Create your own silent alert
IOS lets you set your preferred iphone ringtone – and apply a unique ringtone to individual contacts. You’ll find that setting by opening Settings and tapping Sounds followed by Ringtone. Here, select an option from the Ringtones section. The Alerts section below this lists links to shorter tones that are better suited to incoming text messages and notifications.
However, it’s also possible to change the vibration that your phone uses, either at the same time if you’ve set ringing and vibration to occur simultaneously, or when your phone is set to silent mode. Scroll back to the top of the Ringtone screen and tap Vibration, where you can choose between eight vibration patterns (see left-hand screenshot 1 above right) or create your own.
To do the latter, tap Create New Vibration, then tap the pattern you want to use on the screen. Whenever your finger is in contact with the glass, the phone will buzz; when you lift it, it’ll stop. Carry on tapping either until the progress bar at the bottom of the screen runs out of space, or you’ve finished, in which case tap Stop. Press Play to preview the completed composition and, if you’re happy with the result, tap Save and give it a name (see screenshot 2 ).
Back on the Vibration screen, your new sequence will be pre-selected in the
Custom section. If you prefer to use this pattern just for specific contacts, like family members so that you can distinguish them from everyone else when your phone is in your pocket, switch the vibration setting back to one of the eight regular patterns, then open the Contacts app.
Navigate to the contact to whom you want to assign your new pattern and tap Edit, followed by Ringtone. Tap Vibration and choose your new vibration pattern, which will be used only for this contact and any other you assign it to. Your other contacts will use whichever one of the standard eight ringtones you selected earlier.
You can, of course, create several different custom vibrations, but the more you have, the more difficult it will be to tell them apart. Stick to just one or two, with distinctive patterns for each, perhaps based on favourite tunes or, if you know it, Morse code.