Don’t take that tone with me, iPhone
How to make your iPhone less intrusive
Devices that make sounds have always annoyed me. Siri and I haven’t talked in years. I cringe in friends’ cars when their phone tells us to make a right on CA-one. In a city we are bombarded with a myriad of man-made sounds. In the woods a robotic voice or a bleep-boop is an intrusion on the experience of the natural environment.
Even on vibrate, and especially while sitting on a table, that double tap buzz of a text is an intrusion on the moment. But for an audiophobe like me, vibrate is the only option. Lord help me if I ever know what my ring tone sounds like.
You can minimize that buzz by making your own vibrations. iOS 7 introduced a lovely feature: when you already had iMessage open, your phone would give a single quick vibrate to let you know there was a new text. I thought, why not just make it always do that?
- Go into your settings and open “Sounds”
- Choose “Text Tone” and then “Vibration”
- Hit “Create New Vibration”
- Very lightly touch the screen and then hit “Stop”
- Choose “Save” and name it. (I called mine tickle)
Texts will now feel like a friend lightly touching you on the shoulder and saying hey. And if you miss a text, you’ll definitely see it the next time you check Twitter or Facebook. Try it for a week and thank me later.
