Apple Introduces ‘Do Not Disturb While Driving’ Feature To Prevent Driver Distraction

Apple has used its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) event in California overnight to announce a new driving-related safety feature aimed at reducing driver distraction.

Called ‘Do Not Disturb While Driving’ the function does exactly as it suggests, and activates the existing Do Not Disturb function to prevent phone calls, text messages and other notifications from causing a potential driver distraction.

The feature works via the phone’s Bluetooth connectivity to set itself to Do Not Disturb mode when it detects a connection to a vehicle’s Bluetooth. Even in situations where Bluetooth isn’t active the phone will monitor its surroundings and if it detects it might be in a car will wait until the end of the drive to suggest enabling the Do Not Disturb While Driving function.

The new feature forms part of Apple’s iOS 11 software update for mobile devices, which will ship with the next-generation iPhone from September this year and be available to existing iPhone owners via download around the same time. Pre-release ‘beta’ versions of the software are immediately available to the developer community.

Safety