Lock down Notifications
The basics of notifications remain the same in iOS 11.
They can appear as a banner across the top of the screen, play a sound, and display a badge on their parent app’s Home screen icon to remind you there are things awaiting your attention. However, there are some important changes to know about. Helpfully, they include the use of clearer language to describe behaviours and hopefully prevent confusion.
In the past, you might have stopped an app showing notifications on the Lock screen because you didn’t want it to display potentially sensitive data there. Problem is, you could also miss important notifications. Fortunately, this should no longer be necessary – one of iOS 11’s most welcome changes can fix that and maintain privacy.
1 Banners, plain and simple
The first change is a matter of clearer terminology, and will be beneficial if you’re new to iOS. Previously, Apple used the term ‘banners’ to refer to the kind that briefly pop in at the top of the screen and disappear a few seconds later, and ‘alerts’ for those that look identical but stick around till opened or dismissed.
In iOS 11, both are now called banners, and the distinction between them is clearer: in Settings > Notifications, tap an app’s name and you’ll find the two kinds of banner described as ‘temporary’ and ‘persistent’.
2 Notification Centre & the Lock screen Go to any app’s notification settings and you’ll see that while there’s still a ‘Show on Lock screen’ item, ‘Show in Notification Centre’ has gone. In previous versions of iOS you could set an app’s notifications to appear in one of those places but not the other, which could get confusing. That’s no longer possible. Whether you catch up on notifications on the Lock screen or in Notification Centre, you’re presented with the same list of items. Really, Notification Centre is now the same thing as the Lock screen. However, there is a new setting for each app’s notifications, ‘Show in History,’ which we’ll talk about in a moment. 3 Instant photos, wherever you are There’s a functional benefit to the Lock screen and Notification Centre being the same thing, save for the distinction of whether your device is locked or unlocked (which is important to the next tip, about notification previews).
The two locations aren’t just the same in terms of displaying notifications. Even while you’re using an app, you can swipe down from the top of the screen to open Notification Centre, then left on an empty area of it to access your device’s camera features within seconds. That gives you a better chance of catching a good photo opportunity whatever you’re doing. 4To preview or not to preview In previous versions of iOS, notification settings for a few apps – notably Mail and Messages – included a Show Previews option. You could change this from ‘Always’ to ‘When Unlocked’ or ‘Never’ to prevent private info being visible on the Lock screen.
The majority of apps didn’t offer this, though. iOS 11 fixes this with a global Show Previews setting at the top of Settings > Notifications, providing a way to ensure no info from any app is readable by roving eyes.
This default setting for all of your apps is supplemented by a new Show Previews item within every app’s settings. This arrangement gives you more privacy by default, but you can allow apps to deviate from the norm if you’re confident that they won’t leak anything sensitive.
5 Rest finger to preview
Prior to iOS 11, you might have enabled Settings > General > Accessibility > Home Button > Rest Finger to Open. If that’s the case, and you set the master Show Previews setting to When Unlocked, after unlocking your device you’ll have to pull down Notification Centre to read the items that were shown on the Lock screen.
Disable that accessibility setting and, after waking your device, resting your finger on the Touch ID sensor will unlock your device but immediately preview your notifications; press the Sleep/Wake button if you want to lock the device and hide the previews again.
6 Notifications history
There are two tiers to notifications in iOS 11. Tap any app’s name in Settings > Notifications and you’ll see the traditional ‘Show on Lock Screen’ item, which is the list of recent and unattended alerts shown as soon as you wake your device or open Notification Centre.
The ‘Show in History’ item refers to the list of older notifications you haven’t acted upon or dismissed, which is shown when you swipe up on the Lock screen or Notification Centre. So, you might have Facebook’s Messenger app inform you of direct messages on the Lock screen and in Notification Centre, but confine status updates from Facebook to the history, say.