Notifications are an essential feature in your Android smartphone. They make it super easy for you to receive useful information on the go. These include app-specific offers, game-app updates, system notices (e.g. available OS update), and more. More so, the Android platform gives you a lot of control over your notifications. This means that you can fine-tune them to your liking. And if you want a little breathing space, you can just easily make things hush.
Do not disturb
You might not want to be disturbed when doing something important or having an ‘alone’ time. Android comes with a ‘
do not disturb’ mode that
silences all notifications, except for alarms, as well as texts and calls from your favorite contacts. Anyone who tries to call you more than once within a 15-minute time-stretch will also get a pass. The motivation behind this feature is that you never get to miss an important (or rather emergency) call from a family member who really needs you. There are a lot of customization options available so you can specify it based on what you want.
Taming rogue apps
It’s not new that some apps (especially freemium games) remove the notifications options from in-app settings. What this means is that they can send you whatever notification they want whenever they want. They’ll probably bombard you with calls to buy more gold coins or do something else game-wise. You can, fortunately, tame these apps by navigating to Settings>applications>applications manager. You’ll find a list of all apps you’ve installed.Whenever you get a notification from an app that’s overdoing it, press and hold on it, then tap on the wrench icon that you get. This takes you to the app’s specific settings page from where you can disable notifications (if that option is available).You can also tap on the app from the app drawer, then drag it to the top of the screen where it’ll be saying App info. This will allow you to disable the app, customize it in any way you want, disable it or even uninstall it if you want.
Priority app notifications
Buried deep in the settings are Priority app notifications. This option lets you whitelist certain important apps that you want to be allowed through the do not disturb barrier. To make use of this key feature, navigate to
Do not disturb>allow exceptions>priority app notifications.Notifications are a much useful feature on Android smartphones. If you don’t already take advantage of these, you probably should learn how to.
