The iPhone’s Focus mode is almost the perfect vacation detox tool - The Verge

Focus mode helps you tame notifications and messages, but it could do much more through Screen Time and other features.

Two Fridays ago, just before I left for a week-long vacation to Florida, I went through my pretrip digital routine. I set my Slack status to “Vacationing” with a palm tree emoji and paused notifications until further notice. I turned on Gmail’s auto-responder. I deleted a bunch of apps from my phone that would only serve to distract me from poolside bliss.

The last thing I did was pick up my iPhone and create a new Focus mode. Focus, in case you didn’t know, is a new-ish iOS feature designed to let you quickly switch your phone from one context to another. You can set it to shut up your work apps on the weekends, turn off notifications while you’re reading or sleeping, or only alert you to new emails from 9AM to 5PM and not a moment after. It’s really just an extension of Do Not Disturb, but it gives you more specific control and lets you have different setups for different situations.

My new Focus mode was called “Vacation Mode.” The goal was simple: I wanted to make sure people who needed me could reach me and that I’d be alerted if someone stole my credit card or my house burned down. Short of that, I wanted my phone to shut up and leave me alone. And, ideally, I also wanted it to actively prevent me from using it whenever possible.

Unfortunately, the reality of Focus falls well short of this idea. The only thing it really controls is your notifications: you can choose specific people whose calls and messages get through and the specific apps that are allowed to light up your phone. This is a good idea; it’s just too much work. You have to manually scroll through all of your contacts and then all of your apps, in alphabetical order, to pick which ones to exclude from the Focus blockade. (The app does offer some AI-powered suggestions in the app picker, but I found them basically useless. No, phone, Vacation Mode does not require calendar notifications.)

Here’s where I eventually landed: I allowed phone calls from “All Contacts” and added Messages, Reminders, WhatsApp, Home, and my banking apps to the list of allowed apps. I also turned off the toggle for “Time Sensitive” notifications because, at least in my experience, there’s nothing remotely time-sensitive about the “Time Sensitive” notifications I get. I turned off all notification badges, too. It wasn’t a perfect setup, but it meant I’d get all my texts and calls from people I know and be alerted to crucial stuff.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/8/8/23296898/iphone-focus-mode-screen-time-vacation

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