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When it comes to private shipping, few companies are as ubiquitous as FedEx. You might use its services when you order your fancy new smartwatch. But how will you know when your new watch arrives at your house? You could check your tracking status all day. Instead, let FedEx tell you when there are updates to your order.
How to snooze notifications on your Android phone
Silencing that annoying app only takes a couple of taps
Snoozing notifications on your Android phone gives you a brief respite from distracting notifications. You can mute notifications for individual apps, but snoozing notifications means you won't miss time-sensitive emails or messages.
How to stop AirPods from announcing messages
AirPods interrupting your groove? Here's how to keep Siri quiet
AirPods are usually intuitive little earbuds, especially when you use them with an Apple device. Pop them in, they sense they're in your ears, and everything connects automatically. That's handy when you want to go for a run, start a cleaning project, or zone out on public transportation. Their Bluetooth functions work fine on Android phones and other non-locked devices.
How to set custom notification vibration patterns on your Android phone
Make a unique pattern for each of your favorite apps or contacts
Remember when custom vibration patterns were a thing? Setting custom notification sounds along with vibrations offers the ultimate customizable experience for calls and messages. There's also a relevant reason for custom vibration patterns if your phone is always on silent. You can use some of the preset vibration patterns included on some Samsung phones, but those options won't get you far. To customize everything to do with your Android phone's notifications, from calls to texts and app alerts, use the BuzzKill app outlined in this guide.
How to turn off Amber Alerts and other emergency notifications
You should probably turn them back on after your movie
The best 5G Android phones, iPhones, and tablets make it easy to turn off most notifications. However, some notifications, such as Amber Alerts, can take some effort to silence. When a child is abducted, law enforcement officials notify FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) via its Integrated Public Alert & Warning System. FEMA then issues an Amber Alert through the WEA (Wireless Emergency Alert) system.
How to turn on Gmail desktop notifications
Turn Gmail into a productivity powerhouse by turning on desktop notifications with our handy guide
Mail clients are often not as smooth as webmail sites, but their desktop notifications are key to productivity. All computers come with a built-in mail client. The best Chromebooks have Gmail, Macs have Apple Mail, and Windows has Mail and Outlook. Webmail sites such as Gmail offer more bells and whistles and are better at sorting through spam than mail clients. Here's how you can turn on Gmail desktop notifications and have the best of both worlds.
How to better manage notifications on your Android phone
It is time you take some steps to reduce the notification clutter on your Android phone
It's no secret that Android's handling of notifications is light-years ahead of the competition (looking at you, iOS). But it doesn't matter how well your amazing Android phone handles notifications if you're bombarded by hundreds of them all day. Notification overload is a real thing as apps fight for your attention. Android comes with built-in ways to customize your notifications the way you want. Follow these steps to create the perfect notification environment for your peace of mind.
Websites can alert you to new content or actions you need to take through pop-up notifications in your browser. However, these pop-up notifications can be distracting or intrusive, whether you're browsing on an Android tablet, a smartphone, or a computer. There are ways you can limit your exposure to pop-ups from specific sites or all sites en masse. In this guide, we show you how to turn off pop-up notifications in most major web browsers.
Samsung Push Service: What it is and how does it work?
Get notified about important Samsung announcements
We all have brands or services that we love and want to hear more about. If you like Samsung and its plethora of devices and services, Samsung has a way to let you know more about them. It's called Samsung Push Service, and it's a way for Samsung to let its fans and users know about new and exciting features and devices. This feature is available on all Samsung devices, including the best Samsung phones. This guide discusses what Samsung Push Service is, how it works, and how to use it.
Slack is a powerful messaging app used by 77 of the Fortune 100 companies for internal communications. Many other organizations also use Slack to keep teams connected. You can work in a hybrid or remote office while maintaining those essential connections with your coworkers. Whether you're using a low-cost Chromebook or a trusty mobile device, staying connected to your favorite channels is easy. However, always-on connectivity can become annoying.
You might never miss a notification again with Android 14's flashy new alerts
Accessibility setting lets you flash your screen or camera LED with new alerts
Google just dropped the second developer preview of Android 14, and it seems like there are lots more user-facing facing features this time around. A new photo picker that lets you manually select which images an app can see is now mandatory, and for the first time, ongoing notifications can be dismissed with a simple swipe. But Google didn't stop there with the notification improvements — there's at least one other shiny new change on this front.
The Google Play Store's logo redesign has come for your notifications
The updated look is a bit of a departure from recent designs
The Google Play Store just received a new logo as a part of its tenth anniversary celebration. We first started seeing changes emerge early last month in apps like Google Pay, before slowly trickling out further and further across our phones. A more subdued color palette helps it attempt to align itself better with the logo colors of Google's other apps and services, and now we're catching wind of another subtle change to the logo, with a tweak to its appearance in notifications.
Scheduled Summary is the best feature Android should steal from iOS
It's important to keep the competition in check
Although some people believe Android has better notification management than iOS, Apple has one trick up its sleeve to make Android fans envious; that trick is Scheduled Summary. Announced with iOS 15 in 2021, Scheduled Summary combines notifications from selected apps and shares them with users at set intervals. After using it for over a year, we feel it's the best feature Android should steal from iOS.
Google's Little Signals experiment uses air to send distraction-less notifications
There are six innovative design studies reimagining smart home tech
When we think about notifications, the first things that come to mind are blinking LEDs or that familiar ding sound, triggered by the arrival of a new message or perhaps by a shopping app to remind of a long-forgotten item on the wishlist. But humans can pick up sensory cues in numerous other ways, and Google’s now experimenting with just that, looking for new methods to subtly signal for attention while keeping intrusion and distraction at the absolute minimum.
How to set an Android app's notifications to silent
Because not all notifications are equally important
One of Android's key strengths as a platform lies in how it handles notifications. As an Android user, you get a lot of control over your alerts, so you can make sure the less important stuff doesn't get in the way. By default, most notifications will arrive with a sound and/or vibrate, depending on your phone's current alert settings. You can use Do Not Disturb (or Priority Mode in Android 13) to silence all your notifications for a period of time, but that's a drastic option. Thankfully, you can set individual notifications from specific apps to silent — they won't ring or vibrate, and they'll also be moved down to a less prominent place in your notification shade. This guide will show you how to set any notification to silent so you won't be bothered by annoying app notifications any longer.
Gmail rolling out option to pause mobile notifications when using your computer
Ditch the double ping
Notifications on your smartphone are useful — one might even say essential to the experience. It was Android's early lead in notification management that helped it gain traction against Apple. Notification overload is a thing these days, with dozens of apps and services screaming for your attention, but Google is rolling out a new feature that will help cut down on the noise in one very specific instance. When you're using Gmail on your computer, you can pause the Gmail notifications on your phone. There's clearly still some work to be done, though.
We're covering another in a series of design tweaks that Android 13 Developer Preview 2 has brought about. It concerns shrinkage.
New Honor 60 Pro variant’s brilliant light show ensures you never miss a notification
It’s electrochromic-ally generated
Honor launched two mid-range offerings in December last year — the Honor 60 and Honor 60 Pro. The company is now releasing a new version of the pro model called Honor Code, which is essentially the same phone but with one significant difference on the rear panel.
Android 13's new opt-in notification permission system won't be mandatory for a while
Its API requirement means Google shouldn't enforce the change until mid-to-late 2023 at the soonest
One of the most hyped changes for Android 13 was the change to its notification system, which would require apps to explicitly prompt users into opting-in to receive notifications, as on iPhones. In essence, apps would need your permission before they are allowed to bother you. It's a big change, and it turns out developers have plenty of time to plan for it. According to Esper.io's Mishaal Rahman, the adjustment will only affect apps that target the Android 13 API (level 33). In more practical terms, that means developers have years to ignore it, and customers probably won't see the benefits until then.
Here’s what Android 13’s new notification permissions look like in action
Apps will have to ask before they bother you
Among other anticipated features, Android 13 is making notifications a permission setting. As in, for an app to harass your notification bar, pinging you with impunity, it has to actually ask you to do that first. We knew it was coming, but now we know what it might look like when it does land.