Apple is set to release iOS 16 to the public very soon and you're probably very excited about that, as you should be. But I'm here to tell you that you're going to go crazy if you don't make sure you have one specific setting configured just right.

The big iOS 16 update is a worthwhile one, not least because it finally lets us edit iMessages and unsend emails. But one standout change is the way your iPhone's Home Screen functions. Not only can you add widgets to your Home Screen for the first time, but you can also change how notifications appear — with three options to choose from. But choosing wisely is vital, especially if you get a ton of notifications.

To stack, or not to stack

Here's the gist. With iOS 15 and earlier you had your notifications appear as an on-screen list and that was the long and short of it. You could have them grouped by app and whatnot, but they all appeared as a list. That changes with iOS 16.

Now, you can choose to either have your notifications appear in a stack or as a numerical count, plus the previous list view.

The numerical option is cool, especially if you're someone who wants to know that you have notifications but are acutely aware of the fact that you get too many and want to avoid them eating into your time. Just tap the number and your notifications appear, ready to be read.

The list option works as I just explained.

But the stack option? That's maddening. It was set as the default the first time I updated to the iOS 16 beta and after giving it a few hours I had to change it back to the list option. Oh boy, did I hate it. And it's the default for all iPhones upgrading to iOS 16.

The theory is sound, of course. Apple wanted to move the notifications down to the bottom of the screen to get out of the way of your gorgeous wallpaper. It also means they can be tapped more easily because they're lower down the screen on an iPhone that just keeps on growing. That's all fine. The problem comes when you actually need to read the things.

If you only receive a notification or two, you're golden. But any more than that and you'll find yourself constantly trying to move that first notification out of the way so that you can see the ones beneath it. But be careful, do it wrong and you'll be launched into the notification's app, marking it as read in the process. The number of times I did that were too many to count. And far too many for my stack experiment to last much longer.

The smart choice

So, do yourself a favor. If you want to hide your notifications, try the count option. But if you get any number of notifications and want to stand a chance of seeing them, stick with the list option. Your patience will thank you for it.

Still, all of that aside, iOS 16 remains the best iPhone software to date, so long as you change that one setting, of course. The new Lock Screen widgets and wallpaper customizations are excellent, as are those changes to Messages and Mail I mentioned earlier. There's more, too, with Shared iCloud Photo Library fixing a pain point many have dealt with for years. Give it a try come release day, it'll be worth the wait!

You're sitting on the couch. Your iPhone is on the coffee table. You get a notification. You grab your iPhone to see the message. You get another notice, and so forth. It's getting out of hand, and you're starting to feel all that notification anxiety. So many notifications and so little time!

Sound familiar? You can customize notifications and adjust how you receive alerts and how Notification Center looks when you access it. Don't be a slave to your app notifications. Make them work for you instead of driving you crazy.

These work on the best iPhones with iOS 15 and later.

How to enable Siri suggestions for apps

On iPhone and iPad, you can get help from Siri, for which apps can suggest shortcuts to notifications on your Lock screen.

1. Launch the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad.
2. Tap Notifications.

3. Tap Siri Suggestions.
4. Turn on the app switch for apps you want to enable Siri Suggestions.

How to customize how notifications are grouped

Notifications are grouped into stacks, making addressing them much more manageable. You can customize how messages are grouped.

1. Launch the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad.
2. Tap Notifications.

3. Select the app you want to customize notification grouping.
4. Tap Notification Grouping.

5. Tap Automatically to have Siri suggest how your app notifications are grouped.
6. Tap By App to keep notifications grouped by app.
7. Tap Off to disable notification grouping altogether.

How to manage notifications from Notification Center in iOS 15

Notifications in iOS 15 are heavily influenced by the new Focus tool, which pushes the Do Not Disturb feature to advanced levels.

1. Unlock your iPhone.
2. Swipe down from the top of your screen to access Notification Center.
3. Swipe to the left on a Notification to view your options.

4. Choose Clear to remove all notifications in the stack.
5. Tap Options to manage an app's notifications. For most apps, you can choose from various options.
   • Mute for One Hour - no more notifications for the current app for one hour
   • Mute for Today - no more notifications for the current app for the rest of the day
   • Send to Summary - include the notifications in the Focus Summary
   • Configure in (the app) - make decisions on notifications in the app
   • View Settings - See iOS notification settings
   • Turn Off - Receive no more notifications for this app
   • Turn Off (in active Focus group) - You won't receive notifications anymore from this app, assuming you're currently using a Focus.

How enable or disable notifications

If you suffer from FOMO (fear of missing out) and want to make sure you always know when something important comes in on your iPhone or iPad, make sure it's set to allow notifications.

If you feel like Notification Center is getting out of hand and seems like a big old mess, try disabling the unimportant ones from Notification Center to clear your head and clear your screen. Think of it as a bunch of Post-it notes stuck to your desk. For example, do you need a message to let you know that your game cooldown has been completed?

1. Launch the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad.
2. Tap Notifications.

3. Select the app you want to remove from Notification Center.
4. Toggle the Allow Notifications switch on or off.

When you disable notifications for apps that aren't important to your daily life, you'll feel better about Notification Center. There's no reason to bog down your important alerts with unnecessary interruptions.

How to use Immediate Delivery and Scheduled Summary in iOS 15

Apple has introduced two new ways to customize notifications in iOS 15 called Immediate Delivery and Scheduled Summary. With the former, you can make sure time-sensitive notifications from apps are always delivered, regardless of your Focus settings. With Scheduled Summary, you receive a summary of your messages either in the morning, evening or at a scheduled time. In addition, the synopsis makes it easier to catch up on notifications you might have missed during the day.

To set scheduled summaries:

1. Launch the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad.
2. Tap Notifications.

3. Select Scheduled Summary.
4. Toggle on Scheduled Summary.
5. Assign the schedule. By default, the system assigns a first and second summary. You can change these or add new ones.

6. Choose Apps in Summary.
7. Toggle on/off the apps that should be assigned to the Scheduled Summary. You can sort by Daily Notification Avg. or A to Z.

How to enable or disable banner notifications

If you want to make sure you're always aware of notifications coming in, you can set them as banners so you'll see them even if you're using another app. Conversely, if notifications keep popping up on your screen while using your iPhone or iPad and you don't want to be bothered by them anymore, you can disable them.

1. Launch the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad.
2. Tap Notifications.

3. Select the app for which you want to turn on or off banners.
4. Toggle the Allow Notifications switch on if it's not already.
5. Choose how you'd like to setup your banners.

How to set banner notifications to temporary or persistent

Some apps are so important that you need to ensure you don't miss them under any circumstance. For example, you don't want to forget them just because they disappear from view while you're reading something on Twitter. You can make alerts temporary or persistent for the varying importance of alerts.

Temporary banners will appear at the top of your screen and disappear after about three seconds. Persistent banners must be manually swiped away or addressed before they go away.

1. Launch the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad.
2. Tap Notifications.

3. Select the app for which you want to receive banners and alerts.
4. Choose banner under Alerts.
5. Click Banner Style.
6. Tap Persistent to have them stay until you swipe them away. Tap Temporary to have them disappear on their own.

How to turn on or off sound alerts on your iPhone and iPad

Want to make sure you hear every Notification that comes in? Make sure you've got sound alerts enabled. Don't want certain apps to notify you anymore audibly? Here's how to turn off notification sounds (aside from just toggling your mute switch):

1. Launch the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad.
2. Tap Notifications.

3. Select the app for which you want to get an audible alert.
4. Toggle the Allow Notifications switch on if it's not already.
5. Toggle the Sounds switch on or off.

How to turn on or off badge app icons on your iPhone and iPad

If you want to make sure you know about notifications, even if you miss them on your Lock screen or didn't hear the sound alert, turn on Badge App icons, so you'll always know what hasn't been addressed yet. If those numbers in red circles on each app annoy or stress you out, you can turn them off.

1. Launch the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad.
2. Tap Notifications.

3. Select the app for which you want to see that red dot on the icon.
4. Toggle the Allow Notifications switch on if it's not already.
5. Toggle the Badges switch on or off.

How to turn on or off Lock screen notifications on your iPhone and iPad

If you don't want notifications from certain apps appearing on your Lock screen, here's how to turn them off:

1. Launch the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad.
2. Tap Notifications.

3. Select the app for which you want to have notifications appear on your Lock screen.
4. Toggle the Allow Notifications switch on if it's not already.
5. Tap Show Previews.
6. Make a choice between Always, When Unlockaed (Default), or Never.

Stay alert

It's much easier to customize Notification Center alerts, banners, sounds, and app icon badges in iOS 15. It will be interesting to see what new features get added in iOS 16 and beyond. Stay tuned.

Updated June 2022: Includes iOS 15 updates.

The United States participates in an emergency notification service called AMBER (America's Missing: Broadcasting Emergency Response). An AMBER alert usually lets citizens know when police are tracking a missing person and there is information that this person may be in your area. Apple has included AMBER alert notifications, as well as other emergency government notifications like Emergency Alerts and Public Safety Alerts, on all iPhones, including yours.

Depending on the nature of the alert, which can include child abductions and impending natural disasters, it's a great feature that can prevent injury and save lives. Many lives. So, by their nature, these alerts don't respect Do Not Disturb settings. They NEED to get through.

That can be shocking, however, especially if they happen when you're sleeping, driving, or otherwise not expecting a loud noise to come from your iPhone 13. That's why, ultimately, AMBER and other alerts work at your discretion. They are all on by default, but you can decide which alerts you want to keep on or turn off. Here's how.

How to control AMBER and government alerts on your iPhone

1. Launch the Settings app on your iPhone
2. Tap on Notifications and scroll all the way to the bottom

3. Under the Government Alerts section, toggle the AMBER Alerts and Public Safety Alerts options on or off to enable or disable them
4. Tap Emergency Alerts and then choose whether you want to receive them or not, and if so, whether you want it to Always Deliver or not. If Always Deliver is off, then emergency alerts will not play a sound when your iPhone is in Silent Mode

Turning off AMBER and other alerts can cost lives, including yours. If a natural disaster is coming your way, and you don't know about it, you have no way to save your life or the life of your family.

That's why they're loud and shocking. They're meant to get your attention, instantly — and big, loud, and noisy is the way to do that.

So, while you can disable them, you shouldn't. Not unless you have some other way to be reliably alerted about emergencies.

If you have an Android device or Windows Phone or know someone who has them, you should make sure that AMBER and other government alerts are also active on those too.

Better safe than sorry!

Keeping your AMBER and other alerts on is important and potentially life-saving. Apple also offers several other easy-to-use safety features on all its devices. Emergency SOS is one of those safety features, and it's been known to save lives on both iPhones and Apple Watches. Triggering it is super simple. All you have to do is follow the steps in our Emergency SOS guide.

If you own an iPhone 14 model, such as the best iPhone at the moment, the iPhone 14 Pro Max, you'll also have access to Crash Detection, a lifesaving feature if you're ever involved in a car crash.

Additionally, depending on which version of iOS you're using, Emergency SOS can also reach out to your emergency contacts via your iPhone and send the device's last known location.

So make sure you've set AMBER alerts up correctly because you never know when you might need them, and it's always better to be safe than sorry.

While Notification Center is a great way to make sure you never miss an alert, there are times when you might not want to hear all that beeping and buzzing. With Do Not Disturb, your iPhone or iPad will keep collecting all your alerts but will do so quietly. Whether you're in a meeting, at a romantic dinner, or simply trying to get a good night's sleep, Do Not Disturb will make sure you can talk, eat, or sleep in peace and quiet, and still find all your alerts waiting for you when you're ready.

• How to enable Do Not Disturb on iPhone or iPad
• How to schedule Do Not Disturb for specific times on iPhone or iPad
• How to customize Do Not Disturb settings on iPhone or iPad

How to enable Do Not Disturb on iPhone and iPad

When you don't want to hear a sound from your iPhone or iPad — for example, while you're in a movie theater, out for dinner, or in an important meeting — you can turn Do Not Disturb on and enjoy some peace and quiet. Here's how you do it.

1. Swipe down from the top right corner of your screen to launch Control Center.
2. Tap the Do Not Disturb button. It looks like a crescent moon.

Note: You can also 3D Touch the Do Not Disturb button to quickly access scheduling options.

To turn Do Not Disturb off again, just follow the same steps.

How to schedule Do Not Disturb for specific times on iPhone or iPad

If you want your iPhone or iPad to go dark when you do — so you can sleep or attend class or workout without beeps or buzzes — you can schedule Do Not Disturb to turn itself on automatically.

1. Launch the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad.
2. Tap on Do Not Disturb.
3. Tap the Scheduled switch to On in order to activate the scheduling feature.

4. Tap the blue times directly underneath Scheduled.
5. Swipe up or down to select the From and To times corresponding to when you'd like Do Not Disturb to be active.
   • Note: You can toggle on the Bedtime setting to enable a new Bedtime mode. Your lock screen will dim, your calls will be silenced, and notifications will simply appear in Notification Center.

How to customize Do Not Disturb settings on iPhone or iPad

If you're worried that Do Not Disturb will make you miss something really important—a call from your significant other or babysitter, or a business contact you're anxious to hear from—you can customize some exceptions.

1. Launch the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad.
2. Tap on Do Not Disturb.
3. Tap on Allow Calls From.

4. From here, you can select from the following options:
   • Everyone: Allows calls from everyone on your contacts list.
   • No One: Allows calls from no one.
   • Favorites: Allows calls from contacts in your Favorites list.
   • Groups: A specific group of contacts.
5. Tap the Repeated Calls switch to on to allow a call from the same number through if received within three minutes of the first.
6. Tap on either of the Silence options to select your choice:
   • Always: Calls and notifications are always silent.
   • Only while iPhone is locked: Calls and notifications are silent only when the iPhone is locked.

How to use Do Not Disturb While Driving

In iOS 11, Apple added the ability to disable all of your notifications while you're on the road. If you are tempted by FOMO and check your alerts, even when your eyes should be on the road, you can use Do Not Disturb While Driving to keep you safe.

How to set up and use Do Not Disturb While Driving

The customization isn't exactly robust, but it does work and hopefully, Apple will expand on it as well. And what about the Apple Watch? Check out our guide to using Apple Watch Do Not Disturb.

Updated August 2018: Updated for iOS 12.

As part of an overall move to give us more control over how we decide to use our devices, Apple has added some fantastic Do Not Disturb and notification features coming to iOS 12 this fall. You'll have more control over keeping your iPhone silent while you work and sleep, and manage notifications quicker without even having to unlock your screen. Here's how Do Not Disturb and notifications will change in iOS 12.

• New Do Not Disturb features
• New Notification features

New Do Not Disturb features

Do Not Disturb prior to iOS 12 lets you schedule a specific time frame for the silencing feature to turn on and off. You can also manually enable it. That's about it.

In iOS 12, a few new features makes Do Not Disturb more robust and helpful for avoiding device distractions.

To access these additional features, 3D Touch or long press on Do Not Disturb in Control Center.

Sometimes, you just need to quiet your phone for an hour, but if you're anything like me, you'll forget that you turned on DND and miss important messages hours after your quiet time has ended.

Apple has fixed that with the upcoming iOS 12. You can set your iPhone and iPad to silence notifications, messages, and calls for one hour. After your 60 minutes are up, DND turns off automatically.

If you're going to be busying for a while, like maybe you're studying for a big test or you're at a party, you can turn on Do Not Disturb for a portion of the day.

Depending on when you access Do Not Disturb, you'll see the option to turn it on until the afternoon, evening, or the next morning.

Thanks to a little help from Geofencing, you can turn on Do Not Disturb until you leave your current location. I'm not sure of the exact geofence radius, but when you leave your current location, Do Not Disturb will turn off automatically so you don't have to worry about turning it back on.

This is great if you're at the movies or a romantic dinner and don't want your phone distracting you for the entire time you're there.

In iOS 12, Do Not Disturb automatically syncs with the built-in Calendar app. If you're at an event that is on your Calendar when you pop in to the DND options, you'll be able to turn on the feature for the length of time specified in the event.

It's perfect for meetings. Don't make your boss cranky by checking your phone every few minutes and don't make your partner cranky by forgetting to turn Do Not Disturb off after you're done with the meeting.

9to5's Guilherme Rambo noted in a tweet that passes you add to Apple Wallet will also sync with Do Not Disturb. If you purchase movie tickets from Fandango and add them to Wallet, Siri will suggest that you turn on Do Not Disturb while your at the theater.

Another awesome feature coming to Do Not Disturb in iOS 12 is Bedtime Mode.

When Do Not Disturb Bedtime Mode is enabled, calls and notifications are silenced and notifications will be sent to History.

Plus, the screen dims and you won't see any notifications on the Lock screen. So if you wake up in the middle of the night and tap your screen to see the time, you won't get FOMO (fear of missing out) when you see that you have a bunch of notifications waiting for you. You'll see them when you get up and Bedtime Mode turns off.

Bedtime Mode is in the Settings app under Do Not Disturb. You can toggle the Bedtime Mode switch on and it will set during your scheduled DND times (If you don't have a scheduled timeframe for DND, you won't see Bedtime Mode).

New Notification features

Those pesky notifications. We need them, but the rule our lives. We are glad to stay connected to things that are important to us, but feel compelled to check our phones or respond when we hear that chime or see that message.

In iOS 12, we'll be able to control the notifications we get much easier. Plus, with Siri Suggestions, we'll get smart recommendations on how we receive them.

In iOS 12, our multiple notifications are finally grouped into stacks, organized by apps. So, when you get five notifications from one app while you're in a meeting, you won't have to scroll down for days to see everything from one app.

Want to see who's emailed you, but don't want to check your Twitter DMs just yet? No problem.

Don't even want to deal with Facebook right now? No problem. Swipe to clear all notifications from Facebook while keeping your others intact.

When you tap on a notification stack from a specific app, you can read and respond to them individually. You can also swipe to manage or clear the whole stack at once.

All of this is done right on your Lock screen. You can address, clear, or manage your notification without having to unlock your iPhone.

It's great that you can see, and even address some Notifications right on the Lock screen (like responding to a text message). But, in iOS 12, you can do even more.

When you swipe to the left on a notification, you can now select to manage notifications. When you tap Manage, you'll be given the option to Deliver Quietly, turn off the app's notifications entirely, or tap into the app's notification settings to customize how you want notifications sent going forward.

For devices with 3D Touch, when you pop into the notification details, you can also access this management feature by tapping the three dots in the upper right of the notification window.

Your entire notification process has a new style and its called Deliver Quietly.

In iOS 12, you can set your notifications to be "delivered quietly" when you manage them.

When you have Deliver Quietly enabled, notifications from that app will appear in Notification Center, but not the Lock screen. You'll also still see the badge app icon, but you wont get a banner alert or hear any sound when the notification is delivered.

It keeps you from getting FOMO, but isn't as distracting as having full notifications turned on.

With improved Siri Suggestions in iOS 12, you'll get a little extra help managing your notifications. If you keep getting notifications from an app that you really don't use anymore, or at least don't respond to notifications for, Siri will ask whether you want to keep receiving them. You can select to keep or manage notifications from the app.

Anything else?

Do you have any questions about how Do Not Disturb and notifications work in iOS 12? Put them in the comments and I'll help you out.

Notifications are crucial to iOS. In fact, some apps can be used purely as notification engines — I hardly ever open Dark Sky or ESPN, because their push notifications tell me everything I need to know. In iOS 11, everything's a little different, but once you get used to it, you might actually prefer the new way.

If you are using the iOS 11 public or developer beta, it's worth your time to reexamine your choices in Settings > Notifications to make better use of the new system. Let's walk through all the changes.

Apple occasionally offers updates to iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, tvOS, and macOS as closed developer previews or public betas. While the betas contain new features, they also contain pre-release bugs that can prevent the normal use of your iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV, or Mac, and are not intended for everyday use on a primary device. That's why we strongly recommend staying away from developer previews unless you need them for software development, and using the public betas with caution. If you depend on your devices, wait for the final release.

The new Cover Sheet

As before, you can see your notifications in iOS 11 by swiping down from the very top edge of the screen. In iOS 10, that showed you a two-paned view of Notification Center and your Today widgets, and you could swipe between them.

In iOS 11, however, you'll see what looks like your Lock screen. The date and time are on top, just like on your Lock screen, and then you'll see the list of notifications stacked below it. Instead of a black background, you'll see your Lock screen wallpaper. This is called the Cover Sheet.

Notifications on the Cover Sheet are organized chronologically by date. New ones appear on the top, and you can swipe up to see the full history. There's no longer an option to group notifications by app, or limit how many appear from each app. By default, notifications on the Cover Sheet show a preview of the content (the new email, text, Slack message, etc.), but you can change that behavior in Settings > Notifications. Tap Show Previews, and you can change it from Always to When Unlocked or Never. You can then override that universal setting for individual apps—there's a Show Previews option at the very bottom of each app's settings menu.

Previously, you could swipe on an individual banner in Notification Center to clear it, or tap it to open that app. In iOS 11, you can still tap a notification to open that item in the app, but the swiping behavior is different. If you swipe from the Cover Sheet, it's just like swiping on your lock screen: your Today widgets are kept to the left of the Cover Sheet, and your Camera is on the right.

Pressing a notification in iOS 11 expands it and often gives you some buttons. Notifications for the Gmail app, for example, include Archive and Reply buttons. In this expanded view, you can still tap the notification itself to open it in the corresponding app.

The notifications in the Cover Sheet are grouped by day, with an X button you can tap to clear them day by day. Press the X for a Clear All Notifications pop-up to wipe the entire slate clean.

Per-app settings

Every app you have installed on your iPhone or iPad is listed in Settings > Notifications, and you can tweak the settings individually for each app. The settings are a little different in iOS 11 than in iOS 10, so it's a good (albeit tedious) idea to revisit at least the apps you use the most. Here's what you'll find in each app's notification settings.

1. First, you can disallow notifications altogether with the Allow Notifications switch.
2. The Sounds toggle allows the app to play a sound every time it gets a notification, even if your phone is locked, but not when it's silenced or in Do Not Disturb mode. Use it judiciously!
3. The option to Badge App Icon will create those red badges on an app's icon that display the number of notification waiting inside.
4. In the next section, labeled Alerts, you can choose where your notifications will show up. Show Cover Sheet allows them to appear on your Cover Sheet whether or not your phone is locked.
5. Show in History means the notifications won't pop up on your Cover Sheet as they come in when your phone is locked, but they'll still show up in the full list of notifications when you swipe up from the Cover Sheet, or when your device is unlocked.
6. Show as Banners only affects how the notifications are displayed along the top of the screen when they come in while you're actively using your device. If this option is turned on, you can also choose if the banners should be Temporary (the default), or persistent.

How is that Alerts section different from what came before?. Previously, iOS differentiated between "alerts" (pop-ups with buttons that didn't go away until you interacted with them) and "banners" (a pop-up without buttons that would appear briefly and then vanish). In iOS 11, every notification is called a banner, but you can choose whether the banners should be temporary or persistent.

Both temporary and persistent banners look the same, but a persistent banner will stay on the top of the screen until you swipe it up to dismiss it, press on it it for more info, or tap it to open the app. So a persistent banner in iOS 11 acts just like an alert in iOS 10, only you have to press it to see any relevant buttons.

Maximum flexibility

So that's a lot of settings, but the end result is extreme flexibility. I interact with different kinds of apps in different ways, and the freedom to put their notifications exactly where I want them is great.

For example, I have Dark Sky send me the forecast every morning. It's set to show previews always and appear in Cover Sheet and History, but not as a banner, because I don't want it interrupting me if I happen to be using my iPhone for something else when the notification comes in. I just know it's always in the Cover Sheet when I want it.

Snapchat notifications, on the other hand, I have set to show as banners so I get a pop-up if I'm using my iPhone at the time — that way I can open the app to reply immediately and get a little chat going. But I also have Show on Cover Sheet and Show in History turned off, so my Cover Sheet doesn't stack up with old Snapchat notifications. Instead, Badge App Icon is turned on, so I'll notice I have messages waiting that way.

Oh, one more thing: Notifications don't show up on your Cover Sheet while you're using iOS 11's new Do Not Disturb While Driving feature. But they'll all appear at once as soon as you end your drive.

Questions?

Revisiting each app's notification settings can take forever if you have a lot of apps, but iOS 11 makes your efforts worthwhile. What do you think of the new Notifications settings? Did it take you a while to get used to Cover Sheet? The comments are open!

With interactive notifications for iPhone and iPad, you no longer have to stop what you're doing in order to respond to a message, trash a junk email, or accept a calendar invite. Simply act on that notification at the top of your screen, or from your Lock screen, and then continue what you were doing!

• How to use interactive notifications on iPhone and iPad
• How to use interactive notifications from the lock screen on iPhone and iPad

How to use interactive notifications on iPhone and iPad

You're gaming. You're on Facebook. You're surfing the web or checking out Reddit. And then, boom, a notification comes in. Rather than switching out to another app and ruining your flow, interactive notifications allow you to simply swipe, take action, and go right back to what you were doing!

When a notification banner appears:

1. Swipe down on the notification banner with the pull bar when a notification comes in.
2. Tap on any button that contains an action you want to perform. The available buttons and actions will vary depending on what app you receive a notification from.
   • Eg. tap on a text message to begin typing your reply
   • Eg. tap on dismiss or snooze to clear a calendar notification.

That's it! Once you've taken care of the notification to your liking, go back to whatever it was you were doing.

How to use interactive notifications from the Lock screen on iPhone and iPad

You're watching TV, working on your computer, reading a book — yes, people still do that! — and all of a sudden an alert appears on your iPhone or iPad. With interactive notifications, you can often take action immediately without having to unlock your device!

From the lock screen:

1. Swipe left over the notification to reveal available options.
2. Tap on the available options, depending on what type of notification it is.
   • Reply: This opens up a text field where you can type your response,
   • Various response buttons: This depends on the type of notification and the application it comes from. For example, it might be a snooze button to delay a reminder for later.
   • Delete: Deletes the notification.

The type of notification you receive will determine what kind of action options you have. And since Apple is allowing developers to take advantage of actionable notifications, the amount of options are endless.

If you want your iPhone's notifications in Notification Center to mirror notifications on your Lock Screen, you can at last do so as of iOS 9, thanks to a handy preference in the Settings app.

1. Open the Settings app.
2. Tap Notifications.
3. Select Sort Order.
   
   
   

4. Tap Recent, then tap the back button.
5. Turn off Group By App.
   
   

Now, when you pull down Notification Center, you'll see your notifications as organized by time, rather than by specific app.

That being said, some widgets are going to contain more important information than others. For example, you probably care more about upcoming appointments and meetings in Fantastical than you do what tv shows are coming on tonight. Or maybe you don't. Hey, we aren't here to judge priorities! Regardless of what's more important to you personally, you can easily sort all of your Today view widgets in whatever ordered you'd like. That way the information that's most important to you is readily available right at the top of Today view. Here's how!

You'll notice that the Today Summary and Tomorrow Summary sit static at the top and bottom, respectively. These are the only two widgets you can not remove or change the order of. Anything else is fair game.

How to reorder Today view widgets in Notification Center for iPhone and iPad

1. Swipe down from the top of your iPhone or iPad to bring up Notification Center.
2. Tap on the Today tab at the top if you aren't already there.
3. Scroll all the way to the bottom and tap on Edit.
4. Tap and hold the move icon to the right of the widget you'd like to move up or down. The button looks like two horizontal lines.
5. Once it's located in the place you'd like it, release your finger.

Two-factor authentication app Authy has been updated to version 17.0. You can now get your most important keys right in the Notification Center.

Authy's Today widget will load up to five authentication keys at a time. If you choose to use the widget, but don't want to expose your keys, open Authy, and go to Settings > My Account > Protection Pin, and make sure that Protect Entire App is switched on. The entries in the widget will say Locked, and tapping one of the entries will take you to that service's key in Authy, now protected by your pin.

You can download Authy's 17.0 update from the App Store now.

• Free - Download Now

One of the coolest features of iOS 8 was the inclusion of support for widgets in the Notification Center on iPhone and iPad, but making full use of that feature has landed at least one developer in hot water. James Thomson, developer of the popular calculator app PCalc, was the recipient of a message from Apple informing him that having a widget in iOS 8 that performs calculations within notification center was not something he could do, and that it must be removed. This is in spite of PCalc being a featured app in the App Store for its calculating widget.

This isn't the first time a developer's been told after an app's approval that they had to stop doing what they were doing. And though it is for the more-extensible OS X Yosemite, Apple itself has a calculator widget for the Notification Center on Macs.

It's frustrating to see developers like Thomson operating within the expected bounds of what the SDK supports, and having their apps approved, only to have somebody realize that they're working outside of the bounds of what Apple wants. PCalc isn't the only app that offers a calculator widget for Notification Center either, so we'd expect Apple to force those developers to remove the support as well. Unless Apple changes their mind, which they've been known to do.

Source: James Thomson (Twitter)

One of the new features of OS X Yosemite is the ability to add new widgets to Notification Center, to help you consume even more information at a single glance. Whether it's weather forecasts, time zones across the world, and a plethora of other things App Store developers no doubt have in store for us, the possibilities are pretty much endless. Here's how it works!

Here's an overview of how Notification Center has changed in Yosemite:

• Notification Center in Yosemite: Explained

Widgets are mini-applications that you can download from the Mac App Store. Installing them causes them to appear in the Notification Center window, and offers you additional functionality that you've never had before in Notification Center.

How to add apps from Yosemite Notification Center

1. Open Notification Center by clicking on the Notification Center icon in the upper right hand corner of your Mac's menu bar — alternately, if you're using a trackpad and have gestures enabled, you can swipe in from the right of the trackpad with two fingers in order to invoke Notification Center.
2. Click on the Edit button at the bottom of Notification Center — you'll need to be in the Today View tab.
3. Click on the plus sign next to the widget you want to add — any apps that support OS X Widgets should show up in this list.
4. Reorder your Notification Center widgets however you would like before exiting edit mode by dragging them up or down.

How to remove apps from Yosemite Notification Center

1. Open Notification Center by clicking on the Notification Center icon in the upper right hand corner of your Mac's menu bar — alternately, if you're using a trackpad and have gestures enabled, you can swipe in from the right of the trackpad with two fingers in order to invoke Notification Center.
2. Click on the Edit button at the bottom of Notification Center — you'll need to be in the Today View tab.
3. Click on the red delete button to the left of the widget you'd like to remove from Notification Center.

This way you can manage what you have in Notification Center to include only those items most important to you, and you can customize Notification Center to include new apps that contain functionality you'd like to see! Keep in mind that removing widgets from Notification Center doesn't actually delete them from your Mac, but just removed them from the Today view.

Notification Center changes things up in iOS 8 and one of the newest abilities iPhone and iPad users have is the option to add widgets to the Today tab. This means that if app developers decide to include a widget with their app, you can access information they provide right through the Today tab in Notification Center. This information could be sports scores, weather data, and lots more. To get started, just enable the widgets you'd like!

How to add and remove widgets in the Today view of Notification Center

1. Swipe down from the top of the screen on your iPhone or iPad running iOS 8 or higher.
2. Tap on Today if it isn't already selected.
3. Scroll towards the bottom and tap on Edit.
4. Add and remove widgets as you'd like by tapping on the plus icons or the delete icons next to a widget's name.
5. You can drag widgets up and down to change the order in which they appear in the Today tab of Notification Center as well.

It's a good idea to check Notification Center periodically to see if some of your favorite apps have added support for widgets. If they have, an option to add it to the Today tab will show up. Simply add them and remove them on demand whenever you'd like!

If you've found some awesome apps that already support widgets in Notification Center, be sure to let us know which ones in the comments!

Notifications on your Mac help to keep you informed about what's going on in the various applications you have installed, on web sites and more, without interrupting whatever you're doing at the time. Here's how to access them.

Notifications on the Mac comprise banners and alerts, both of which appear on the screen, and badges — red marks on applications indicating an action is required. Badges help show you how many incoming e-mail messages you have, for example. Banners pop up when an application passes a message — a web site you have granted permission to has a new headline, for example, or someone has sent you an iMessage. Alerts look like banners, but demand your attention before they'll go away.

But regardless of where they take place, notifications on your Mac are managed from the Notification Center. You can open Notification Center to review notifications that have already passed by. You can also use it to post new iMessages, or post to Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook if you've configured them in the Internet Accounts system preference.

How to access the Mac's Notification Center

Click on the Notification Center icon in the upper right hand corner of your Mac's menu bar. Alternately, you can use a two-finger swipe from right to left, starting at the right edge of your Mac's trackpad.

Upcoming calendar items are a fixed part of the Notification Center list. But other apps that can post notifications will have their notifications listed beneath. You can dismiss them by clicking the close icon — the circle with the x in it.

To close Notification Center, either click the close button on the lower right hand corner, or swipe from right to left (ending at the right edge of the Mac's trackpad).

That's all there is. If you need help, let me know.

OS X's Notification Center puts you in touch with what's happening on your Mac and elsewhere in the world — displaying banners, alerts, badge notifications and lock screen notifications to let you know what's going on. Notification banners — those little bubbles of information that appear in the upper right corner of your screen — can be helpful but they can also be distracting, so here's how you can turn them off.

How to change notification banner behavior on the Mac

1. Click on the  menu.
2. Select System Preferences....
3. Click on Notifications.
4. Click on the app whose behavior you'd like to change. Any app capable of posting notifications will be listed.
5. Each app will have an "alert style" listed at the top. You can turn them off all together by changing the alert style to "None." If you'd like them to stay on screen until you click on them to dismiss them, click on "Alerts."

Conversely, if there are apps you'd like to see notifications from that are currently turned off, just set the alert style from "None" to whatever you'd prefer.

Most apps will have their Alert Style set to Banners by default.

And like other aspects of notifications we've discussed before, Notification Center doesn't have a global setting for Banners, so there's no way to enforce a default behavior for newly installed applications, nor is there a way to change all notification behavior at once.

By tweaking banner notifications, you can quiet down chatty apps that grab your attention too frequently, and you can also make sure that apps that carry vital information get the attention they're due.

Have any questions? Let me know.

OS X Mavericks introduced notifications to Mac's lock screen. Here's how to turn them off, and why it matters.

All sorts of applications display data in notifications. Default applications like Calendar, Mail, Messages and others do; social media services supported by Apple like Twitter and Facebook can as well. So do many web sites and third-party apps.

The lock screen keeps anyone who doesn't know your system password from logging in and doing damage to your computer when you're not looking, and keeping your data from prying eyes.

But most applications that support system notifications will, by default, display them on the lock screen.

This is one of those classic cases of convenience trumping security. If you're the only person who ever looks at your computer, this probably isn't a big deal for you and can potentially be really helpful. But if you're in an open office environment or somewhere else where prying eyes can see what's on your lock screen, there may be circumstances where you really don't want people seeing notifications.

How to turn off lock screen notifications in OS X Mavericks

1. Click on the  menu.
2. Select System Preferences...
3. Click on Notifications
4. For each app listed in the Notification Center sidebar, uncheck Show notifications on lock screen.
5. Close Notifications.

That's all there is to it! Once you're done.

It'd be nice if there was a global setting for this, which there isn't, of course — but that way you can tailor lock screen notifications to only include those apps you really want or need to see.

I hope this helps you improve the security of your lock screen and make notifications on the Mac a bit less annoying. Have I left anything out, or do you have any questions? Fire away.

Widgets are part of Extensibility, one of the biggest new features in iOS 8, and one of the most important, most enabling new technologies to come to the iPhone and iPad since the launch of the App Store. With Today view extensions, any app can present a widget that displays information and offers a small amount of interaction right in Notification Center. That makes them only ever a swipe away. So, how do widgets work?

Days of widgets past

The idea of "widgets" date back to the early days of graphical user interface (GUI) computing. The Xerox Star, Apple's Lisa and Macintosh, Microsoft's Windows, and others, were all based on the "desktop metaphor". While that included things like files and folders, notebooks and ledgers, it also included tools like calculators and calendars. The pixels may have been chunky, the colors next to nonexistent, and the internet still just a dream, but it was a beginning.

With the rise of ubiquitous online connectivity, widgets took on a new roll: dedicated, glance-able information containers. Apple introduced their vision of web-based widgets in OS X Tiger with Dashboard.

The original iPhone was supposed to include a version of OS X-style Dashboard widgets, namely Weather and Stocks. They wouldn't have looked or acted any differently than any other full-screen iPhone app, but they would have been built like Dashboard widgets, using Apple's web technologies instead of native Objective-C. Since the presentation was to be no different, and the limits of WebKit at the time meant performance wasn't as good as native apps, they were ultimately rewritten in Objective-C anyway.

Other platforms, including Nokia (pre-Windows Phone) and Android went ahead with widgets. What's more, they distinguished them from full-screen apps by making them smaller and letting them live on the home screen, amid the app icons. Power users loved them, but few mainstream customers embrace them. According to HTC, a prominent vendor of Android devices:

• Widgets aren't widely used – weather, clock and music are the most used and after that, fewer than 10% of customers use any other widgets.
• Most of you don't modify your home screens much. In fact, after the first month of use, approximately 80% of you don't change your home screens any more.

With iOS 5, Apple brought limited widgets — our old friends Weather and Stocks — to the iPhone and iPad. Instead of putting them on the home screen, however, Apple put them in the then-brand new Notification Center.

For Apple, the iOS home screen was never meant to be a destination but rather a transport. It was never meant for anyone to stop and stare at, but to quickly find and get into apps. When the App Store made apps more abundant, Apple added Spotlight as an ancillary way to help do just that.

Notification Center changed things. It could be pulled down from anywhere, including the home screen (and eventually the lock screen), and more importantly, from inside any app. Instead of having to leave what you were doing to go find information, you could pull that information to wherever you were, whenever you wanted, and then go right back to what you were doing with very little cognitive load. It wasn't perfect, but it was better.

iOS 7 split notifications and widgets apart, putting widgets in their own Today view, moving Weather to the Today Summary, and adding support for Calendar, Reminders, predictive location, and the Tomorrow Summary. Yet they were still limited to built-in apps and services.

iOS 8 and Extensibility take it even further, allowing App Store apps to offer up their own Today view widgets — helpful information status indicators, simple, interactive utilities, and ways to launch into the full app when and if needed — easily accessible from anywhere on the iPhone or iPad, informational and interactive.

How custom widgets work

If you've used Notification Center's Today view in iOS 7, you already know how custom widgets are going to work in iOS 8. You just pull down Notification Center from the lock screen (if enabled), home screen, or from within any app, and if you're not already in the Today view, you simply tap the Today tab at the top.

In iOS 8, the built-in widgets provided by Apple include Today Summary, Traffic Conditions, Calendar, Reminders, Stocks, and Tomorrow Summary.

What's new is what's at the bottom: an Edit button and a notification area that tells you how many new third-party widgets are available to you. Tap the Edit button and you can enable or disable any of the built-in widgets and reorder them any way you like. Tap the New Widget notification and you can add any new, custom widget that has become available.

New widgets become available when you install an app from the App Store. If the app includes a widget, the widget notification area will tell you about it. Tap the widget you want added, and it's added. Once added, you can order App Store widgets just like the built-in widgets, and remove them if and when you decide you no longer want or need them.

For example, if you download a sports news network app, it could include a widget that presents you with up-to-date scores of the two most recent games in any league you choose to follow, as well as a headline or two of breaking news. Or, if you download a social networking app, it could include a couple status entries, and maybe a Show More option to see even more entries. A package tracker app's widget could keep you up-to-date on all your deliveries. Breaking news, latest weather — all of those, and more, could provide glance-able widgets right in the Notification Center Today view.

Interactive widgets and limitations

Like the new notification system, the new widget system in iOS 8 is interactive. So, not only can the widgets provide you with snippets of information, they can also allow you to perform minor tasks as well.

For example, an auction widget can show you the items you've last bid on and whether or not you're currently being outbid, but also allow you to up your bid right there in the widget and retake the lead. A social widget can let you glimpse a few entries in your timeline and Like or Repost right from the widget.

What widgets can't do is invoke the keyboard, which means widgets can't take text input the way a Messages quick reply notification can. Complex actions are also beyond the scope of widgets. So, for example, you can't change which stocks are shown in the Stock widget. They simply reflect the stocks shown in the Stocks app. In order to change the widget, you have to change the app.

How developers add widgets to apps

For developers, widgets in the Today view are remote view controllers. They're best thought of as independent "child" apps all their own that present themselves and their data to Notification Center. That gives them a number of advantages, including security (see below). It also means that the container app doesn't need to be running in order for the widget to be working. Even if a the container app becomes a memory drain and gets jettisoned, someone using the widget at that very moment wouldn't even notice.

It's that type of seamless user experience Apple is stressing with widgets.

Performance is paramount. Since a typical person may have several widgets running at once, and resources are always limited, developers need to keep things simple and streamlined. Whenever someone pulls down Notification Center to access a widget, the data needs to be there, ready and waiting. That means pulling in anything big and new in the background and caching it so that it can persist in the widget for as long as it needs to.

For the interface, Notification Center defines the width and a default height, but developers can alter the height as needed. That's done by defining vertical constraints with Auto layout or by setting it manually in code. Widgets can also expand in size, either because the content itself changes, or as the result of a user action, like tapping a Show More button. Notification Center will handle the size change and, of course, animate it. Developers get to animate their content changes within it. However, Apple encourages developers not to make widgets so long that people will need to scroll to see all of them.

There are a number of resources available to aid in all this:

• WWDC 2014 Creating Extensions for iOS and OS X session, Part 1
• Apple (pre-release) Extensibility documentation

Widget security

The thing about Extensibility and widgets is that Apple claims they provide extra functionality without sacrificing the excellent security model iOS was built on. This is a big part of the reason it took so long for App Store widgets to appear — Apple had to do a tremendous amount of work over the course of several years and several releases to make it all possible. Things like porting Apple's interprocess communication system, XPC, from OS X to iOS.

In iOS, apps are "sandboxed". That means they can only access their own data, not the data of any other app or the system. There are some exceptions, but those require the granting of explicit permission. For example to access contacts or photos, or to "open in" another app, a button tap is required. All of this so that, if anything malicious ever does manage to get in, it's very, very hard for it to go anywhere else or grab any data from anywhere else.

With iOS 8 and Extensibility, Apple keeps an app's extensions inside the app's sandbox, but allows iOS, and other apps by way of iOS, to reach out, request interface, information, and functionality. The container app can then project that interface, information, and functionality back to iOS or the host app right back.

So, for widgets, Notification Center is the host. The widget communicates only with Notification Center, not with its container app at all. (Which is why container apps don't have to be running, or can be jettisoned without affecting the widget.) When a widget needs information from its container app, it does so through iOS, and through privately shared data resources.

Apple hasn't detailed the specifics of how all this works yet, but has said it uses similar security to the rest of iOS. Since iOS 7, Apple has done an incredible job with security and cryptograph. I'm willing to bet Extensibility is enjoying something just as well thought out and just as secure.

Bottom line

What's most impressive about Extensibility in general and widgets in specific is that Apple has set them up to work the same in both OS X and iOS. That involved a lot more work on their part — shortcuts for one system or the other couldn't be exploited — but ultimately consistency is a feature, and that discipline has resulted in a more unified, better framework for both developers and customers.

It's taken a long time for custom widgets to arrive on iOS, but there's every indication Apple has done them in the right way and put them in the right place.

Will you be using them? And if so, any particular third-party widgets you're most looking forward to?

More of iOS 8: Explained

• Handoff in iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite: Explained
• Making and receiving phone calls on iOS 8 for iPad and OS X Yosemite: Explained
• Sending and receiving SMS/MMS on iOS 8 for iPad and OS X Yosemite: Explained
• AirDrop and Instant Hotspot in iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite: Explained
• QuickType keyboard in iOS 8: Explained
• Interactive notifications in iOS 8: Explained
• SceneKit in iOS 8: Explained
• Metal in iOS 8: Explained
• Widgets in iOS 8: Explained
• Share extensions in iOS 8: Explained
• Action extensions in iOS 8: Explained
• Inter-app photo and video editing in iOS 8: Explained
• Custom keyboards in iOS 8: Explained
• Family Sharing on iOS 8: Explained
• iCloud Drive and Document Picker for iOS 8: Explained
• Document provider extensions in iOS 8: Explained
• TestFlight in iOS 8: Explained
• Apple Maps in iOS 8: Explained
• iMessage in iOS 8: Explained
• Photos in iOS 8: Explained
• Spotlight in iOS 8: Explained
• Health in iOS 8: Explained
• Touch ID in iOS 8: Explained
• HomeKit in iOS 8: Explained
• Adaptive UI in iOS 8: Explained
• Manual camera controls in iOS 8: Explained

When Pebble - one of the first real smartwatches to hit the market - first launched, the amount of stuff it could do with iOS - then iOS 6 - was limited. That's changing with today's update, Pebble 1.3.0. The big news is, Pebble now works with iOS 7, and that includes full Notification Center support. So, theoretically, any notifications you've set up in iOS should just show up on your Pebble. That includes not only emails, multiple texts, calendar alerts, and reminders, but third-party App Store apps as well, like Twitter, Facebook, news apps - pretty much anything.  You can also toggle music on or off, answer or hang up your phone, and set up a local watch only alarm.  

I've been testing the new features for a couple of days now. Setup was easy using the wizard provided by the Pebble app. They're committed to their “smartish" watch by providing free firmware upgrades that enable functionality, a move I greatly respect in a company. In previous firmware iterations the displaying of e-mails could only be done by giving your email account information to the Pebble app. That was sub-optimal. Now Pebble simply accesses the API for notifications just like it's always done for texts/iMessage, and without any extra configuration for each account.

The update removes so many limitations, thanks to the new iOS 7 integration, that I'm ecstatic. I'm so ecstatic, in fact, that I'm already making a wish-list for the future. For example, I'd love to have text-based turn-by-turn directions pushed to my Pebble... And Siri, of course, is still the dream.

I still very much enjoy some of the original Pebble features as well. While the watch itself is very plain -  I have the black color watch - the e-ink display comes with a number of watch faces, and what's even better, the ability to upload your own creations, or the creations of other users. I chose a nice Jeep themed watch face.  

I'd still like to see a higher-end, more premium-looking Pebble, something with a glass face and metal body. I'd also like them to ditch the proprietary charger connector for micro-USB. I know that sounds funny coming from someone with iPhones and iPads, but it's a real issue. If I forget my charger, I am simply out of luck. They're much harder to find replacement for than Lightning cables.

Battery life has been okay.  I can get around 3 to 4 days of battery life before having to charge it. I need to test more with the new firmware to see if there's a difference. Currently, if I use a watch face with a constant moving second hand, the battery will drain much more quickly than if I used a more static watch face.  

Overall, new life has been breathed into my pebble with this latest firmware upgrade. It's gotten to the point, finally, that if I forget to charge it or wear it one day, I find myself missing it.  I like to wear my pebble to help me triage my smartphone communications.  I do the quick and dirty on the Pebble, and everything else is done on my iPhone.  It's not yet what I want in a smart watch but if this is only version 1.3.0, I think the future is promising.

With iOS 6, Notification Center had two quick button actions, tweet and post to Facebook, that could be reached from anywhere on the iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad with the downward swipe of a finger. Now, in iOS 7, they're gone. Disappeared. Taken out back and shuttered. So where did they go, and how can you quickly tweet or post to Facebook now, on iOS 7?

Short answer, they got obliterated. Not moved. Not hidden. Obliterated. The truth is, they never fit into Notification Center, because they're not notifications. They're actions. They were out of context. However, the brand new Control Center seems to exist to take on just exactly those jobs. Quick access to Settings, quick access to apps, why not quick access to tweeting and posting to Facebook?

Apple, in their infinitely looped wisdom, however, hasn't seen fit to include them there. Maybe they will in a future update, maybe they've decided those quick actions just weren't right and we won't ever see them again. In the meantime, if you loved the iOS 6 quick action tweet and Facebook post buttons, you're in for a huge disappointment. They are no more.

One alternative is to use Siri, which can now post to both Twitter and Facebook. Simply say "Post to Facebook" or "post to Twitter" and then dictate what you want to say. It's incredibly fast and convenient... if you're in a situation where you can talk out loud to your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad.

If not, the alternatives aren't anywhere nearly as quick or convenient. You can use the Twitter and Facebook app, one or a third-party alternative Twitter apps like Tweetbot or Twitterrific. They're nowhere nearly as always-accessible as Notification Center, nor are they as single-purpose or streamlined as the quick action buttons, but they still exist.

You can also use the tweet or Facebook post action in the Share Sheets in most apps to quickly send out a message, but the catch is you have to share something to do it, and you're not always going to want to do that.

In a perfect world Apple would include them in Control Center, or a similar mechanism, and enhance them with actionable notifications so we can reply and reset within apps as well, making even more of our actions quick. Sadly, we don't live in that world yet. Strangely, the upcoming OS X Mavericks not only retains the quick action tweet and Facebook post buttons in Notification Center, but actionable notifications as well. And it's not even mobile, where those features are inarguably more urgently needed.

So, no good answers, but if you used and relied on the old quick actions button, feel free to vent in the comments, and if you come up with any brilliant work arounds, let me know!

If you use the official Twitter app on your iPhone or iPad, you have the option to receive push notifications for events such as when someone mentions you in a tweet, retweets something you tweeted, and more. Depending on how often you tweet, you may want to customize exactly what you're alerted to. Twitter gives you the option to choose what notifications you want to receive.

Here's how:

Before beginning, make sure Twitter is allowed to send you notifications within the general Settings app under Notifications. At the very least, you have to have general Notification Center access turned on as well as some kind of alert such as banners or pop-ups. Once you've confirmed Twitter is activated in Notification Center, follow the steps below.

1. Launch the Twitter app from the Home screen of your iPhone or iPad.
2. Tap on the Me tab along the bottom navigation.
3. Now tap on the Settings gear underneath your profile photo.
4. In the menu that comes up, tap on Settings.
5. Now tap on Notifications.
6. Under this menu you can choose to receive notifications for individual items such as all tweets, retweets, mentions, favorites, and more. Turn On what you want to receive notifications for and turn Off what you don't want to receive notifications for.

That's all there is to it. Twitter gives you the option to drill down into categories and fine tune notifications for mentions, retweets, and favorites to only people you follow if you choose. Disabling items you don't want or need notifications for can also help save battery life.

Notification Center debuted in iOS 5 as way to quickly, easily see all your system and push alerts in one, unified place. Far less obtrusive than the original, modal iOS alert system, better looking if not as feature-rich as the Android or webOS notification centers that preceded it, Notification Center was a first step towards Apple better handling all the alerts all of us now get all day. With iOS 7, Apple has taken another... half step forward.

Here's how Apple describes the improvements to Notification Center in iOS 7:

And, based on what Apple's shown off at WWDC 2013 and Apple.com to date, here's how it works:

• Notification Center, like all of iOS 7, is built on a new physics engine so it behaves more like a real-world (if not this world) object. It has velocity and collision detection, so if you slam it down, it'll bounce!

• The new, tabbed interface lets you choose between Today, All, and Missed.
• The Missed view only shows you alerts from the last 24 hours.
• The All view, as the name implies, shows you all alerts.

• The All view is similar to the iOS 5 and iOS 6 version of Notification Center, with an app-by-app breakdown of your alerts. The Tap to Tweet (Twitter) and Tap to Post (Facebook) buttons appear to be missing, or to have been removed, but I mourn them not for while convenient, they were not notifications and thus existed out-of-context.

• The Today view shows you the current day and date in large type (ultrathin, of course!) along with a brief, written description of the current weather in your current location, and a written description of your next appointment. It can also tell you if current traffic conditions will impact your next trip. Beneath that you get a more elaborate, more graphical look at Calendar, Reminders, and Stocks, as well as another written out description, this time recapping what's coming up tomorrow.
• Notification Center, like it's new companion, Control Center, is now accessible from the Lock screen. (Though, presumably, based on previous feature patterns, that'll be an option for those more privacy-minded.)

• Notification sync means when you dismiss a notification on one device, it should dismiss it on all devices, so you don't have to deal with the same alerts, again and again.

The core concept of Notification Center remains largely unchanged in iOS 7, which is a boon to people already familiar with how to use it. The ability to pull Notification Center down even while on the Lock screen is interesting. The Lock screen already enjoys notification support all its own, but nothing as powerful or persistent as Notification Center proper. (Unlike Lock screen notifications, a quick swipe in iOS 7 can now get you back to an earlier alert you want to catch up on, or refresh you memory about.) The doubling up is slightly awkward, more function over form, but it will likely appeal to people who prefer convenience over privacy.

The difference between All alerts and Missed enjoys similar overlap but similar appeal to power users. "Missed" might be misnamed, as based on the demos to date it looks more like a "Recent" or "Latest" view, but that might be made clearer once the behavior is better understood (do recent but already seen alerts get excluded, for example?)

Today is the biggest change, both in form and functionality. It harkens back to the old Windows Mobile Today Screen of years and versions passed, but with a decidedly Apple focus, iOS 7 aesthetic, and new-fangled technological bent.

The written out weather and next appointment seems to be a step backwards when it comes to glance-ability and a step forwards in terms of informational density. iOS 5 and iOS 6 had a graphical weather widget that was easier to get the gist of at a glance, but provided little more than "sunny" or "rainy". In a perfect world, Apple would find a way to balance both. Re-introduce a graphical element and keep the deeper text. Likewise with stocks, which used to scroll in one tidy widget, and now sprawls out row after row after row...

Integrating traffic information, on the other hand, is outstanding and hopefully only the first indication that Apple is heading towards a more Google Now-style implementation where they parse location, time, calendar, and every other metric they have at their disposal and present contextually appropriate, predictive alerts in Notification Center.

Unfortunately, for all iOS 7's objectification and direct manipulation the demos to date haven't shown any gesture-based way to dismiss notifications. Other platforms have allowed you to swipe away notifications for a long time already. Even Apple's own Mail has a swipe-to-delete feature, and the immediacy of "tossing things away" is tough to beat. Hopefully Apple addresses this, because the tiny little X button is discoverable, but not very usable by itself.

Perhaps the biggest omission in the whole system remains active notifications, which Apple just introduced for the Mac in OS X Mavericks but hasn't thus far announced for iOS. The ability to quickly respond to a message, reset a timer, or otherwise handle simple items without having to switch apps is even more necessary on mobile than on the desktop. Hopefully actionable notifications on OS X are just a precursor to the same or similar system on iOS, and sooner rather than later.

The new Notification Center will become available to everyone when iOS 7 ships to the general public this fall. Check out the resources below for more, and let me know -- how do you like what you've seen of the newly updated Notification Center so far?

• Notification Center: Everything you need to know
• iOS 7: Everything you need to know
• iOS 7: Discussion forum

Note: Apple has removed this feature with iOS 7.

With iOS 6 you can send a tweet to Twitter or post to Facebook right from Notification Center. Whether you're using the new iPhone 5, or a newly updated iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, the Share Widget makes Twitter and Facebook buttons only a swipe away.

How to enable the Share Widget

If the Facebook and Twitter buttons aren't already in your Notification Center, you'll need to enable the Share Widget.

1. Launch Settings from your iPhone or iPad Home screen.
2. Tap Notifications.

3. Scroll down and tap on the Share Widget.

4. Make sure that the option for it to appear in Notification Center is On.

Now the Share Widget should appear in Notification Center. And if it's not exactly where you want it, you can also change where it appears.

How to quickly update Twitter from Notification Center

1. Swipe down from the status bar at the top of your screen to pull down Notification Center.
2. Tap on the Twitter button to open the Twitter Share Sheet.

3. Tap the From: field to switch between multiple accounts.

4. Type in the tweet you want to send.

5. Tap Add Location to include your current location.
6. Tap Send

How to quickly update Facebook from Notification Center

1. Swipe down from the status bar at the top of your screen to pull down Notification Center.
2. Tap on the Facebook button to open the Facebook Share Sheet.

3. Type in the status you want to post.

4. Tap friends to restrict the post to certain audiences (i.e. friends, only me, friends of friends, your local area, groups you belong to, etc.).

5. Tap Send

Rene Ritchie contributed to this guide.

How to get more help with Notification Center

If you need more help setting up, using, or trouble-shooting Notification Center on iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, or Mac, head on over to our iOS forum and ask away!

While Apple improved their alert system with Notification Center in iOS 5, they're finally bringing some sanity and serenity to it with iOS 6. Too much notification turns into interruption, especially if your only options are to answer or hang up, to leave everything on or turn everything off. It makes us the single-points of failure in our memory chain, and let's face it, why bother having these fancy devices if we're the ones who have to remember to call back, or remember to activate and deactivate alerts every morning and night. Which brings us to Remind Me Later and Do Not Disturb.

Here's how Apple describes them:

And here's what we've seen of it so far:

• When a phone call comes in, in addition to the venerable Slide to Answer interface, there's a new Lock screen, gripper-style phone icon to the right of it.

• Similar to the iOS 5.1 Lock screen camera icon, you can use the phone icon to slide the screen up and reveal new options: Reply with Message and Remind Me Later.

• If you can't talk now and want to let the caller know, Reply with Message lets you quickly send an iMessage or SMS with boiler-plate responses like "I'll call you later", "I'm on my way", "what's up?", or if the canned replies don't suit you, create a custom one all your own.

• If you'd rather get back to then, Remind Me Later allows you to rapidly set up a time-based Reminder to call back in 1 hour, or a location-based Reminder either geo-fenced to where you are not, or set up for when you get home, or get to work.

• Do Not Disturb is more pre-emptive. It allows you to prevent incoming calls and alerts from lighting up the screen or making any sound or vibration while your iPhone is locked (they'll still appear listed, as normal, in Notification Center when you get around to checking).

• When Do Not Disturb is active, you'll see a special half-moon icon on your status bar to the left of the time.
• You have granular control over Do Not Disturb settings. You can turn it on and off manually, for example, when going into a meeting. You can also schedule an automatic time range, for example, every night during your regular sleep hours.

• You can enable exceptions to Do Not Disturb, to allow calls from certain contacts, including everyone on your Favorites list, or a specific contacts Group.
• You can also enable an exception for repeated calls, in case of emergency. That means if someone thinks it's urgent enough to call you back a second time within 3 minutes, that second call will come through.

Overall, these are terrific additions to iOS' communications and notification handling. It doesn't go as far as true profiles, for example, location-based profiles that automatically change a range of settings including notification, network, security, etc. when you're at home vs. at work, or more rounded bedside mode, but it's a start.

iOS 6 is scheduled for release this fall, perhaps as soon as September 19. For more on iOS 6, check out:

• Everything you need to know about iOS 6
• iOS 6 discussion forum

NCSettings for iPhone and iPad adds a row of system toggles to Notification Center for commonly used settings such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, brightness, and airplane mode. It's very similar to the system toggles you'd find in SBSettings but integrated in a way that's much more consistent with the default look of iOS.

When you first install NCSettings to your iPhone or iPad you'll have to hop into Settings and enable it under Notifications. Move it up and down to wherever you'd like it to appear in Notification Center. I prefer it all the way at the top above the weather widget but you can place it where you'd like. Once you've done that, just pull down your Notification Center shade and you'll notice a new row of icons. These are system toggles just like many are already used to having in SBSettings.

You can edit and remove toggles you don't want to use by adding, moving, and reordering them under Settings. You can also change things like the icon spacing and how volume and vibrate toggles function. NCSettings currently has options for brightness, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, flashlight, airplane mode, 3G, cellular data, private browsing, location services, auto-lock, power, silent, vibrate, lock rotation, and volume.

The thing I really like about NCSettings opposed to SBSettings is that it blends really nicely into iOS and doesn't look like it's out of place. It isn't as full featured as SBSettings and won't give you options like changing the carrier banner or managing memory but if you don't require those features and just want access to system toggles, NCSettings is a great choice.

The good

• Blends in with Notification Center perfectly for a cleaner look and feel
• Supports a good amount of toggles stock
• Allows you to rearrange your toggles in whatever order you'd like

The bad

• Not as powerful as SBSettings
• Doesn't have themes and additional toggles

Conclusion

NCSettings natively supports almost every system toggle you'd want or need and it's super easy to configure. Many jailbreak apps have confusing Settings panels and are overloaded with options. That's not the case here and it's about as Apple like as you're going to get.

If all you want is system toggles and don't need all the additional options SBSettings provides, NCSettings is a great choice. Many users may actually prefer it.

Free - Cydia Search Link

Additional Resources

• Best jailbreak apps for iPhone
• Best jailbreak apps for iPad
• Jailbreak apps, hacks, and themes forum

New to iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch and iOS 5 and wondering how to configure Notification Center so you get the alerts you need but not the interruptions you don't? Luckily, you can choose between 3 different alert styles, from in-your-face popups to subtle banners to none at all. Follow along and we'll show you how!

Popup Alerts

Popup alerts are the old style iOS notifications of the pass, a big box that leaps out at you and won't do anything else until you either cancel it or act on it. While old school, these types of alerts still have their place for anything your really don't want to miss -- alarms, calendar appointments, reminders, etc. If you want to be absolutely, positively certain you see something, set notifications to a popup alert.

Banners

Banners briefly roll down from the top of the screen. If you don't want to be bothered by a notification, you simply ignore the banner and go about your business, dismiss the banner by flicking it away, or just wait a couple of seconds and it will roll back up and disappear all on its own. Because they're subtle, they're best used for things that are nice-to-known but not incredibly urgent -- personal email, social network messages, news alerts, etc. If it's not critical but you are curious, set notification to banners.

None

If you set a notification to none, you won't get an alert at all. No popup, no banner, no nothing. Because you won't be alerted, this is best for apps that you want to keep around but don't want to know about unless you specifically open them -- games you play infrequently, social apps you seldom visit, apps you only use when traveling, etc. If it's more interruption than notification, set it to none.

Configuring alert styles

Apple has included deep granular controls in the Notification Center, so configuring it can seem like a daunting task for new users. It's really simple, however, so just follow these quick steps to help you configure Notification Center in iOS 5:

1. Open the Settings app from the iPhone home screen.
2. Tap the 'Notifications' settings pane.

3. Tap the name of the app you want to configure the alert style for.
4. Choose popup alerts, banner alerts, or no alerts.

Bonus tip: Sounds

In addition to the three notification types listed above, you often also have the option to set a sound and/or vibration alert for a notification. Again, if the notification is really important to you -- SMS/MMS/iMessage, Twitter DM or Facebook message, work email, etc. you may want to hear and feel when it comes in.

Otherwise, you can turn sound off and enjoy a slightly more peaceful existence.

1. Launch Settings
2. Scroll down and tap Sound
3. Choose the app you want to set the Sound for

That's it, you're ready to stay informed but not overwhelmed! We'll be back with more Notification Center tips shortly but in the meantime if you have any advice on keeping alerts under control, let us know in comments!

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