Focus modes are awesome and I’m glad that they finally work across all my devices, but now I wonder if there’s a way to set up a particular focus mode to only work on one device?
My situation is that I let my daughter use my iPad Pro to do Khan Academy math every day and I don’t want my notifications to pop up there while she’s working. But I do want them on my Mac and iPhone. But I also want the iPad to follow the Focus modes that are set on my other devices when she’s not using it.
I already have a Shortcut automation to turn on Focus mode on the iPad when she launches Khan Academy, but what I need is a way have that Focus only be for the iPad. Is that even possible?
I think the only thing you could do is set the iPad so Focus does not ‘Share Across Devices’.
Then when the focus mode is started by opening Khan Academy on the iPad it won’t be enabled on your other devices. (I assume you’ve added the app to one of the focus modes - there’s no need to specifically set up an automation).
The other devices will still control focus mode on the iPad assuming ‘Share Across Devices’ is set on them.
I agree with @nationalinterest: the only way (for now) seems to disable ‘Share Across Devices’ for those devices where you want to have different setups.
It does not work that way in my experience. If ‘Share Across Devices’ is off for a device, then that device does not share either way.
This is my biggest annoyance with Focus Modes. I also have a specific mode which I don’t want to share with one of my devices. But that means I can’t share any Focus Modes with that device. Sharing needs to be configurable per mode, not just globally per device. Until we get that, the entire feature is mostly just a novelty to me.
Personally, I’m surprised this hasn’t come up more. Seems like a glaring hole in the feature set which no-one ever seems to mention.
The problem is that there is no “share” toggle for individual focus modes. It’s all or nothing, so it will only work if you before you give the iPad to your daughter you switch off “Share Across Devices” before activating a crafted Khan focus mode that suppresses all notifications and only allows Khan Academy notifications/app
Once you get your iPad back you need to switch off the Khan focus mode and switch share across devices back on to have everything in sync.
It’s not so much that I need to lock her in the app. She’s 15 and sitting beside me so I don’t worry about her getting into things. But she’s ADHD and she finds a constant stream of notification pop-ups at the top of the screen to be distracting for her.
The automation actually does several things in addition to turning on Focus Mode, including starting a timer. I’m thinking that as it stands now, I won’t be able to get what I want as it’s too much to go in and turn Share Across Devices on and off each time. Hopefully, Focus Modes will continue to evolve in iOS 16.