Focus Mode is a feature on Apple devices like iPhone and Mac designed to enhance concentration and minimize disruptions while working or studying. Once activated, it empowers users to handpick distracting apps, temporarily blocks their notifications, mutes sounds and vibrations, and makes accessing these apps more challenging.
Focus Status, on the other hand, is a feature that allows you to share with others that your notifications are silenced. This will save them time and energy.
When you turn on Focus Status, all the supported apps, such as iMessage, will show the status so that others may know that you have silenced your notifications, and there’s a high chance that you will not see it.
Focus Status acts as an extension to the Focus Mode. When you share Focus Status, your contacts will notice a small icon indicating that you are currently focusing on an activity and a message that you are currently engaged elsewhere.
Focus Status will be enabled by default for all focus modes, but you can turn it off.
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Can you get notifications in an emergency?
As explained above, once you turn on Focus, anyone who contacts you will recognise that you will not respond immediately.
However, a feature called ‘Notify Anyway’ permits the person contacting you to bypass your phone’s Focus Mode and send you a notification.
It’s worth noting that this option becomes available only after two or three messages are sent rapidly, and it is ultimately at the sender’s discretion to determine if the message qualifies as urgent or important. Furthermore, this capability is exclusively accessible on iOS 15 and later versions.
To enable this, navigate to Settings > Focus. Choose the specific Focus mode, then access Apps under Allowed Notifications.
Furthermore, you can permit specific contacts to reach them in emergencies. Head to Contacts > Edit > Ringtone or Text Tone > Emergency Bypass.
In conclusion, Focus mode is useful for those who want to stay focused on a particular task. Focus status will let others know when you want to let others know that you are in Focus mode.
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