How can I turn off Focus on my iPhone?

1135Lilstar wrote:

Focus is a terrible feature!! They say if nothing is on then it will not react; not true!! I often miss notifications now because it silenced the text, mail, ect because it overrides the notification settings I already had set up. PLEASE REMOVE IT. I already had settings set up the way I wanted for my lifestyle. I didn’t need group help.

I love Focus. It's made me more productive at work and less stressed during my personal time. Yes, it took a little while to figure it out but it was worth the effort.

Not true, there are many threads on the different bugs with focus status. Mine is turned off, and yet my friends get messages that it is on. Plus I do not get alerts even though it is off! Apple needs to fix this.

mkgageAppleSupport wrote:

Just want to comment I ABSOLUTELY HATE FOCUS TOO. Discussions people, please tell Apple to have it removed. Everyone hates it. All I want is DO NOT DISTURB. Nothing is working for me. I disabled focus and focus focus focus and more Focus still comes up with everything that I do. Thank you.

No one from Apple reads here for feedback or suggestions. However, Apple provides a dedicated page for you to do that yourself:

Product Feedback - Apple

And no, "everyone" doesn't hate it. I like it a lot. It fixes a lot of the issues that have existed in DND for years. Is it perfect? No. Does it require a bit of effort to learn how to use? Yes but it's well worth it.

Since upgrade to Focus my auto reply while driving has been disabled. I enabled this and still doesn't work. Please remove this focus thing and don't fix things that are not broken. I'm a programmer and if I mess things up like this I get fired.

mfny80 wrote:

Since upgrade to Focus my auto reply while driving has been disabled. I enabled this and still doesn't work. Please remove this focus thing and don't fix things that are not broken. I'm a programmer and if I mess things up like this I get fired.

This is a user-to-user forum. Apple doesn't read here for suggestions or feedback. You can let them know your thoughts here:

Product Feedback - Apple

The new Focus is a nightmare, my leadership at my job is super upset that I am always on silent! I have turned everything off and it keeps coming back and despite everything being turned off I am still showing as silent. I’m missing important phone calls for my job and alerts that I need, I am constantly having to apologize to my boss. It has messed up my alarm clock and I have over slept three times to rush to work! Please get rid of Focus and go back to what was there before! This update was garbage, and needs to be rectified immediately!

I agree with everyone here. FOCUS is AWFUL. Suddenly people are being notified that I have messaging off and my phone calls are silenced. Work for me as a Realtor means I NEED my phone to ring. PLEASE make Focus able to be completely inactive or remove it!!!

I just set up a "Personal" focus and tried to set it to allow all calls and apps. Will see if that works.

I also agree, it is a horrible non-intuitive feature. Regardless of what the supporters are saying, FOCUS DOES THINGS ON ITS OWN EVEN WHEN ALL ATTEMPTS ARE MADE TO DISABLE IT.

I know that this is a user forum, but I want to show my support for those of us who are sick of crap software coming from Apple, and a failure of Apple to address issues.

A$X wrote:

I also agree, it is a horrible non-intuitive feature. Regardless of what the supporters are saying, FOCUS DOES THINGS ON ITS OWN EVEN WHEN ALL ATTEMPTS ARE MADE TO DISABLE IT.

I know that this is a user forum, but I want to show my support for those of us who are sick of crap software coming from Apple, and a failure of Apple to address issues.

You should let Apple know your thoughts here:

Product Feedback - Apple

Anecdotal evidence is in this very thread. Stop being defensive, eh?

And to be clear -- I didn't say it was a bad idea, just a bad implementation and/or VERY bad usability. If you're gonna make something that impacts the most critical functions of a smartphone, you either need to spend a LOT of time educating the users or spend even more time making it intuitive (which it is most certainly NOT.)

I know Apple used to do that -- not sure so much now.

kcl wrote:

Anecdotal evidence is in this very thread. Stop being defensive, eh?

And to be clear -- I didn't say it was a bad idea, just a bad implementation and/or VERY bad usability. If you're gonna make something that impacts the most critical functions of a smartphone, you either need to spend a LOT of time educating the users or spend even more time making it intuitive (which it is most certainly NOT.)

I know Apple used to do that -- not sure so much now.

I'm not being defensive. I'm suggesting a course of action that is most likely to lead to the change people want to see. You appear to have a problem with that. Why?

kcl wrote:

My apologies. I was responding to your questioning of where I got my data, not your suggestion of a course of action. No problem at all with that.

And that was also a legitimate question (that was not addressed to you, by the way). When people make broad assertions, they should not be surprised if they are asked to support them with data.

Unless your diabetic, and you need notifications of high or low blood sugars through out the day and especially at night, this feature is literally killing me, rather than being warned of a blood sugar going high it just stays silent and I wake up having been 8x the acceptable level, Focus is actually killing me. I hate this app!!!!!!

beeclarke wrote:

Unless your diabetic, and you need notifications of high or low blood sugars through out the day and especially at night, this feature is literally killing me, rather than being warned of a blood sugar going high it just stays silent and I wake up having been 8x the acceptable level, Focus is actually killing me. I hate this app!!!!!!

It sounds as if you haven't set up Focus to allow the alerts from your glucose monitoring app. I get that Focus is a bit more challenging to set up than DND. And, if you have an Apple Watch, that can make it even more complicated.

You should also let Apple know your thoughts on the matter.

Product Feedback - Apple

Focus has caused me to miss important phone calls. I have tried turning it off in settings. FOCUS with DO NOT DISTURB seems to keep coming back.

if there is a way to permanently turn it off in settings, tell EXACTLY how to do it!

Please!