ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (WHAT THE TECH?) — Everyone has a smartphone these days, maybe an iPhone, but do you know what is on your phone outside of your everyday functions?

You may already use the iPhone’s “Focus” or Do Not Disturb feature. It does more than silence phone calls and notifications. And of all the features that Apple has introduced, it’s right up there with the best.

To find “Focus” on an iPhone, swipe to the control panel which is chock full of helpful tools.

Focus is generally right in the middle. Tap it to see recommended settings like Sleep, Workout, and Driving. Tapping on any of these will silence your phone for an hour, until this evening, or until I leave this location which prevents you from missing calls and notifications from certain apps. It can turn on a fitness focus automatically when you start a workout.

For sleep mode, you can choose to allow notifications from security systems, and calls from certain people, but silence everything else.

If you have an iPhone 15 or 16, the action button on the side can turn on the focus mode of your choice. When focus mode ends, you’ll receive the notifications you missed.

Android phones do not have robust options like the iPhone, but they have “do not disturb” in the mode and routine settings, where you can silence the phone and block notifications for a certain time.

Once you get the focus or do not disturb modes set up the way you like, you can ask Google Assistant or Siri to turn them on and off. Your friends and coworkers will thank you for it.

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