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What Apple and Google are doing to push notifications

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Re: What Apple and Google are doing to push notifications

#361

Post by scope2093 »

amelius wrote: post #350
lanerobertlane wrote: post #24

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…

> Apps allowed to receive push notifications > Phone, Messages, Whatsapp, Apple Health, [brand] bank. Anyone else annoyed by the fact that you can set up do-no-disturb, with exceptions for certain phone numbers, but it doesn't work for apps like WhatsApp?

I remember a while back I also had this issue on iOS (maybe around 2022 or so), though lately seems to be solved and works as one can hope so. When you're making the exceptions, do you explicitly input phone numbers or some other method? I selected contacts from my contacts list and it does the job. This is for iOS in my case. I'm not familiar with Android, so cannot give any input there..

Re: What Apple and Google are doing to push notifications

#362

Post by amelius »

scope2093 wrote: post #361
amelius wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apps allowed to receive push notifications > Phone, Messages, Whatsapp, Apple Health, [brand] bank. Anyone else annoyed by the fact that you can set up do-no-disturb, with exceptions for certain phone numbers, but it doesn't work for apps like WhatsApp?

I remember a while back I also had this issue on iOS (maybe around 2022 or so), though lately seems to be solved and works as one can hope so. When you're making the exceptions, do you explicitly input phone numbers or some other method? I selected contacts from my contacts list and it does the job. This is for iOS in my case. I'm not familiar with Android, so cannot give any input there..

On Android I can "star" certain contacts.

Re: What Apple and Google are doing to push notifications

#363

Post by post-it »

reaperducer wrote: post #326
abhinavk wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On iOS atleast, Live Activities are separate from Notifications. So I can still monitor food or grocery delivery even though I have turned off their notifications. Now a few apps have started sending notifications through WhatsApp because they have my phone number. e.g. Amazon

On iOS atleast, Live Activities are separate from Notifications. Should be, but not always. There are plenty of apps that still mix marketing and functional notification. Hell, even Apple does this, especially on new devices. [Settings]: Log in to your iCloud account to sync data. Three minutes later… [Settings]: You qualify for three free months of Apple Music!

Tbf both of those are promotional. If I'm not logged into iCloud, it's for a reason.

Re: What Apple and Google are doing to push notifications

#364

Post by noirscape »

1718627440 wrote: post #283
0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Apps can know whether you granted permission?? That sounds like a security flaw.

They can, but there's an OS option that basically is "I'm going to say yes, but then effectively do no". Basically it'll pretend to the application that a permission is granted, but then just keep returning empty information or doing nothing with it. So notification perms would then be seen as enabled, but nothing is actually being send to the user.

Unfortunately Google isn't really exposing this to users, so you need something like App Ops or adb to set it up.

Re: What Apple and Google are doing to push notifications

#365

Post by wavemode »

alexlesuper wrote: post #335
leonidasv wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When they exist at all. Many apps that provide important notifications (like delivery tracking, drop-off time etc) put them under the same category as marketing stuff. You can't have just the transactional tracking, you have to opt-in for the marketing notifications as well.

The ridesharing apps are the most annoying about this. Yes I want to be notified when my uber driver is almost here to pick me up. No, I don't want a notification about yet another sale.

It baffles me that they do this. I have to disable push notifications from Lyft entirely, so instead they send me ride updates as text messages, which surely must cost them way more money. Why not just introduce a "ride updates only" push notification category and stop this madness?

Re: What Apple and Google are doing to push notifications

#366

Post by aftbit »

MarleTangible wrote: post #353
derefr wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're conflating "push notifications" with "being alerted about push notifications." I have many "important but not urgent" apps on my phone configured to just silently add their push notifications into iOS's notification center. With an app configured to do notifications like this, no banner shows up at the time the app's notifications are delivered; and these notifications don't even show up visibly on the lock sc…

Just curious, what do you do with the increasing number of companies that use push notifications as a form of advertising venue, and how do you differentiate the security warning notification from your camera app from their special weekly annual sale notification? The marginal cost of each notification is so low that companies simply spam users nonstop, and their A/B tests shows that the revenue is increasing. What's…

On my Android, I aggressively mute or uninstall any apps that send push advertisements. I haven't seen one in more than 6 months now. If they think they need to advertise to me, I think I need to do without them.

Re: What Apple and Google are doing to push notifications

#367

Post by Swizec »

bossyTeacher wrote: post #312
Swizec wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The point of notifications is the convenience of not having to constantly check your phone for every single app you have (amazon delivery? just eats delivery? uber booking? claude finished its task?). My phone has been on DoNoDisturb since 2010 or so. Here's the reality: I don't check for any of those things. Delivery drivers can ring the door bell. If I'm very hungry I'll keep the app open and check where they are…

I guess you probably have no dependents and never been oncall then if you are on no disturb. For many people, having to poll the state of multiple ongoing tasks is time consuming itself or/and focus breaking enough that some apps are deserving of having notifications. Manually polling multiple items as you go around your day is stealing valuable mental bandwidth that could be used in better things.

Oh I’m on essentially permanent 2nd tier oncall and occasionally 1st tier. Pagerduty has an exception configured. If you message me on slack it shows up on my home screen and I will probably notice in the next 15 minutes or so.

I find polling less disruptive because my phone or watch are almost always nearby. Being in control of when to get interrupted feels better than having stuff constantly pop up while you’re doing something.

Just holding my partner’s phone spikes my cortizol. You try to type 2 sentences and get 5 notifications for random other apps and messages popping up on screen in the meantime. Literally one notification every 10 seconds on average. It’s horrible

Re: What Apple and Google are doing to push notifications

#368

Post by wazoox »

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #131
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #99

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.

AFAICT any TOTP app (FreeOTP+, Aegis...) works just fine with Microsoft services (or Google, etc). You don't actually need to install several TOTP apps.

Re: What Apple and Google are doing to push notifications

#369

Post by burnte »

lanerobertlane wrote: post #24

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 totally agree. Right now the apps that can notify me are phone, text, email, what's app, and a few bank apps. You are 100% right about turning it off on everything else.

I also stopped doing store loyalty cards about 7 years ago and it's been fantastic. I actually get a lot less junk mail and spam/"legit" marketing emails. I don't have a gob of cards to sort through.

Corporations should not speak unless spoken to.

Re: What Apple and Google are doing to push notifications

#370

Post by 0cf8612b2e1e »

wazoox wrote: post #368
0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

AFAICT any TOTP app (FreeOTP+, Aegis...) works just fine with Microsoft services (or Google, etc). You don't actually need to install several TOTP apps.

Microsoft Authenticator is not standard TOTP, but their own private flavor.
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