Apple overhauls notifications with summaries and focus tools

Apple on Monday overhauled its notifications system for iPhones to help people deal with the flood of alerts on their phones. 

One new feature, called Notification Summary, lets people schedule when notifications are delivered, like in the morning or evening, so they can prioritize which ones are most important. A new feature for Apple's digital assistant Siri will automatically read time-sensitive messages when you don't have your phone with you, like alerts for when your food arrives from delivery apps.

Another tool, called Focus, lets people set their phones to help them concentrate on certain things. For example, if people are at work, they can choose to only be notified by coworkers for apps like mail, calendar or the collaboration app Slack. Other settings for the Focus tool include "Do Not Disturb," "Personal" and "Sleep," which you can schedule to come on when you set your bedtime.

Apple made the announcement at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference, held virtually as the US tries to recover from the pandemic, where the company was also unveiled other features for its iOS mobile software for iPhones, its WatchOS platform for Apple Watches, and new tools for sharing health data.

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