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I only care about the helpful notifications, not the promotional ones

alexanderell.is

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Re: I only care about the helpful notifications, not the promotional ones

#271

Post by scarface74 »

stormbrew wrote: post #41
dguo wrote: post #23

My rule is: if I get a single notification that I find useless, I'll immediately disable that notification channel (I'm on Android; I'm not sure if iOS has a concept of channel-specific settings) for that app. Even if the channel can include useful notifications, as the article discusses. If the app doesn't bother to categorize its notifications into channels at all, I turn off its notifications entirely, and I won't…

> I'm on Android; I'm not sure if iOS has a concept of channel-specific settings Sadly iOS doesn't really have this in the same way :(

iOS has “Time Sensitive Notifications” that can be enabled separately for Uber in settings while other notifications are turned off. I’ll see if it works.

Re: I only care about the helpful notifications, not the promotional ones

#272

Post by NullPrefix »

twic wrote: post #237
pronik wrote: post #220

I have a somewhat similar gripe about apps, which has some recent implications: there seems to be some school of thought for engagement, which suggests that something that's not used at least weekly is useless. For this reason Google started automatically removing permissions from apps I didn't use for some time and it's also suggested I could delete them "to save space" which is frankly quite stupid -- I have quite…

Sadly, features aren't added to Android because they're good for users, they're added because they'll look good in someone's promotion packet.

Well whoever came up with this crap needs to be demoted

Re: I only care about the helpful notifications, not the promotional ones

#273

Post by prepend »

There’s asshole companies and cool companies. Asshole companies send marketing notifications when people sign up for useful notifications. Companies on the edge default to on but at least let you turn off notifications.

Asshole companies can still be useful. I use UberEats but have their notifications turned off.

I’ll also add that I’m amazed that after using an iPhone for 15 years, I’ve never gotten a spam push from Apple. And their temptation must be great.

Re: I only care about the helpful notifications, not the promotional ones

#274

Post by gruez »

scarface74 wrote: post #270
gruez wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That turns it off for the whole app, not only marketing stuff.

Settings -> notifications -> Uber. Turn off Lock Screen, Notifications, Banners. Leave on “Time Sensitive Notifications”

That setting doesn't do what you think it does. As per the tooltip[1], all that does is cause notifications from uber to be delivered regardless of focus settings (eg. if you have work focus on and uber sends you a notification it will show up immediately rather than being hidden/delayed). You'll still get other notifications if you don't have focus on.

[1] random image result: https://static1.makeuseofimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/upl...?

Re: I only care about the helpful notifications, not the promotional ones

#275

Post by scarface74 »

gruez wrote: post #274
scarface74 wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Settings -> notifications -> Uber. Turn off Lock Screen, Notifications, Banners. Leave on “Time Sensitive Notifications”

That setting doesn't do what you think it does. As per the tooltip[1], all that does is cause notifications from uber to be delivered regardless of focus settings (eg. if you have work focus on and uber sends you a notification it will show up immediately rather than being hidden/delayed). You'll still get other notifications if you don't have focus on. [1] random image result: https://static1.makeuseofimages.com/wor…

I remember at WWDC that Apple added a method for developers to classify types of notifications

https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline...

I would think that if you disable the three notifications at the bottom and enable “time sensitive notifications”, if Uber is a well behaved app, it should only notify you for things that are time sensitive. I won’t know for sure for awhile.

https://www.plotprojects.com/blog/ios-15-push-notifications-...

> Apple has provided developers with the freedom to categorize the outgoing notifications from their apps, with guidance from a new notification classification scale. Developers can decide on the appropriate interruption level for their app notifications, however Apple has warned that users can completely turn off app notifications if they feel a high level of urgency is being used unnecessarily.

Re: I only care about the helpful notifications, not the promotional ones

#276

Post by dredmorbius »

fmajid wrote: post #190
dredmorbius wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll hack site CSS to disable any nags. uBlock Origin's element remover is excellent for this, though I often go directly into CSS using Stylus, a CSS management extension for Firefox and other browsers. I also don't use any mainstream social media apps. Mastodon and Diaspora* limit notifications to other users' actions only.

Well, I have my browser (Vivaldi) set to automatically block desktop notification requests without even asking (the default is to ask) but as you point out many sites will also show an obnoxious banner and yes, uBlock is a good solution to that. I'm surprised EasyList lets so many of these through, so I built my own (very few rules for now): https://majid.info/adblock.txt

Right.

All desktop notifications are blocked.

Sites will still throw up their own notification icons --- for many that's a dark-patterns false icon (e.g., appears w/o any account). That and a whole host of other annoyances: chumboxes, overlays, interstitials, fixed headers /footers, social link-litter, "engagement" stats, newsletters & other registrations, nags, cookie banners, etc., etc.

The set of CSS hacks I'd created for Buzzfeed a few years back was pretty remarkable. Stripped of its cruft, the site was ... moderately tolerable. (It was, of course, still Buzzfeed...) I called it "unBuzzed".

Re: I only care about the helpful notifications, not the promotional ones

#277

Post by dredmorbius »

izacus wrote: post #122
dguo wrote: post #23

My rule is: if I get a single notification that I find useless, I'll immediately disable that notification channel (I'm on Android; I'm not sure if iOS has a concept of channel-specific settings) for that app. Even if the channel can include useful notifications, as the article discusses. If the app doesn't bother to categorize its notifications into channels at all, I turn off its notifications entirely, and I won't…

> My rule is: if I get a single notification that I find useless, I'll immediately disable that notification channel (I'm on Android; I'm not sure if iOS has a concept of channel-specific settings) for that app. Even if the channel can include useful notifications, as the article discusses. Well, the developers have started fighting against that by not splitting notifications into channels anymore. Now you just get "…

That's a good enough reason to nuke the app for me.

Re: I only care about the helpful notifications, not the promotional ones

#278

Post by dismalpedigree »

izacus wrote: post #122
dguo wrote: post #23

My rule is: if I get a single notification that I find useless, I'll immediately disable that notification channel (I'm on Android; I'm not sure if iOS has a concept of channel-specific settings) for that app. Even if the channel can include useful notifications, as the article discusses. If the app doesn't bother to categorize its notifications into channels at all, I turn off its notifications entirely, and I won't…

> My rule is: if I get a single notification that I find useless, I'll immediately disable that notification channel (I'm on Android; I'm not sure if iOS has a concept of channel-specific settings) for that app. Even if the channel can include useful notifications, as the article discusses. Well, the developers have started fighting against that by not splitting notifications into channels anymore. Now you just get "…

I doubt it is a decision a developer arrived at. More likely some arm twisting by a short sighted and kpi driven product manager.

Re: I only care about the helpful notifications, not the promotional ones

#279

Post by sadamhus »

faeriechangling wrote: post #225
xahrepap wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I follow the same rule. But I will also then go one star review it. I will also one-star review any app that prompts me to review it by first asking me if I like it (sneaky sneaky!)

Lol I do this too. If I see an "are you enjoying our app" banner I will immediately click yes, follow the link to the store, and then immediately 1 star. Even if I enjoy the app and use it daily. Companies that attempt to filter out negative feedback can pound sand.

Why? If you like it, why not give it a good rating and review if you’re going to take the time. For ratings apps can only present them officially like once or twice a year on apps. So once you rate it, then nothing should bug you again. What’s wrong with companies attempting to get positive feedback from those who like the app. The people who don’t like it, or when there’s one little thing wrong, go out of their way to one start it anyway (like if they have popups that ask you if you like the app even though it addresses the problem you have and that’s why you downloaded it). And if it is free, well, then going out of your way to one star it is a real bummer for that dev trying to make something of value for free and grow via star ratings and having you detract from that. (Unless they are free and collecting and selling all your data - at that point, and if they did this in a shady way although that’s hard to do because of disclosures - I could see giving a low rating review.) just seems overly critical in my opinion but maybe efforts like yours will change dev behavior overall.

Re: I only care about the helpful notifications, not the promotional ones

#280

Post by ghostpepper »

dgellow wrote: post #64
grose wrote: post #6

I've noticed this in social networks as well. If you don't get enough transactional notifications for a while they start making up fake ones like Twitter's "in case you missed this Tweet", Facebook's "[someone] posted for the first time in a while", all the while lighting up the notifications badge. Leads to a "boy who cried wolf" scenario in which I stop trusting notifications entirely and just ignore them, possibly…

Linkedin is just the worst company ever doing stuff like that, I try to disable all their notifications and almost never engage with anything there (and I check the platform maybe 3-4 times a year max), and they continue to try to tell me some people more or less in my network are doing things I never cared about. God I hate this company.

The weirdest one is the security notification I get in my email whenever I login. I get an email saying Please verify your device - click this link to continue signing in - but I'm already signed in. I've never clicked the link and sign in works correctly anyway.
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