My year with a distraction-free iPhone

We are doing our small part to help.

I sometimes post about my company working on the next big "social platform". And we are trying to do things RIGHT - open source, fully distributed (while respecting CAP theorem), people own their own data, etc.

So when it comes to notifications, like in every other area we want to encourage the apps to use "best practices" and only notify people of what they really WOULD want to know about. That means turning down the "slot machine" factor and handing over control over notifications to the people. To do this, we needed to design a standard, expressive interface and "language" that people could use in any app across the platform to quickly indicate what they want.

And here's an overview of how it works withte rest of the system:

Every piece of data in Q (http://platform.qbix.com) is typically stored in a Stream. Which means things like access control (privacy), real time updates (like chat), offline notifications (delivered to any endpoints), etc. are all implemented by the system and available to the app for free.

The user can fine tune notifications settings for any stream or type of stream, and each app can provide Rules with configurable settings and thresholds. For example, a "Groups/activity" published by a user who is in my contacts under a "Friends" or "Family" label and matching my interests would accumulate enough weight to bust through my notification threshhold for sending me an in-app notification, or an email, or an sms. At certain hours of night, my notificaion threshold goes up. When I get into my car, and start moving fast, my notification threshhold goes up until I get out of the car, so only the most urgent things distract me.

And that red badge on the icon? It should earn your trust, like all interface elements it represents a relationship and shouldn't cry wolf. It should NOT show the number of messages waiting for you, but rather show the number of streams with "important" messages posted since you last checked that stream on ANY device.

In short - there are lots of things to solve but they only have to be solved once. That's what we have been working on for over 3 years.

Push is great for messages that are both timely and relevant. A lot of app-makers don't seem to get this.

'As usual' is unnecessary unless you're trying to passively aggressively say "I told you so," or imply that people should blindly accept everything that Stallman says.

Look. Coming from someone that already "drinks the kool-aid" I find those people off-putting. Do you really think that people who currently disbelieve are going to suddenly "see the light" from them? It comes across to me as a massive circle-jerk. "Look! I^HStallman was right!"

Think about it this way. What would make you consider a vegan diet/lifestyle? A person calmly having a reasoned discussion with you, presenting you with facts, and chatting about your concerns? Or the 'angry vegan' on the street corner screaming "Meat is Murder" and "Shame on you" to everyone passing by?

> However, "I told you so" is a phrase much needed these days... specially directed towards people that insist on making the same kind of mistakes that drove us to the mess we're right now.

"I told you so" is the opposite of constructive. If you feel that it is constructive, I suggest that you re-evaluate your methods for dealing with other people.

Works great, there's a Windows Phone app on the Mac App Store, even syncs with iCloud.