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TechRadar
James Rogerson

iOS 26.2 has added a handy feature to make notifications more noticeable

Apple iPhone 17 Review.
  • iOS 26.2 includes a new feature that alerts you to notifications
  • With this enabled, your phone's screen will flash at full brightness when a notification arrives
  • This is one of many new features introduced in iOS 26.2

Between sounds and vibrations, your iPhone’s notifications may already seem noticeable enough most of the time, but iOS 26.2 introduces yet another way to alert you to a new message or pop-up.

Among many other updates and improvements, iOS 26.2 has added the ability to flash the screen when a notification comes in. To enable this, head to Settings > Accessibility > Audio & Visual, then enable the ‘Flash for Alerts’ toggle (see the image below, shared by 9to5Mac).

With the feature enabled, you can choose whether the screen should flash for alerts, the LED camera should flash on the back, or both elements should flash.

(Image credit: 9to5Mac)

Visual alerts for when sounds don't cut it

The ability to have the LED flash light up isn’t actually new; it’s just the screen option that is. Now, with this feature enabled, your iPhone’s display will be boosted to full brightness momentarily when a notification comes in.

This being in the accessibility section tells you that it’s primarily aimed at people who might have issues with other forms of notifications – for example, those who are hard of hearing. But it could be beneficial for other people too, especially if you’re often in noisy environments where you’re unlikely to hear a notification, and aren’t wearing an Apple Watch, which would instead vibrate on your wrist.

This new feature is joined by many others, with iOS 26.2 also letting you add alarms to reminders, use tables in the Freeform app, share over AirDrop in a new way, and more. So, whether you care about this screen flash feature or not, iOS 26.2 is well worth downloading.

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