Apple allow for a number of interrelated ascendency in iOS and iPadOS to control that an iPhone or iPad does n’t bring home the bacon an overwhelming number of notifications or accompanying sounds , or that it disturbs you when you ’ve set a Focus way to keep things quiet or bottle up . However , there may be categories of actions so of import that you want to override mount . Critical Alerts , start in iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 , allow you to part through the silence barrier .

These Critical Alerts appear only in a few apps in which time would be of the essence , along with take hold of your attention . For instance , Apple ’s newCheck In featurein iOS 17 , which let you send a sure person a duration or a finish , suggests to anyone you share with that they enable Critical Alerts in Messages . This make sense , as otherwise , you could fail to correspond in or arrive or have triggered Emergency SOS , and a safety partner would have no idea if they had notification silenced .

Critical Alerts lets you choose to overthrow setting that keep thing quiet when it ’s important enough to do so .

iOS 17 critical alerts

Critical Alerts lets you choose to override settings that keep things quiet when it’s important enough to do so.

Foundry

I presume Apple has to okay an app offering a Critical Alerts option – for my install apps that put up notification , I only see it with Messages , MyShake(an earthquake - alert app ) , and Weather .

Ask Mac 911

We ’ve compiled a tilt of the interrogative we get ask most frequently , along with answer and connexion to columns :   read our super FAQ   to see if your question is covered . If not , we ’re always looking for new problem to lick ! e-mail yours tomac911@macworld.com , including silver screen seizure as appropriate and whether you require your full name used . Not every question will be answered , we do n’t reply to email , and we can not provide direct troubleshooting advice .