Second installment of our guide of tricks to make the most of iOS 8, and today we are going to show you a function that is not new in this iOS, but that despite its enormous utility there are still many iPhone and iPad users who do not know it, or at least they don't use it. This is the "Do Not Disturb" feature, one of the great novelties of iOS 6 and one of the features that I first configure on any of my iOS devices when I restore them. We explain what it consists of and how it is configured.
Airplane mode? No, thanks
Many iOS users keep putting their device on vibrate or worse, airplane mode, when they don't want to be disturbed, for example at night. It is true that the objective that you will not be disturbed is met, but you run the risk that someone will have to contact you urgently and cannot. Do Not Disturb mode fixes this, because when it is activated it makes no notification sound, although they reach your mobile, and calls do not even ring, but you can create a list of «Favorites» people who if they call you the mobile will ring, or you can configure that if someone calls several times also ring.
In this way you can guarantee that neither WhatsApp, emails or Twitter mentions bother you at 3 in the morning, but if someone important to you needs to contact you you will be able to do it without problems. It also allows you to schedule it, so that it automatically turns on and off at certain times every day.
Configuration
The configuration is very simple and you access it from the System Settings. Within the "Do not disturb" menu we find the different options that this function offers us. We can configure the schedule, establishing at what time we want it to be activated and deactivated automatically every day. This programming can be skipped at any time using the manual option, with the button that we have in the Control Center (the crescent).
Within the Do Not Disturb options we find that of "Allow calls from Favorites". This option means that when someone who is included in your list of favorite contacts (which are configured within the Phone application) will always ring even if the Do Not Disturb mode is active. When a call is repeated, it can also be allowed to ring. The options in the final part are used so that do not disturb mode only works when the device is locked, or you are not notified when it is unlocked.
When do not disturb mode is active you will be notified by a crescent-shaped icon in the status bar, next to Bluetooth and battery.
Helpful advice: if you are like me, one of those who like to have friends and colleagues in your favorites, because they are the ones you call the most, but you know that they are the ones that can bother you the most at midnight On the other hand, you would like your family (or your boss) to be able to call you at dawn but you don't need them in favorites, you can create a group of contacts with family members and use that group with the "do not disturb" function.
For unknown reasons you cannot create groups from the iPhone, but you can from iCloud (as long as you synchronize the agenda with iCloud of course). So you just have to go to iCloud web, create a group of contacts and then on the iPhone use that group to "do not disturb".
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