Create a Driving Focus. Configure the Driving Focus. Enable the Driving Focus to come on automatically or manually. Drive and not receive notifications from your iPhone while driving.
Table of Contents
Create Driving Focus
A Focus is an Apple feature that allows you to customize your devices and silence calls and notifications. You can turn in on and off in the Control Center or by telling Siri “Hey Siri, enable my Driving Focus“.
Go to your iPhone Settings > Focus and click on the + sign in the upper right hand corner to create a Focus for driving it you haven’t already done so.
What do you want to focus on?
Tap the Driving Focus.
Scroll down and click on Customize Focus.
Customize Driving Focus
You have the following options to configure:
- People – who you want to allow to notify you and who you want to silence notifications from
- Auto-Reply – who you want to auto-reply to and what you want to say
- Customize screen – choose a lock screen to turn on to help limit distractions
- While driving – when to activate Driving Focus; either automatically, when connected to car bluetooth or manually
People
By default no one is allowed to notify you when Driving Focus is on.
You can specify who to silent notifications from and who you want to allow notifications from.
You also have the option of choosing who to allow calls from: Everybody, Allowed People Only, Favorites, Contacts Only.
The other option is to Allow Repeated Calls or not. If enabled, then the second call from the same person within three minutes will not be silenced.
In my mumble opinion, allowing someone to notify you while you have the Driving Focus on defeats the purpose of having the Driving Focus.
Auto-Reply
Auto-Reply gives you the option to send a pre-typed message to either:
- No One
- Recents
- Favorites
- All Contacts
Below that you can specify a message to send. The default message is “I’m driving with Focus turned on. I’ll see your message whenI get where I’m going.”
If you do send an auto-reply message, the person who is trying to notify you will choose to notify you anyway if send “urgent” as an additional message.
Customize screen
This is where you get to choose a lock screen for yourself when you are in Driving Focus. The intention is to help minimize distractions. Choose wisely.
This is an option where you can pick a Lock Screen you already have created or a new one.
While Driving
Choose how Driving Focus is turned on.
- Automatically – automatically activated based on motion detected
- When Connected to Car Bluetooth
- Manually – manually from the Control Center… or “Hey Siri, enable Driving Focus”
- Activate With CarPlay – will be turned on automatically when connected to CarPlay.
