Google Announce New Feature Called “Focus” to Let You Silence Notifications and Focus on Your Work
- weicleavcamaki
- Aug 17, 2023
- 6 min read
Apple has slowly been rolling out a feature called Announce Messages with Siri to more devices recently. Announce Messages first appeared on AirPods, where Siri can read text messages through earphones without looking at your iPhone or iPad.
Do Not Disturb gets a major upgrade in iOS 15 under an umbrella feature called Focus. This lets you set statuses and modes for how alerts are handled during activities like sleeping, driving, working, and more.
Google Announce New Feature Called “Focus”
We are excited to announce another feature for the Your Phone app. For those of you with Samsung devices, now you can enjoy more continuity as you move from your phone to your PC. With this latest addition, you can easily access recently used apps from your Android device on your Windows PC.
One of the most requested File Explorer features is the ability to open folders in their own tabs within a single File Explorer window. This feature is already being tested as a hidden feature in the Windows 11 Insider Dev channel preview builds and was formally announced today.
Apple announced a series of new hardware products at its launch event on Wednesday, including the iPhone 14, new AirPods Pro and the Apple Watch Ultra. One thing stood out, though: it put a new focus on safety features. Here's an overview of what's new.
Apple also announced a new Crash Detection feature for iPhone 14 and new Apple Watch Series 8, Apple Watch SE and Apple Watch Ultra users. It builds on Apple's fall detection that was already available in Apple Watch models.
Focus is a new feature that can filter notifications and apps based on what a user wishes to focus on at a certain time. When a user's Focus is blocking incoming notifications, their status will be displayed to others in Messages. iOS will suggest a Focus for different occasions, such as work hours or winding down for bed, using on-device intelligence, but users can also create a custom Focus. When a Focus is set on one Apple device, it automatically applies to other Apple devices.
Safari features a completely new design. Controls are now easier to reach with one hand and give more focus to a webpage's content. There is a new, compact tab bar that floats at the bottom of the screen so users can easily swipe between tabs. Tab Groups allow users to save tabs and easily access them at any time across devices. There is also a customizable start page and web extensions for the first time.
iOS 15 features a new tool to help users reduce distraction called Focus. A Focus can filter notifications and Home Screen pages based on what a users wishes to focus on at a particular time, while still allowing urgent notifications through. When a user's Focus is currently blocking incoming notifications, their status is automatically displayed to other people in Messages, showing that a user is not currently available unless it is urgent.
FaceTime now features Portrait mode for video calls, so users are able to blur out their background and put themselves in focus, and mute alerts so it is clearer when you are speaking on mute. There is also a new grid view for group FaceTime calls, enabling participants to see more faces at the same time, and an optical zoom control for the back camera.
Focus assist (also called quiet hours in earlier versions of Windows 10) allows you to avoid distracting notifications when you need to stay focused. It's set by default to activate automatically when you're duplicating your display, playing a game, or using an app in full screen mode. You can control any or all of these, as well as determining to what level notifications are suppressed.
As indicated by Pichai, the company also made announcements surrounding its core search products in October. A redesigned mobile search experience with an emphasis on photos and videos makes it easier to explore new places and products, and helps you dive into topics deeper, all without ever having to leave the Search interface. The company is also looking to make its nonverbal search options as part of Google Lens better, with improvements to multisearch, a feature that lets you search with both images and text.
It would seem that Windows chief Panos Panay is on a roll with teasing new Windows 11 features. Just yesterday, he posted a short video about a new Snipping Tool. Today, he introduced something called Focus Sessions. While it was only a brief teaser, the feature looks pretty interesting.
iOS 16 adds a feature that developers can use called Live Activities. This is essentially a mini view of the real-time progress of a workout, sporting event or Uber ride from your iPhone's lock screen.
Apple Pay will support new types of payments and adds a new feature called Apple Pay Later, a Klarna-like service that lets you split the cost of an Apple Pay purchase into four equal payments spread over six weeks, with zero interest and no fees. Upcoming payments are managed through the Wallet app, making it easy to keep track of dates and payments.
The news comes a week after Google announced several new features for the Google Wallet platform. The new Instant Buy Android API is designed to make it easier for users to buy physical goods and services in native Android apps in as few as two clicks.
But for the specific case of managing focus I've often seen folks use this technique because there is no alternative way to move the users focus start point. Browsers actually have an internal API that they use to move the focus start point (developers.google.com/web/updates/...) but it's not exposed to developers as a JavaScript API. The tabindex + focus() trick I showed is a sort of near term hack to achieve a similar effect.
Samsung, a South Korean technology giant, has announced to roll out Voice Focus feature and One UI 5.0 for Galaxy devices in its latest Android update. Reportedly, the tech company has started to launch these new Android updates for Galaxy A33 5G, Galaxy A53 5G and Galaxy A73 5G smartphones.
While this is a very important accessibility feature, it is also a technique that should be used judiciously. Use it to repair the keyboard focus flow when it is disturbed, not to try and anticipate howusers want to use applications.
A big improvement this year is our expansion on how Gameplan Focus choices carry over into the game. Last year, you would get small ratings to boost if you called specific plays from whatever drill you chose for that week. Now, in Madden NFL 22, each focus will also have very specific pros and cons for how the AI will play in-game. So, in the example above, where we are talking about defending the deep pass, the pros are that your defenders are going to get a boost in man and zone coverage on receivers running deep routes by doing a better job of staying over the top of those routes. One more pro is that defenders in deep zone assignments will automatically increase the cushion on receivers. While this helps cover the deep passes, the cons of this focus are that you will give up more room underneath on short and medium passes, as well as have slower reactions to the run by your secondary.
Samsung has announced that it will roll out the Voice Focus feature to select A-series smartphones in India. The new feature is being released as part of the latest One UI 5.0 software update. The new addition allows for voice enhancement during calls. This results in clear audio on both the caller and listener ends. Let us check out the Voice Focus feature for Samsung A-series smartphones in detail.
Instagram is starting this year with an announcement of its primary focus for 2023. In the previous year, they leaned toward helping creators make a living with a focus on video and messaging features.
The network is serious about launching different ways to protect your Instagram account and this month introduced a new feature called Security Checkup that has a primer role in protecting users from malicious activities on the platform.
So, for now, this feature is limited to wellness-focused creators and companies that Instagram selected to launch this feature such as @afspnational, @heads_together, @vitaalere, @klicksafe, @headspace_aus, @deepikapadukone, @sudahdong, and @eenfance.
The terminal has a feature called shell integration that enables many additional features that are not found in other terminals. When using a screen reader, the Run Recent Command and Go to Recent Directory features are particularly useful. 2ff7e9595c
Comments