Are Focus Modes A Trojan Horse for Something Bigger?

• John

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been revisiting Focus modes. They never clicked with me last year for a variety of reasons that Federico and I have talked about on AppStories. However, having spent more time with the changes coming to Focus modes with iOS 16, I understand better why the feature’s first iteration didn’t work for me and think the OS updates may point to something bigger that’s going on.

First, though, a little more on why Focus modes in iOS 15 didn’t work for me. The bottom line was that I’d already tuned my notifications to my liking by turning most off, and when even that was too much, Do Not Disturb was sufficient for my needs. Another factor was the lack of hard lines between my work and personal life. That’s somewhat unique to what I do, but having spent many years in a more typical office job, I also know that there are far more people who would like to flip a switch to turn off work notifications when they leave the office than there are who can.