Which Alerts Should Qualify for Time‑Sensitive Interruption Level in Our iOS Objective‑C App?

Our goal is to decide which categories of local notifications deserve the UNNotificationInterruptionLevelTimeSensitive setting so that they break through Focus modes without contributing to notification fatigue. We must balance the need for timely information against the risk of over‑using a privilege that Apple grants only after careful review, and we need to respect the user’s provisional authorization choices and the possibility that they may later revoke time‑sensitive access.

Constraints include requiring iOS 15 or later for interruption levels, ensuring the alert category has a legitimate time‑sensitive justification, and avoiding misuse that could lead to loss of the entitlement or user distrust. We also need to consider how provisional authorization interacts with time‑sensitive delivery and whether we should first test with quieter interruption levels before requesting the higher level.

What criteria should we apply to classify an alert as time‑sensitive? How can we verify that our time‑sensitive notifications respect active Focus modes without causing excessive prompts? Should we start with provisional or lower interruption levels and only promote to time‑sensitive after explicit user opt‑in?