Tech companies are trying to help us use their devices less. Itâs not working yet.
You've read 6 emails from Recode this year. Make a financial gift to Vox to help us keep it free. ð [Yes, I'll give]( You've read 6 emails from Recode this year. Make a financial gift to Vox to help us keep it free. ð [Yes, I'll give]( Missing texts from friends? That's a feature, not a bug. Youâre trying to focus on work, so you need to see notifications from Slack â but not from, say, your mom and Facebook. But what if the plumber whoâs supposed to fix your sink tries to call, or if your mom really does have an emergency and is not just sending you an out-of-focus photo of her new shower curtain? Appleâs new productivity tool for iPhones, Focus, is intended to limit distractions by letting you specify when you want to turn off notifications from certain apps and contacts. The problem is itâs not especially intuitive and takes a lot of work to set up right. As a result, since Apple began rolling out the feature to iPhone users in September, many people have missed work calls, home repair visits, and doctor appointments. Social media is full of confused people wondering why they [werenât notified of calls]( and why it seems like everyoneâs [messages are silenced](. Moms are wondering if their daughters are mad at them or if the person who urgently called about a plugged sink suddenly figured out how to unclog the drain on their own. In an effort to help people avoid distractions, Apple has created new ones for some. The Focus feature, which Apple says âlets you stay in the moment when you need to concentrate,â is the latest [effort from Apple]( and other tech companies meant to [help untangle us from the hold their products have]( on us. After all, our phones and computers have become our main communication method, our entertainment, and, for some, our source of livelihood. The feature was introduced as part of Appleâs new operating system [last fall](, though itâs taken months for it to roll out widely to most iPhone users. And how it rolled out is part of the problem. When you did finally update your iOS software â or you remembered to leave your phone plugged in at night so it could automatically update â all you saw was a quick notification telling you that the tool existed and offering to show you what it does. Thatâs the type of notification that busy, harried people â precisely those who might need the feature in the first place â quickly swipe out of the way and plan to get to later, someday. When some of them finally did remember to use the feature, they might not completely understand what it does. Apple did not respond to a question about what share of iPhone users are using the feature. Even people who work on this sort of stuff for a living had trouble with Focus. [Vanessa Bowen](, a user experience designer who specializes in design systems, says she appreciates Appleâs minimal design but missed a psychiatric appointment when she turned on the personal version of Focus, which lets you customize which contacts and apps you want to hear from on your own time. She didnât realize that to get those appointment notifications, sheâd have to add her calendar to a list of acceptable apps or opt to allow time-sensitive notifications to get through even in Focus mode. That kind of mishap can have real repercussions. âI wouldnât get my prescription filled in time, and Iâd probably be out for lord knows how many days the next availability is,â Bowen said. âIn these instances, when itâs a really big feature and it will interfere with your life in terms of missing calls or important reminders from your calendar, I donât think they really thought that out.â She added, âThere wasnât really time in my life to actually allow me to set it up properly, nor did it inform me of what it would do.â That means mere mortals donât stand much of a chance, especially since the setup is lengthy and non-intuitive. ([Barbara Krasnoff at The Verge called]( the options âdauntingâ but ultimately âworth it.â) Thatâs because turning on Focus turns off all your notifications from people and apps you donât specifically add, rather than just the specific people and apps youâd like to mute notifications from. (When setting up the different focus modes, Apple does offer some suggestions of people to add as exceptions based on your recent device usage.) While the process of inclusion rather than exclusion works in some circumstances, it doesnât here, Bowen said. How could you anticipate that youâd want to add, say, your exterminator as a contact youâd want to get through to you even while your Focus mode is on? Or maybe you didnât realize putting on âdo not disturbâ also meant shutting off something as important as calendar notifications. Finally, by default, the feature tells others youâve silenced notifications â an announcement not everyone would assume youâre signed up for. The setup of this feature seems to contradict Appleâs longstanding reputation for building technology thatâs easy to use. As Dieter Bohn at The Verge [put it](, playing on an old Apple slogan: âFiguring out Apple settings have gone from âIt just worksâ to âItâs just work.ââ Usersâ complaints about the product suggest they misunderstand what it does or how to use it, or perhaps mistakenly activated it in the first place. Either way, itâs not on them, but on Apple. Amber Case, author of [Calm Technology](, a book about designing technology to be less taxing on our attention, thinks Apple is on the right path but hasnât gotten there yet. âI commend them for trying something thatâs hard,â Case told Recode. âThey should keep going and test more granularly and keep trying. This will get better over time.â That said, Case thinks Apple could have done things better from the start, by calling it an experimental feature or by better coaching people how to use it. Case also said there should be an easier way to report errors or edge cases that donât work. âAll of the people using this feature right now are part of a huge beta test,â Case said. Apple, for its part, said it beta tested the setting soon after it was announced in June to September 2021, so developers and members of the public could download the feature and provide feedback. The company said that it will continue to monitor social media and Apple support to learn what issues iPhone users are having with it and to make improvements. Introducing features that encourage people to control their devices rather than have their devices control them is certainly a step in the right direction. However, making it easier to use them less should be just as easy as using them too much in the first place. âRani Molla, senior reporter [A cartoon of a boxy robot holding a landline phone receiver.]( Juj Winn/Getty Images [Why in the year of our lord 2022 am I still getting robocalls???]( [They made a Covid-19 vaccine in less than a year, but I still get robocalls.]( [A SpaceX launches from the SLC-4E launch pad at Vandenberg US Space Force Base on February 2, 2022, in Lompoc, California.]( Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images [SpaceX and our space junk problem]( [How Elon Musk was falsely accused of sending a rocket to the moon.]( [Mark Zuckerbergâs face appearing on a screen behind him.]( Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images [Can Facebook monopolize the metaverse?]( [The companyâs new direction is already sparking antitrust concerns.](
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