The Do Not Disturb Feature on iPhones, iPods, and iPads


With your iPhone, iPod and iPad, it is quite easy to turn on the Do Not Disturb feature to only allow calls from specific people. You may be in the hospital or just working on your projects and you don’t need any disturbance whatsoever. This feature is a great add-on.

How to turn Do Not Disturb on or off

If Do Not Disturb is on, a crescent moon will be displayed on the status bar.

There are two ways to go about it:

Go to settings>> Do Not Disturb

Open Control center and long press to adjust the Do Not Disturb settings.

How to change the settings

There are times you don’t need to be disturbed by anybody at specific times. You can set a schedule for this.

Go to Settings>> Do Not Disturb and turn On Scheduled. It gives you an option of setting time.

The great thing about this feature is that you can choose when to receive calls, notifications, and alerts.

  1.    Silence

You can choose to make all your calls silenced as well as notifications when or always when your smartphone is locked.

  1.    Bedtime

Once you enable Bedtime, naturally, the Lock screen dims, calls will be silenced, and notifications will only appear under During Bedtime. They will be on the Notification Center until the scheduled time for the Do Not Disturb ends.

  1.    Allow calls from

As mentioned, there is a way you can allow specific calls. There is an option of allowing calls from no one, everyone, close friends or particular people.

  1.    Repeated calls

Another option is, in the case that somebody calls more than twice in three minutes, the third call is not silenced.

This feature only works when your device screen is locked.

Do Not Disturb While Driving

Apple introduced the Do Not Disturb While Driving to act as a safe driving mode for the iPhone in iOS 11. The feature is a move to prevent people from receiving messages or calls when driving.

We all know that using your phone while driving is a huge distraction which causes many road deaths annually.

The feature will help notify people that you are busy.

How does the feature know when you are driving?

The strongest indicator if you are in your car is connecting your device to a vehicle Bluetooth network.   This automatically turns on the Do Not Disturb feature.

To add the option, go to Settings>>Control Centre>>Customize Controls and add Do Not Disturb While Driving and turn it on.

You can customize your iMessages to send to your contacts when you are driving so that they know you are not ignoring them.

Customizing features for Do Not Disturb While Driving

There is an option for customizing the Do Not Disturb While Driving feature.

Go to Settings>> Do Not Disturb

Tap to Activate and customize how you want to turn it on.

  1.    Automatically: the phone will use all the information it can gather such as network connections, motion detection to help turn it on.
  2.    When Connected to Car Bluetooth: The feature only turns on if you connect your phone to a hands-free system in the car.
  3.    Manually: Go to the Control Center and turn on the feature manually before you start.

You can also choose who uses Auto-Reply To, and you can choose who receives an auto-reply, tap Auto-Reply and customize the message people receive.

Enable Do Not Disturb on your child’s phone

Being a parent of a young driver can, and their safety should be a priority. There is a way you can prevent changes to the Do Not Disturb While Driving feature o make sure they always practice safe driving habits.

Here’s how to go about it. On your child’s phone:

  1.    Go to Settings>> Screen Time, tap Turn on Screen Time.
  2.    Tap Continue and click ‘This is My Child’s iPhone.’ From there, you can then follow the instructions that follow, then tap Not Now until you get to Content and Privacy.
  3.    Tap Continue and then create a Parent Passcode
  4.    Enter the Parent Passcode you create
  5.    Down below on the Do Not Disturb While Driving, tap Allow.

The advantage is that your child will not be able to turn it off if they don’t have the parent passcode which makes them drive safely.

Just like a PC will act up sometimes, which is why Techloris is there for you, this feature also acts up. Sometimes, it may detect that you are driving while you are actually on a train and not driving.  

Apple has come a long way in ensuring that people have the non-disturbance feature they need to either have a good sleep, drive peacefully with no distractions as well as increasing productivity levels.


Kokou Adzo

Kokou Adzo is a stalwart in the tech journalism community, has been chronicling the ever-evolving world of Apple products and innovations for over a decade. As a Senior Author at Apple Gazette, Kokou combines a deep passion for technology with an innate ability to translate complex tech jargon into relatable insights for everyday users.

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