took a lot of work to get just right.

Screen Time may seem to be about combatting app addiction, and reducing the amount of time “wasted” on your iPhone. However, taken together with the new Do Not Disturb settings in iOS 12, it’s more about putting users back in control of their iPhones.

Sketchy photo purports to show iOS 12’s new features

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ipad ios 11
iOS 12 could pack a ton of big surprises.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

We’ve seen some incredibly sketchy Apple “leaks” over the years. This one, a photo that purportedly shows an iOS 12 upgrade ready to be installed on an iPhone, is up there with the most ludicrous.

Here’s what the image claims we’ll get when Apple’s big update rolls out this fall.

iOS 12 concept dreams of grouped notifications and more

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iOS 12
It's time for Apple to bundle notifications.
Photo: Matt Birchler

The grand unveiling of iOS 12 is just a few weeks away and there’s one feature on everybody’s wishlist: grouped notifications.

iOS 11’s notification screen is a mess when you get multiple notifications from the same app, but developer Matt Birchler has created a simple concept that shows how Apple could make the lock screen notifications so much better.

Here’s how they would look:

How to get alerts when iOS games and apps go free

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Free game alerts
Who wouldn't want to play UNICORN 3D - Colour by Number?
Photo: Cult of Mac

Are you an iOS gamer? Do you love games so much that your iPhone may as well be a pocket games console? And do you also hate paying developers to make those amazing games for you? Then good news! because today’s how-to shows you how to get alerts whenever a top game gets its price reduced to free.

Quick Tip: How to force Face ID to pay attention to you

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iPhone x notifications face id
iPhone X hides notification previews until you look at them.
Photo: Apple

Face ID is almost perfect, but that only makes it even more annoying when Apple’s facial-recognition tech doesn’t work like you’d expect. For instance, if you’re sitting at your desk and you glance at a notification on your propped-up iPhone X, the screen unlocks and lets you read the notification’s full content. But sometimes it doesn’t notice you looking, and the notifications stay locked.

What do you do in this case? Do you grab the phone and give it a shake, the same way you do to trigger raise-to-wake on other iPhones? No. There’s a shortcut, although you will need to lift at least one finger to use it.

Master your iPhone X with these tips, tricks and how-tos

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iPhone x unboxing
Fresh out of the box.
Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac

The iPhone X is Apple’s most exciting iPhone in years. It packs an incredible portrait camera, ditches the home button so it can squeeze and iPhone Plus-sized screen into a regular-sized body, and adds Face ID.

If you want to read all about your new iPhone X, or to see what the fuss is before you purchase one, check out this roundup of all Cult of Mac’s iPhone X coverage.

iPhone X keeps your notifications secret from people who aren’t you

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iPhone x notifications face id
iPhone X hides notification previews until you look at them.
Photo: Apple

Thanks to Face ID, the iPhone X knows when its owner is looking at it, and can hide the content of your notifications until you do so. Now, if somebody else picks up your iPhone X and takes a peek at your incoming alerts, it will only see a list of the apps that have notifications for you. The content of the alerts remains hidden until you look at the screen, and Face ID expands the boxes to show you your messages.

The twist is that you can already do something very similar with Touch ID, just by changing one setting.

Undisturbed takes control of your Mac’s Do Not Disturb mode

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Undisturbed
Undisturbed turns off those annoying red badges.
Photo: Cult of Mac

Do you know how to turn on your Mac’s Do Not Disturb mode? That’s right, you open up the Notification sidebar, pull down, and toggle the switch. It works great. Right up until you look at the Dock, or the app switcher, and see a bunch of big red badges hassling you to read your email or check your boss’ Slack messages.

That’s where Undisturbed comes in. It’s an app that improves Do Not Disturb, so you really don’t get disturbed.