Interruption Modes
There are four modes for how Android handles notification sounds:
- All - All notifications make an audible noise.
- All (vibrate) - All notifications vibrate (but make no sound). This mode is accessible by turning the volume down to zero in the All mode.
- Priority - All notifications are silent by default... with exceptions. Alarms are always an exception. In addition, you can configure other exceptions in the Interruption Settings (for example, whether a starred contact's phone call should still ring).
- None - No notifications make any sound, period.
Priority & None can be set indefinitely or for a temporary amount of time. In addition, you can setup Priority to work at regular intervals (for example, bedtime each night).
Upgrading to Lollipop
The main point of confusion happens because pre-Lollipop you had three modes (all, vibrate, silent) and post-Lollipop it
looks like you have three modes (all, priority, none). If you're like me, you mapped the three modes from the previous version to the visible modes in Lollipop, but that doesn't work because there are actually
four modes in Lollipop.
The mapping is
actually this:
- All -> All
- Vibrate -> All (vibrate)
- Silent -> Priority
In past versions, silent mode was never actually silent - it had exceptions, like alarms. Priority just embraces this paradox by allowing you to configure which exceptions still make noise.
"None" is a new setting that did not exist pre-Lollipop. It can be considered true silence.
Issues
Just because you can recreate the settings from previous versions doesn't mean it's all sunshine and daisies. I still take issue with a few behaviors in Lollipop's notifications:
- These settings only apply to notification sounds. That means apps can still make sound, even if you're set to None. This is unintuitive at best and explains why some apps still make sound despite your settings.
- Visual notifications always appear (regardless of your settings) and they come down and block the top of your current app. This interruption is problematic when you need access to the top of the app.
- Well, all visual notifications appear except LEDs, which now turn off with priority mode. An unfortunate missing feature, since the rest of the settings are about sound alone.
- If you're in a game, playing music, or doing any other activity that uses the volume rocker, you can't quickly change your notification settings without stopping what you're doing first.
- "Priority" is the worst name for silent-plus-exceptions ever and is probably the reason why everyone is confused.
