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

alexanderell.is

281–290 of 366 posts

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

#281
post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.plotpro…

Right, but if you dig deeper into the article it's clear that the difference between the notification types is whether they override various settings. As per the chart[1], the main difference is whether it breaks through various delivery settings (eg. scheduled delivery, Focus, Ring/Silent switch). There isn't some sort of setting that the user can set that tells the os "I only want time sensitive notifications from this app" (I suppose there is, if you want to have focus on 24/7 or something, but that's more of a hack than an actual feature).

[1] https://www.plotprojects.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/inte...

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

#282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean I went with "own a car and pick up food myself" instead of the whole hermitage thing, but to each their own there have always been ads when I go to the movies, and in the magazines I pay good money for. nothing about paying for a product should give you an expectation of ad free, that's a very slim niche of a business model where they pummel you with ads until you subscribe a la spotify and youtube, but its no…

I would too. But the fees for trying to get my car in checked baggage when I fly for business or vacations are insane.

I mean I went with "renting a car at my destination" instead of trying to check my own car into baggage, but to each their own.

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

#283
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 "…

One strike and you're out rule works perfectly fine for me. If they think they can abuse my attention with stuff like this, I immediately uninstall and go on with my life.

Have fun not knowing when or where your food is when you order it.

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

#284
post #52
post #2

In email land, the terms for helpful vs promotional are "transactional email" for the helpful stuff (e.g., https://mailchimp.com/help/about-transactional-email/ ) and "marketing email" for the promotional ones. There are channels to report abuse if it's bad, not to mention just leaving reviews and mentioning why.

Expedia is really bad about calling all their promotions "transactional emails". You see, once upon a time in the distant past, I used Expedia, so based on that transaction surely I care deeply about how "A more rewarding travel experience is coming in February": http://jfloren.net/content/expedia.png

Google is similar!

Google helpfully emailed me to let me know that my storage is 70% full.

...as it was when they emailed me two months ago, and four months ago, and six months ago...

Essentially, they get to pass off an email advertising Google Drive/Google One/who cares as an emergency transactional email, pretending that I'm close to running out of space. Can't block it or I'd be blocking everything from Google. I can try to filter it but they keep changing the wording. Evil and intentional.

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

#285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's my rule as well. I disable all notifications that are not an actual human that is trying to get in touch with me.

Even from your bank and credit cards?

Notifications? Yes. That leaves USPS and email.

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

#286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can turn off those notifications, just probably not in the manner you would expect: https://www.imore.com/how-to-enable-or-disable-apple-card-no... Which reminds me, I need to get with Apple Card support to find a workaround for the bug where I get notifications for my spouse’s purchases (and vice versa) despite having toggled the switch enough times to have worn a dull spot on the screen. Thankfully we are a cou…

Ah very cool, thanks! But it looks like this turns off notifications for 'Transactions'. Does that disable the next-day notification to tell you that you saved 57¢ yesterday?

No, that is in the Apple Cash card settings, similar to where it is for Apple Card. Wallet/Apple Cash/three dots/Notifications.

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

#287
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…

This is also my policy - except: Uber just sent me a notification to celebrate pride month with Uber (by booking a car??). I don’t see how to turn off these promotional notifications but I need my Uber notifications so I’m aware when my driver is outside. I’m still not sure if I should block all Uber notifications.

I just uninstall such apps until I need them. But I rarely use Uber/Lyft/etc, so it's no hassle to reinstall once or twice a year.

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

#288
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…

based on my experiences dealing with this, facebook and instagram absolutely let you fine-tune your notifications, account-wide, with a surprising degree of control. Twitter didn't last time I checked. No other social media I use consistently has the problem

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

#289
post #122
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 "…

If Apple or Google really cared about their users, this is the kind of thing they'd ban, not third-party payment processors.

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

#290
It once again comes down to the fact that we are the product, not the customer. In this article, Devin Booker is the customer.

Also, after reading many comments with suggestions and hacks to work around this (which I also do, btw), I think we may be missing the point, our time is valuable, and if we've all just spent half a day figuring out how to get the proper applications from a single app on our phone, we've already paid the price - and it's not right.

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