There’s a new display and brightness feature in iOS 9.3 called Night Shift which “automatically shifts the colors of your display to the warm end of the color spectrum after dark.” Apple even says that Night Shift “may help you get a better night’s sleep” which is mainly why I’ve been using (and enjoying) the feature during the iOS 9.3 betas. Who doesn’t want a better night’s sleep, right?
But Night Shift has me thinking about other ways iOS could be optimized to make our iPhones and iPads less distracting at night. The foundation for what I have in mind is already there: Do Not Disturb and VIP. But both of these features are currently short of where I’d like them to be to work best for me. Here’s what I’d love to see DND and VIP offer:
Do Not Disturb is a system-wide setting that silences calls and alerts when active. DND can be enabled and disabled manually or scheduled to turn on and off at a set time each day.
VIP is a Mail-specific feature which lets you create alert settings for incoming email specific to certain contacts. By default, new email makes a sound and badges the app icon, but only VIPs appear on the lock screen and Notification Center.
For starters, Apple could introduce DND and VIP to each other.
You can allow phone calls during DND from certain groups of people: everyone, your Favorites (iPhone only), no one, all contacts, or specific groups of contacts. Optionally, you can also let repeated calls come through; this prevents a second phone call from being silenced when it follows a prior phone call within 3 minutes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWsbRkXzshc
Do Not Disturb only makes exceptions for phone calls. VIP only makes exceptions for email. And VIPs don’t get through when Do Not Disturb is enabled. That seems like an oversight due to DND predating VIP.
And if DND and VIP could work together as described, Do Not Disturb mode could then scale beyond just being a system-wide-with-phone-call-exceptions feature. Phone calls barely register on my radar compared to iMessages when it comes to communication.
What I’d love to do is this: set my wife as a VIP, then have DND let her phone calls and iMessages and emails pass through. The current system-wide-with-phone-call-exceptions approach is way too restrictive for me to use comfortably.
I tried scheduling DND last night after thinking about the appeal of Night Shift potentially offering a “better night’s sleep” and other ways to achieve that. Instead of being less bothered by my iPhone, though, I was more distracted. Knowing that zero iMessage alerts could get through, I found myself periodically checking Notification Center to see what I might have missed (nothing).
Optionally, Do Not Disturb could go further without VIP (which only easily applies to Apple apps) and be enabled for all apps by default, then turned off on an app-by-app basis. If your contacts use Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp to send important messages that you don’t want to miss, then you could flag these apps as exceptions for DND in their Notifications settings.
Beyond this simple expansion, Do Not Disturb mode could get a lot smarter with location-based triggers, not just timed, so you could DND at the office or at home but be on alert when you’re anywhere else. And VIP could expand without DND integration. In Messages, for example, I use a text tone for my wife and mom while messages from anyone else come in silently. I’d set certain contacts to VIP for Messages and let all other messages come in without any alert if possible.
Overall, Do Not Disturb is a potentially useful feature and VIP is nice on occasion, but bringing to two features together would make each one better. And expanding DND from a system-wide-with-exceptions-for-phone-calls feature to one with more control would allow me to shush my iPhone on a healthy schedule without worrying about missing an important text alert at night.
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I am 100% with you. My teenage daughter is a VIP and Favorite. Yet her primary mode of communication is text/iMessage. When she sleeps over a friend’s house and occasionally has a hard time sleeping, iMessaging me (at any time) is what helps her.
Unfortunately what that means the way things are currently set up is that I have to turn DND off for the night, and all that entails, so she can reach me. Because she is with her friends, texting is quiet. Calling me is not. So I would love to have this on so that I would wake up if she texts me at 2 AM.
I would like to see Do Not Disturb (DND) simpler to use. On/off from Control Center is good but I often forget that I’ve enabled it. I would like to see a option to turn on DND for 30 mins, 60 mins, etc. Currently, to do this, one must deep dive into Settings and select a time of day. This requires too much thinking (and math) to quickly use. I wish it was more like older microwave oven with a single dial.
I’m in! … My iPhone already recognizes when I’m in the car, and lets me know how many minutes it’ll take to get to work. Utilizing DND to prevent email chimes while driving would both be less distracting and less bothersome when I’m trying to listen to music or a podcast… Like Happy Hour. 😉
Spot on about “smarter” DND.
To me, the VIP “problem” is more an issue with Contacts groups being next to non-functional on iOS. Secondly, Apple needs to get with the “Tagging Revolution”. If I had more flexibility with how I could tag and “group” Contacts, I think the whole PROCESS would work better overall. Apple seems to be trying to “feature-up” their apps with “fixes” from 1998. It wasn’t scalable then, and certainly moreso dysfunctional now. The need for VIP is a symptom of a disease, and VIP isn’t the cure. You’re right that better integration would help, but I think an entire re-envisioning of Contacts.app is needed. If Contacts.app was a better app (think more CRM, ACT!), it could server as the hub for a lot of these decisions.
But the smarter DND is really needed. As @mattone mentions, having a Control Center shortcut for a handful of select durations would be GREAT. I’d like to see DND integrate with Alarms as well; think power naps! Getting to the heavy stuff, Calendars needs to gain a DND checkbox when creating Events. I usually know ahead of time when I’m going to want DND to be on (meetings, court, etc). Which brings that I’d like SUPER DND too (MUTE). I have lawyers for clients; and BOY do judges hate cell phones. When you’re in and out of court rooms a lot (and I’d assume the same could be said for meeting rooms), keeping track of of the Silence switch can be difficult. Location Services probably wouldn’t do good enough, not enough precision. (Maybe this could be a nice area for iBeacon integration? Court rooms, movie theaters…) Personally, I’d prefer a mix. But having Calendars be able to use a “shadow DND” calendar–similar to the Busy/Available blocking–would be a good step. Again, this would be a place where Tags and Smart Rules would shine. I’d love to be able to tag events anyhow, but being able to tag a meeting as a DND or MUTE as well as BILLABLE, CASUAL, PROJECTOR (way to roll in Resources) would be fantastic.
Finally, having a choice of a more visual notification on the Lock Screen that the DND or MUTE is currently on would be nice. I’d be just fine with a big ol’ red Ghostbusters circle/slash on there. (Or, probably more to Jony Ive’s liking, a red muted speaker icon.)
For these articles – do you make radars / feature requests? Seems worthwhile to log them officially.
This is a lot like the very meh post from the other day on how to “improve” Family Sharing…some OK ideas but ultimately missing the point of the features.
It’s called Do Not Disturb for a reason. Not “mostly disturb me but just sometimes not.”
Yes iMessage would be a great addition to DND exceptions along with calls. The second suggestion about location based triggers is probably not the point of it.
And what a commenter said, it would be more helpful if you filed radars on these as well
I can really see potential in what you say about location-based DND. For me the problem is that I would like to different types of DND. When in school, I just want my favorites to get truth to me. But at home, when I go to sleep I don’t want anything to disturb me. Another way to do this is by making DND know if your charger is connected or not. Maybe it would automatically activate DND when I go to sleep, since I always charge my phone at night and no other times. Yes, there is the scheduled alternative but I rearly go to bed the same time two days in a row.
Too much complicated. Majority of the users would get themselves stuck in the problems with it, having no clue where to set anything. You are trying to fix problem which has a minority of users and is not worth it.
I love this article! I had been thinking about DVD based on location. It would be cool to be able to DND my phone at home when I get home by location. Also, Apple could open up the APIs for this and allow say Fandango app to DND my phone when I get to my movie theater. That would be awesome!
I want to see DND have a separate setting for the weekend. I wake up a lot later on the weekends and don’t want to be disturbed by the notifications
These are the little things that make me wonder if Apple execs actually use their products. They have completely fallen from the “it just works” and “how did they think of this” innovation. Maybe it is due to patents, but I still wish for Blackberry type alerting even at an account level. For example, I don’t want to be alerted every time an email comes in from my work email (unless they are VIP). But I do want to be alerted to all personal account emails. I agree with the examples in this article as well. It’s as if one developer is responsible for a single small feature without any collaboration for inter-usability.
Greatest advantage of apple products is not what they do, but rather what they don’t do. If you want overcomplicated phone for your overcomplicated lifestyle, get an app for email or get an Android phone.
Also I wish there was a connection between Do Not Disturb and alarms. Alarms can still go off with Do Not Disturb on. For certain alarms, I want it to (wake up alarms) but other alarms I want it to silence because I’m in a movie theater or something.
On my Mac (or a iOS device) I would like to be able to set DND to automatically turn on when I open a specified app. I would also like more scheduling controls (a bit like setting alarms), perhaps that even link up to the calendar. So if I block out a certain time that I don’t want to be disturbed, DND will automatically turn on for that time.
Just found this article because I was searching for an answer to my DND problems, I completely agree with you! I simply want iMessages from my Favorites to sound when in DND mode, just like their calls come through. Is that really so hard to do?
I really don’t understand why Apple can’t figure this out…Everyone has experienced either a call interruption, or missed a call because they silenced their phone. Technology can solve this.
Do we want the phone to ring and alert us when we are in a business meeting? Or at school in a classroom? Or at church? No! Therefore keep silence and just vibrate, or give a visual.
When I’m at home, I don’t have my phone attached to me, and it lays on the kitchen counter. Am I going to feel it vibrate? No! Therefore ring loudly.
I’d prefer to manage calendar DND notifications from the calendar app. Some I may want an audible alert, some not.
I also want exceptions. I want all work related emails, calls, and SMS text messages to alert me loudly and repeatedly at night when I’m sleeping, but not for anything or anyone else.
This can all be done by location (gps, wifi connection) and/or calendar event.
Hello, everyone. I jumpedthe gun and did not read everyone else’s post from one year ago, on this thread. However, I have been expecting this feature (VIP emails and third-party apps to be included in the notifications during DND) to be buried somewhere in iOS, and I maybe I was being lazy. So, I finally googled it, and I found this thread! You all are already discussing what I thought was already a feature. So, my fellow fans on this site, you have shown such strong support for this expansion of DND, I would like to see if we can find a way to put our heads together and push Apple to make this something that can be opened up in third-party apps. Even better, Push them to develop and have their own native version. I wanted to ask, is there anyone here with enough application development skills and understanding of the concepts as to whether we can make a third-party application that will modify the way back to not disturb in Apple iOS? Specifically, for the functions of manipulating do not disturb And having the expansion of settings for DND being modified by a third-party app. Thank you for everyone in this thread. I look forward to discussing more with you all, even when you’re late to the conversation. :-) Have a great day, everybody! Sincerely, Shawn Michael McKendry
A-pill and Micro$loth have both stopped innovating. In addition they think their user base is unintelligent. When an app gets all pretty with lots of graphics and little function (or the function is spread out over multiple screens where it could fit on 1) I say it’s been Apple’ized. Now a days it seems to be form over function. As an IT Manager and application architect (yes I’m double hatted due to my 20 yrs experience with the same app families), I am tasked with designing apps that will save my customer base time, yet be user friendly. A lesson these companies seem to have forgotten.