Late last month, it was reported that Apple Intelligence won’t be rolling out with iOS 18, but it may be ready in time for iOS 18.1. There might be something else that will take its place when the new operating systems bitten fruit devices roll around, which has been found in their most recent beta. It’s called the Distraction Control, and it’s a feature for the company’s preinstalled Safari browser.
On paper, it looks to be a pretty powerful tool for the Apple browser. True to its name, Distraction Control allows you to remove distracting elements from being loaded on a web page when you view them via Safari. While it’s not intended to be used as an ad blocker, it’s more than likely power users who know what they are doing will use it as such.
To be clear, while it’s not intended to be an ad blocker, it can carry out the functions of one, and more. In addition to wiping out ads on a page, you can also use Distraction Control to remove popups asking for permissions to use cookies, as well as those asking you to subscribe. These elements are removed on a per domain basis, but if the site shuffles these blocked elements around, you’ll have to repeat the process. As a result, on-page banner ads that get refreshed every time you visit will also be impervious to this feature.
Specifically for cookies, blocking this popup makes it so the page thinks you’ve closed the popup without interacting with it otherwise. This is fine for pages that turn them off by default, but for those that don’t, it might be better to deal with it the old-fashioned way.
To access Distraction Control, you’ll have to first hit the Page Menu button on the Safari search field, hit “Hide Distracting Items”, then select bits you want removed. Worth noting that these changes are on a per-device basis, so you’ll have to repeat the process if you have more than one Apple device. Also worth reiterating that this is something that’s currently available in the fifth beta for iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia. While the feature should make it to the general release, there’s always a chance that something changes between now and then.
(Source: Engadget, MacRumors [1], [2])
