Has something changed in the way you upload episodes? because this didnāt happen earlier and happens very frequently now. Iām using DNS (NextDNS) and this doesnāt happen for any other podcast I listen to. been using this DNS for 2 years and things worked fine.
Yes; a major sponsor required a change. If youāre blocking ads or other things at the DNS level it may be catching it.
David had asked how particular professions manage their notifications, specifically calling out docs. I work in an ER, which means when Iām there I may be needed, but when Iām home theyāll usually call whoever is there. All devices are always in silent mode. I have everything turned off except for:
- text messages (kids & wife) = buzz/sound and temporary alerts,
- Google Home (have a camera in the garage to see if itās left open or when the kids come and go; probably can turn this alert off) = quiet temporary alert
- our pager app (we no longer wear a pager, but are expected to respond) = buzz/sound,
- the iPhone EHR app (Epic Haiku, to get secure medical communications) = buzz/sound,
- the phone (but almost no one calls me now) = buzz/sound,
- WhatsApp (for a thread between docs for urgent issues) = buzz/sound + temporary alerts.
- Things (for timed reminders) = buzz/sound + temporary alert. Very few tasks get to have an alert.
Everything else is off. Watch mirrors the phone. iPad quietly has text & facetime. Mac has quietly has text. I started with everything off and turned things on as I started missing things.
One of the things Iāve had to do is train my coworkers that if they really need me to respond to them right away, they need to call me on MS Teams. I even have that in my status message. Otherwise, there was no way of filtering important messages that were timely from fluff or things that couldāve waited. Itās still a work in progress, but it effectively means:
- Chats will get answered every 1-2 hours (I want to push it to <4 hours, but not there yet.)
- Emails within the same day-
- Calls will get my immediate attention. Itās the only phone or windows laptop notification that will appear.
Great episode.
@MacSparky mentioned only having key messages come through to his watch. At the time I thought he meant that (say) a message from his wife would come to his watch, while a less important one would still be shown, but only on his phone. However, when I tried to set this up, it doesnāt seem to be possible.
I can use a Focus mode to allow or deny a particular contactās ability to notify me (everywhere) but not send one contact to the phone and another to the watch.
I havenāt missed that setting somewhere, have I?
Great episode! It certainly helped me get motivated to go back to ātending the gardenā as you put it, @macsp. Two things always frustrate me when it comes to notifications on iOS.
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Showing names of people in Notification Centre who messaged me while Iām in a focus mode I specifically set up to not be notified about their messages. I love focus modes and they are a total game changer for context and intentionality. But this is one of those things where Apple went in the right direction but then couldnāt bring themselves to really trusting the user to know what theyāre doing.
If I set the focus mode up so that I donāt get notifications from Teams, letās say, looking at my Notification Centre while Iām on holiday and seeing the name of someone from work is a total trigger. Of course, Iāll be spending the rest of the day either wondering what that message is saying or I actually go look. So in the end I always end up uninstalling any work apps when I go on leave but of course this is exactly what Focus modes were designed so solve.
I wonder, @Macsp, you mentioned your friendās day off was ruined because she hadnāt setup her notifications properly. Iām having the same issue as her despite having set everything up correctly, at least to my knowledge. How do you prevent yourself from getting sucked in when you see a name in notifications centre you know has something to do with work? -
Notifications from Shortcuts. Why are there still automations where I cannot toggle off the notification option? That would be a great one to fix, Apple. I donāt need a notification when I join a wifi network. It usually involves me going somewhere, which I am naturally quite aware of
Thanks David and Stephen! Love the show 
@ismh86 @MacSparky I might be completely missing something - but as someone who primarily works from home, I have my 3 core devices always in front of me throughout the day (iphone, Mac, iPad). I find myself getting frustrated due to the lack of notifications syncing across those devices. Iāll get an iMessage and it will ping all of my devices. Iāll read the message on my Mac, but it still shows as a new message on my other devices (and vice versa). Is there a way to ensure notifications and their state are synced so that if I read a message on my Mac, it will not appear as a new notification on my iphone, etc?
Great episode, ānecessarily complicatedā is the correct summary of notification controls.
Just wanted to add that turning off the red dot indicator on the watch seems to help me too. Itās like a universal badge notification on WatchOS. Just knowing I have an unread notification can sometimes (usually) be enough of a distraction for me.
My biggest notification frustration continues to be Screen Time requests from my daughter. Those requests comes in as messages in the Messages app. Because the requests go to my wife and me, they are intermixed in the same thread/conversation with any other messages between my wife, daughter, and me. Often, such as when working, I want to be notified of non-Screen Time messages in that thread, but not the Screen Time requests (my wife handles those when Iām working). It appears thereās no way to drill down to silence just the Screen Time messages.
I donāt know when Apple opened up 3rd party access to screen time, but itās given rise to a bunch of helpful tools that can be more granular. I particularly enjoy unlocking apps for 5-10 minutes at a time instead of a daily 40 minute limit.
However, this has highlighted the one notification setting that really bugs me: turning off lock screen & notification center alerts but keeping banners. Ideally it would only notify me while actively using my device and not bother me when the phone is down, e.g. ābreak ending soon.ā However, what it actually does is wait until Iāve unlocked the device to show me the notifiation.
So in practice, if I stop browsing reddit 8 minutes into a 10 minute timer and put my phone down, Jomo is still going to send a ābreak ending soonā notification at the 10 minute mark, but the phone will hold it and wait to show it to me when I open my phone next. Minor, but an odd choice.
I was thinking about what notifications I would want to wait until Iāve fully unlocked the phone, but everything I could think of would just be a distraction from whatever task I opened the phone for.
