Notification Center was first introduced with iOS 5. In its infancy, it was intended mostly as a central location to view notifications from your apps. The debut of iOS 7 sees Notification Center becoming so much more. Let’s take a look…
The Notification Center can be viewed from almost any screen, including the lock screen. You can however, disable that option in Settings -> Notification Center.
To view Notification Center, simply pull down from the top center of your iOS device’s screen, and it will slide into view. The Notification pane contains three tabs: Today, All, and Missed, as seen in the screenshots above. You can move between the three tabs by either tapping the header of the tab, or by swiping horizontally between the three available sections.
You’ll find the Today tab (first tab on the left), to be quite customizable. You can set what details show in this tab in the Notification Centers settings. Optionally, you can control if this tab will display the calendar view, reminders, stocks, weather, and the tomorrow preview, among other info.
The All tab, (the middle tab), acts most like the Notification Center did in previous versions. It displays all your app notifications grouped according to app. Changes you might notice is that the ability to post to Twitter and Facebook is missing, and also the stock and weather info doesn’t appear here, it’s in the “Today” tab.
The final tab, “Missed,” collects every notification you don’t see and act on, and displays them sorted in reverse chronological order. The older notifications fall off the bottom of the screen after 24 hours. Basically think of the Missed tab as a backup of sorts for your lock screen alerts.
Notification Center is much improved in iOS 7, and should help you keep a little better handle on your day. I’ve found that it’s quite handy to have most of the information you need to access during the day available without having to unlock my iPhone and access it directly from an app.
Still exploring iOS 7 on your device, or you haven’t yet installed it and want to learn more about it? Make sure to check out our full iOS 7 coverage roundup for all the details regarding iOS 7, and all of our iOS 7 launch coverage for today and the near future!
