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iPhone apps harvest data when they send you notifications, researchers find

gizmodo.com

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Re: iPhone apps harvest data when they send you notifications, researchers find

#11

Post by ubermonkey »

drewg123 wrote: post #7

How much information do app devs get when customers disable app notifications from their app entirely? Some apps (especially food delivery.. doordash, i'm looking at you) have such spammy notifications, I tend to disable notifications from the app entirely unless I'm actively using it (eg, an order is pending).

I don't even allow DoorDash to send notifications. They're so spammy and abusive with it that I turned them off, and just keep an eye on the app when an order pending. It's less net annoyance to me.

I allow very few notifications on my phone, and nearly all the exceptions are iOS built-ins like Mail (which I still heavily restrict). Honestly, I think the only non-Apple exceptions are my VOIP softphone and Teams.

Re: iPhone apps harvest data when they send you notifications, researchers find

#12

Post by ubermonkey »

function_seven wrote: post #10
drewg123 wrote: post #7

How much information do app devs get when customers disable app notifications from their app entirely? Some apps (especially food delivery.. doordash, i'm looking at you) have such spammy notifications, I tend to disable notifications from the app entirely unless I'm actively using it (eg, an order is pending).

My feature request for iOS: Allow me to disable notifications from an app unless I have opened it within the last X hours. I’d set it to a couple hours. My food apps could then tell me the order is ready, but can’t spam me with “Special Offers For You” days later. Maybe I can do this with an automation?

I'd LOVE this.

I also want something else that I wonder if I could dummy up myself. I want to change certain phone behaviors based on whether or not a given Bluetooth device is connected.

My use case is "when I'm on my motorcycle, connected to headset audio, I want (a) the phone to read me texts and (b) to turn on navigation audio." I do not want either of these things UNLESS I'm on the motorcycle with the Cardo turned on.

Re: iPhone apps harvest data when they send you notifications, researchers find

#14

Post by delecti »

drewg123 wrote: post #7

How much information do app devs get when customers disable app notifications from their app entirely? Some apps (especially food delivery.. doordash, i'm looking at you) have such spammy notifications, I tend to disable notifications from the app entirely unless I'm actively using it (eg, an order is pending).

Does iOS not have anything akin to the concept of Android's notification channels? Using Doordash as the example, at the OS level I can independently disable "General" notifications, which cuts out all the advertising spam, Delivery Status, and Payment Status. Long-pressing on an offending notification displays a button that takes you directly to the channel which that notification went through, potentially so you can disable it.

With how much Android and iOS have copied from each other, that seems like fertile ground to improve the experience.

Re: iPhone apps harvest data when they send you notifications, researchers find

#16

Post by piva00 »

function_seven wrote: post #10
drewg123 wrote: post #7

How much information do app devs get when customers disable app notifications from their app entirely? Some apps (especially food delivery.. doordash, i'm looking at you) have such spammy notifications, I tend to disable notifications from the app entirely unless I'm actively using it (eg, an order is pending).

My feature request for iOS: Allow me to disable notifications from an app unless I have opened it within the last X hours. I’d set it to a couple hours. My food apps could then tell me the order is ready, but can’t spam me with “Special Offers For You” days later. Maybe I can do this with an automation?

Seconding that I'd love this. At the same time, has App Store's guidelines/rules changed to allow spammy ads notifications? It used to be 100% disallowed and I worked for a company that got an app denied because of it until changed, nowadays it seems to just be completely common. I fucking hate it.

Re: iPhone apps harvest data when they send you notifications, researchers find

#17

Post by plagiarist »

jbverschoor wrote: post #15

Back in '12 we wanted to know if people uninstalled an app, so we sent a quiet push notification every night. At least back then it didn't turn up on the phone if the text was empty or something.

That still happens to this day, one can send both silent and alerting push.

Re: iPhone apps harvest data when they send you notifications, researchers find

#19

Post by codys »

delecti wrote: post #14
drewg123 wrote: post #7

How much information do app devs get when customers disable app notifications from their app entirely? Some apps (especially food delivery.. doordash, i'm looking at you) have such spammy notifications, I tend to disable notifications from the app entirely unless I'm actively using it (eg, an order is pending).

Does iOS not have anything akin to the concept of Android's notification channels? Using Doordash as the example, at the OS level I can independently disable "General" notifications, which cuts out all the advertising spam, Delivery Status, and Payment Status. Long-pressing on an offending notification displays a button that takes you directly to the channel which that notification went through, potentially so you ca…

iOS has limited extra settings for notifications that are "time sensitive" and "direct messages", mostly to allow excluding them from notifications summaries and sending them immediately. It doesn't have the same rich/extensive notifications channel support android has.

In practice, apps also abuse the channels and tag things as (at least) direct messages when they are not.

Android is much better in notification config flexibility vs iOS.

Re: iPhone apps harvest data when they send you notifications, researchers find

#20

Post by yreg »

piva00 wrote: post #16
function_seven wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My feature request for iOS: Allow me to disable notifications from an app unless I have opened it within the last X hours. I’d set it to a couple hours. My food apps could then tell me the order is ready, but can’t spam me with “Special Offers For You” days later. Maybe I can do this with an automation?

Seconding that I'd love this. At the same time, has App Store's guidelines/rules changed to allow spammy ads notifications? It used to be 100% disallowed and I worked for a company that got an app denied because of it until changed, nowadays it seems to just be completely common. I fucking hate it.

Yeah, Apple should properly write/enforce App Store rules on this. Make marketing notification a separate permission if necessary and be strict about it.

After all, topics like this are why we succumb to their curation and App Store monopoly instead of using more open devices.

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