In a move that has had everyone scratching their heads for years now, Google has finally added an official Do Not Disturb mode to Android L. For those who don’t use Do Not Disturb mode on their current phones or don’t know what it is, think about where you put your phone at night when you’re sleeping. Usually most people charge their phones somewhere in their proximity and would rather not be woken up by some spam email in the middle of the night. Do Not Disturb mode lets you set a time when your phone doesn’t let you know about notifications coming in, and generally lets you specify that phone calls are still OK during that time period since a phone call at 3AM is probably a much more urgent matter. This feature has been built into CyanogenMod since 2010, and on many Samsung, LG, HTC and other manufacturer’s phones for a couple of years as well. Oddly enough Google never built this into the base operating system until now with the upcoming Android L.
What’s different about Google’s new Do Not Disturb mode versus other ones available out there? For one it seems to be a little more robust than the DND mode that LG packs with their phones, and maybe a little better explained than the oddly named Blocking Mode on Samsung devices. The interface is simple and can actually be reached from a number of places. First when adjusting the volume with the volume rocker the new pop-up volume panel features a Do Not Disturb mode right under the volume sliders, and even features a quick setting for one or more hours at a time instead of a set time each day. This is obviously ultra convenient and brings it right to the users attention as soon as they adjust the volume for the very first time. It’s little touches like these that are proving Android L to be the best, easiest and most user friendly version of Android yet.
You can also reach the settings for Do Not Disturb in the notification quick tile pulldown by clicking the notifications button (see above picture), as well as navigating to system settings, sound and then to Do Not Disturb. This last way will give you the most options, bringing up an entire dialog screen that will let you turn off messages, calls and other notifications, and only allowing these things from a set group of people if you so desire. There’s also the scheduled automatic mode here that will turn itself on whenever you choose each day, only on weekends or never. It’s about time that Google built this into Android, and it seems like they did a fantastic job of designing it too!
