ON HIGH ALERT

WHEN YOU’RE BOMBARDED

by notifications, it’s easy to disable most or ignore them, and miss what’s most important in the process. The Notifications & Focus pane introduces two properties to help you tell which merit most urgent attention — critical and time–sensitive alerts.

Alerts are those notifications which appear in the upper–right corner of the display, and require dismissing with a click. Although you can opt for any app you want to post notifications as an alert rather than a banner which goes away of its own accord;Al critical and time– sensitive alerts are different.

Few apps have privileged access to these high alerts: Calendar, Home, Messages, Reminders, Screen Time, and Wallet. While those offer time–sensitive alerts, only Home can post critical alerts which appear regardless of any Focus in force. You choose whether to accept time–sensitive alerts for each of your focuses. It’s worth spending some time reviewing your notifications to ensure you benefit from these new features.