• Apple is finally bringing “grouped notifications” to iPhones on the next generation of its operating system, iOS 12, which drops later this year.
  • Grouped notifications save space on your screen by grouping together new alerts according to content and app; it’s a capability that will sound familiar to Android users.
  • The update was announced by Apple Senior VP of software engineering Craig Federighi during the 2018 Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple’s annual multi-day conference.

Apple just announced it’s changing the way iPhone users see notifications on their lock screens: When iOS 12 comes out later this year, notifications will be grouped up by app.

With grouped notifications, the alert cards will lay on top of one another to “give you help managing large numbers of notifications,” said vice president of software engineering Craig Federighi. He showed off the new notifications during the keynote at Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference.

“Notifications are grouped not just by app, but also by topic and thread,” said Federighi. “[This] gives you great overview of the notifications you’ve received.”

In other words, all your notifications from, say, iMessage will be grouped up, so they don’t clog your screen. Then, when you tap on them to see the group, they’ll be organized by conversation, so all the messages in one group chat will be kept separately from all the messages in another.

Tap to get a look at the individual notifications, and swipe left to see the options 'Manage,' 'View,' and 'Clear.'

Grouped notifications might already sound familiar to some Android users; a similar function has been available in Android for some time now.

iPhone fans seem pretty excited already: