Apple’s new productivity tool for iPhones, Focus, is intended to limit distractions by letting you specify when you want to turn off notifications from certain apps and contacts. The problem is it’s not especially intuitive and takes a lot of work to set up right. As a result, since Apple began rolling out the feature to iPhone users in September, many people have missed work calls, home repair visits, and doctor appointments.
I understand the reasoning that lead to Focus having this paradigm, but I'd love to see an option in iOS 16 where a focus mode lets everything through, but I can choose what to block.
That means for the foreseeable future, the smart home remains fragmented and confusing for most people beyond the most basic setups. Until it improves and a standard like Matter solves the integration hole so that nobody needs to utter the words ‘Raspberry Pi’ to make things harmonious, I won’t be recommending my parents invest in smart lights just yet.
In addition to improving the “Image Rescue” feature introduced in 2020, the update also finally adds batch actions on photos to the app.
Out of the box, Magnet has 18 different window management options. The standards are there, but there are a few extras that I find particularly useful for taking screenshots or for sharing screens.
Your Mac’s standard screenshot tool includes the basic features most people need to capture images displayed on their screens, but it could be better. It doesn’t allow you to take scrolling screenshots (where you capture a long screenshot of an entire webpage), and other tools — including the two discussed below — are better at bypassing some websites’ attempts to block you from taking a screenshot.
I suspect the current Focus mode -- where you choose who and what can disturb you -- is more suitable for people who don't tailor their notifications from apps. If, on the other hand, you already mess around the notification settings to make sure you only get notifications you want, Focus modes where you get to, once again, choose which notifications you want, is not really that useful.
Yes, I too think that a reverse Focus mode, where you get to choose who and what cannot disturb you, will be useful to me. A simple scenario that will probably be useful to many of us: a mode where all work apps are silenced.
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Thanks for reading.