Browsing the Web on your smartphone these days can feel like a gauntlet: accept this cookie consent, close this newsletter promo, avoid this app install banner. This morass of attention-seeking actions makes it hard to focus on content. Enter Apple's Distraction Control feature.
There's more than 7 billion active smartphones on the planet. This is the Web they are getting.
I won't get into how the Web became a minefield of pop-ups, banners, overlays, modals, and other forms of annoyance. For that you can take a look at my Mind the Gap presentation which goes into depth on why and what designers can do about it. But it's pretty clear the average mobile Web experience sucks.
And when things suck, people usually decide to do something about it. In this case, with iOS 18, Apple is giving average folks a chance to fight back with Distraction Control. When turned on, this new feature allows anyone to remove distracting elements on Web pages complete with a satisfying animation.
Newsletter pop-up? Boom, gone. Mobile app banner? Boom. Interstitial ad? Boom. Is it perfect? No. Elements might come back after you remove them if the page is reloaded. Accessing the control takes a few taps. But it's a way for people to fight back against Web clutter and we need more.