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What Apple and Google are doing to push notifications

jacquescorbytuech.com

141–150 of 428 posts

Re: What Apple and Google are doing to push notifications

#141

If my phone interrupts me, it should either mean someone genuinely needs my attention right now or it should not be disrupting me at all. That's my notification set up. Apps allowed to receive push notifications Phone, Messages, Whatsapp, Apple Health, [brand] bank. That concludes the list. There is no reason any other app needs to be able to instantly ping me. Most apps are not notifying you because something matter…

I have it turned off for my bank. For some reason Bank of America doesn't allow me to sign in with Face ID. I always need to get a text. Only reason I keep them is because I like a brick and mortar bank nearby.

Re: What Apple and Google are doing to push notifications

#142
post #111

Android is better because they allow you to change individual notifications right from the notifications themselves + granularly do it there also. On iOS I have to find the right setting page and then all notifications are either on or off. Doesn’t make sense.

This only works if the app properly tags notification categories, no?

It also shows what category the notification was tagged with. An app that improperly tags notification categories gets one of two results from me:

1. Uninstall the app

2. If the app is non-optional for some reason, block all notifications.

Re: What Apple and Google are doing to push notifications

#143
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

periodically open the app every few minutes or so. once the driver is 5 minutes away -- go outside and wait. it's a tradeoff. eliminating notification spam means behaving more synchronously when booking a taxi. i don't mind waiting outside for five minutes. especially if i'm not getting a random ping when i'm definitely not booking a taxi :shrugs:

I prefer temporarily toggling notifications on because I really don’t trust my internal metronome.

You could set a short timer on your phone. On an iphone, its two clicks away.

Re: What Apple and Google are doing to push notifications

#144
post #31

If my phone interrupts me, it should either mean someone genuinely needs my attention right now or it should not be disrupting me at all. That's my notification set up. Apps allowed to receive push notifications Phone, Messages, Whatsapp, Apple Health, [brand] bank. That concludes the list. There is no reason any other app needs to be able to instantly ping me. Most apps are not notifying you because something matter…

The biggest problem are apps that do both. For example, I want Uber to notify me when my driver has arrived, but I don't want it to notify me when they have a special 10% discount on my next 5 rides. It's not straightforward to block one but not the other.

This. So much this.

Re: What Apple and Google are doing to push notifications

#145

If my phone interrupts me, it should either mean someone genuinely needs my attention right now or it should not be disrupting me at all. That's my notification set up. Apps allowed to receive push notifications Phone, Messages, Whatsapp, Apple Health, [brand] bank. That concludes the list. There is no reason any other app needs to be able to instantly ping me. Most apps are not notifying you because something matter…

[deleted]

Re: What Apple and Google are doing to push notifications

#146
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the worst part is that Apple could fix this in a heartbeat. Uber is straightforwardly in violation of App Store policies about "no advertising in push notifications", but a) they're too big to fail and b) Apple advertises via push notifications all the fucking time, so they have no leg to stand on here. It's infuriating that the one thing the App Store monopoly could be useful for isn't even actually used in prac…

Instagram is the worst offender, I only want to receive message notifications, but I got notifications about inane random stuff I've tried to disable but it won't work. I ended up having to disable notifications altogether.

Instagram drove me so insane with that that I spent a while searching through the app to figure out how to disable it. There's a way to do it, and for a while it worked; I only got notifications about things like direct messages and posts from a few people I specifically told it to send notifications for, but I never got the "recommended" posts.

Then I got a replacement iPhone and reinstalled Instagram.app, and it defaulted to "show you notifications for everything we think you might be interested in" again, and I was too lazy to spend all that time relearning how to disable those notifications. I disabled the notifications entirely and now I open the app once a week or so to check in.

I had to do the same thing with Facebook years ago. Now I open it once a month to see who from high school got married in the last month and click the little "heart" icon and scroll until I get bored (~2 minutes). Can't trust Zuck with notifications.

Re: What Apple and Google are doing to push notifications

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I order an Uber, I already know it is coming. I was the person who ordered it. This is how taxis worked for decades before smartphones existed. You phoned for a taxi, then remained vaguely aware that it would arrive shortly. The question is whether a single “it has arrived” notification is worth the surrounding noise: “driver accepted”, “driver is nearby”, “rate your driver”, “here’s 10% off your next ride”, and s…

Android has different types of notifications for apps and can have them filtered separately. Unfortunately, some app makers like Uber are bad about labeling. Google would need to enforce labeling so transactional and advertising notifications are separate.

“Bad about labeling” is pretending that might be an accident. Uber has repeatedly demonstrated they will do all the dark patterns.

Re: What Apple and Google are doing to push notifications

#148

I feel like this article reads like the author is upset that Apple + Google prevent / control certain types of notifications (read: spam) > Cross-sell, upsell, education and discovery can work on push Push notifications should only be for transactional notifications. I don't want another inbox for junk.

The "you" in the title's reference to "your push notifications" is not the user, it is the marketer. That tells you everything you need to know about the value of this piece.

Re: What Apple and Google are doing to push notifications

#149
post #104

I’m constantly amazed how passive people are with things that steal their attention My phone is in do not disturb mode 24/7. If your app notifies me about something pointless, it gets deleted and I start using your website instead I have a mail rule that moves any email with the word “unsubscribe” out of the inbox into its own tagged area. Every few days, I go in and unsubscribe to everything that’s arrived. Whenever…

That unsubscribe rule is genius. (Obvious in hindsight, as the best things are.) Thanks for that.

if you're in Gmail this filter works really well for me:

("list-unsubscribe" OR "unsubscribe" OR "list-id")

Re: What Apple and Google are doing to push notifications

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this entire article is pretty transparent that it's from the sender perspective, and worried about platforms taking over "sender control". Who is he kidding? The vast majority of apps have absolutely proven they can't be trusted to respect your attention. From my perspective, the more roadblocks the platforms put between unnecessary notifications and my phone, the better. And I don't think Apple or Google are s…

I recently had to setup Microsoft Authenticator. It refused to register a code unless I enabled notifications. You are a two factor app. I should never be in a situation where there is an unexpected login I need to verify.

> I should never be in a situation where there is an unexpected login I need to verify.

Isn't that kind of the point? If someone else is trying to login somewhere with your credentials, your two factor will ping up?

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