How to Create Custom Vibration Alerts in iOS 7

Many business people, or people sensitive about their phones making noises that may disturb others, tend to leave their iPhones on silent mode much of the time. While this is great for reducing noise, it can make it difficult to tell the difference between the various types of notification buzzes generated by your iPhone.

Fortunately, there’s an easy solution to this – you can create and set up your own custom vibration patterns for any alert of system event in iOS! This enables you to know exactly what sort of notification your iPhone is trying to give you without having to even so much as remove it from your pocket!

Enabling the feature, fortunately, is very simple – although the location for this option has changed from iOS 6 to iOS 7. Rather than being hidden deep within the accessibility settings, iOS 7 now places the option directly in the Sounds option pane. Just open Settings.app, tap General, then any event you want a custom vibration for – whether it’s your ringtone, text tone, new mail alert, or just about anything else.

In the next page, scroll to the top and tap the Vibration option. Now, scroll down to the Custom setting, and click Create New Vibration. The next screen will allow you to create your own unique pattern by tapping on the screen. When you’re done, click Done, and enter a name for your custom vibration. Then, you’ll be able to select it as an option in the Vibration screen!

Haven’t upgraded to iOS 7? No worries – here’s now to enable the trick in iOS 6! It’s really a great trick – and one which has come in handy for me many, many times. I hope you enjoy it! For more helpful tips, check out our full collection of tutorials by visiting our How-To category!

J. Glenn Künzler

Glenn is Managing Editor at MacTrast, and has been using a Mac since he bought his first MacBook Pro in 2006. He lives in a small town in Utah, enjoys bacon more than you can possibly imagine, and is severely addicted to pie.