Keep notifications under control
too many alerts on your wrist? Filter out the noise to regain peace of mind
THE MORE WE use our devices, the more we seem to be bombarded by notifications. No matter if you’re on a family outing or at the cinema, we’ve all had an annoying, unwelcome buzz interrupt our day.
You might think the Apple Watch will make this interference even worse; you’ll now have two devices vibrating and lighting up instead of just one. Here at Mac|Life, we know people who’ve given up on the Watch entirely because they couldn’t stand how many notifications they were receiving on their wrist.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. The notifications settings on the Watch are eminently customizable, allowing you to choose who can send through notifications, and from which app they originate. You can silence them, switch off the display, and even disable notifications completely. Over these two pages,
we’ll demonstrate how you can tailor these options to suit you.
By default, notifications appear on your iPhone if it’s unlocked, but won’t show up on your Watch. If your iPhone is locked, however, you’ll get a buzz on your wrist. So the first thing you can do to reduce the amount of notifications you get on your Watch is to unlock your iPhone. But that isn’t always convenient; so what can you do if you want to leave your iPhone locked?
For one thing, you can simply designate certain contacts as VIPs; doing this means that their notifications will reach your Watch, but all others will be blocked. That’s useful if you’re expecting some important news from a particular contact, but otherwise need to minimize any distractions and get on with your day.
Alternatively, swipe down from the top of the display to open Notification Centre. From here,
swipe left on a notification, tap “…”, then tap Deliver Quietly. This will send notifications for that app to Notification Centre, but won’t alert you with a sound or buzz.
hAptic Strength
You’re not just limited to muting your notifications. You may find that the default tap from the Haptic Engine often isn’t strong enough for you to notice it. If that’s the case, go to My Watch > Sounds & Haptics, and turn up the Haptic strength slider on Series 3 or earlier. On all models, you can turn on prominent haptic feedback here to feel a stronger and longer buzz before a regular notification tap.
If you felt a buzz on your wrist but weren’t able to check it, you don’t have to miss that notification. Go to My Watch > General > Wake Screen in the iPhone companion app, and scroll to the “On screen wake show last app” section. Here you can choose whether waking the screen will display the last notification from the last two minutes, the last hour, until you dismiss it, or only immediately after the notification arrives on your Watch.