Apple Is Giving Your iPhone a Simple But Standout New Productivity Feature

When Apple rolls out iOS 18.4 sometime in the next few weeks, it will deliver several useful new features your iPhone.

But if you have an iPhone that supports Apple Intelligence — meaning any iPhone 16 model (including the iPhone 16e) and the iPhone 15 Pro/Pro Max — the software update will give you a particularly helpful feature.

It’s called Priority Notifications.

What is Priority Notifications?

Photo by Tucker Bowe for Gear Patrol

iPhone owners know their Lock Screen can be the Wild West for Notifications. Unless you go through Settings and tediously select — and deselect — which apps can send you notifications, you’re likely overwhelmed with sheer number of them.

Priority Notifications aims to fix that. When the feature is turned on, your iPhone’s Lock Screen gains a separate section that’s dedicated to the notifications that Apple Intelligence deems essential.

Here’s how Apple describes Priority Notifications: “Apple Intelligence can show you notifications that may be important in a separate section on the Lock Screen, so you can catch up on what you may have missed.”

From your Lock Screen, you’ll first see the Priority Notifications section, which will house time-sensitive or important notifications. You’ll still be able to see other notifications, but they won’t appear first — you’ll have to swipe up on your Lock Screen.

All in all, the feature promises to make it easier to see the notifications you want to see first.

How to turn on Priority Notifications

Photo by Tucker Bowe for Gear Patrol

When iOS 18.4 rolls out to your iPhone, Priority Notifications will be turned off by default … so you’ll have to turn it on. Here’s how.

1. Open the Settings app.
2. Scroll down and select Notifications.
3. Select Prioritize Notifications in the Apple Intelligence section.
4. Toggle it on.

The public beta of iOS 18.4 is available now. The official non-beta version is expected to be released in early April.

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