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Nobody Knows That I Use These Apps

jakelevine.me

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Re: Nobody Knows That I Use These Apps

#41

Post by hadem »

"Imagine an entire suite of apps with which you interact without ever opening. Imagine if app developers could send more data (images, videos) through push notifications, or even receive simple responses (“Yes” / “No”) from users without requiring users to launch the application itself."

Then what is the point of having apps? Isn't this just cramming a lot of extra bits into the notifications? I think if all apps did more and more in the notifications, people would start to say it was cluttered or difficult to use/read.

The great thing about notifications for me is they are quick and simple. If I want to do more, the application is a click away. I don't need a faux app inside the notifications panel.

Re: Nobody Knows That I Use These Apps

#42

Post by rubyrescue »

benjamincburns wrote: post #39
ikhare wrote: post #35

Seems like the author has only worked with iOS. On Android push notifications are done through GCM (Google Cloud Messaging), when it's sent your application gets a callback (Intent). So it is up to the application to decide what to do with it, whether it is to show a notification or do something else entirely. So on Android you have a pretty good idea that the the user is actually getting a notification. Jelly Bean a…

> On iOS when a remote push notification is received it there is not indication sent to the application at all. I'm not well versed in push notifications, but I thought this was part of the value that a company like Urban Airship would provide?

no it's a limitation of iOS - which you could argue is by design. the app is just not notified, no matter if it's urban airship or your_custom_app

Re: Nobody Knows That I Use These Apps

#43

Post by sumukh1 »

benjamincburns wrote: post #39
ikhare wrote: post #35

Seems like the author has only worked with iOS. On Android push notifications are done through GCM (Google Cloud Messaging), when it's sent your application gets a callback (Intent). So it is up to the application to decide what to do with it, whether it is to show a notification or do something else entirely. So on Android you have a pretty good idea that the the user is actually getting a notification. Jelly Bean a…

> On iOS when a remote push notification is received it there is not indication sent to the application at all. I'm not well versed in push notifications, but I thought this was part of the value that a company like Urban Airship would provide?

Regardless, the application has to be opened to get information about click through/context.

The push notification can have a payload that your app uses when the app is opened via the notification.

Re: Nobody Knows That I Use These Apps

#44

Post by zbruhnke »

I totally disagree here. I think most people know how to turn off their push notifications and its way easier than unsubscribing from an email newsletter, how many notifications pushed out and how many active users in my opinion would be a direct correlation.

Re: Nobody Knows That I Use These Apps

#45

Post by wuest »

freehunter wrote: post #4

I love this about Windows Phone's Live Tiles. I never open my weather app. I hardly ever open the Facebook app. I hardly ever open my stock market app. I just check their Live Tile, and at a glance it tells me exactly what I need to know. It's the biggest thing I miss, by far, when I'm using my Android phone. The information density of Android and iOS doesn't even come close, even with a proper notification center. I…

Is this a limitation of Widgets, or of the status of Widget development, though? It seems to me that there's a LOT of untapped potential when it comes to widgets.

Re: Nobody Knows That I Use These Apps

#46

Post by rwhitman »

Hmm so you can't track how many people turn off the notifications? I would assume the metric would be based on how many people leave them on without getting annoyed and switch them off. The lower your notification disable rate is, the more successful you are right?

Re: Nobody Knows That I Use These Apps

#47

Post by yareally »

fyi80 wrote: post #38
taude wrote: post #13

Isn't the value from the number of installs of a app or the number of times someone paid for the app? Unless they started using notifications to send me ads....which with 100% certainty cause me to uninstall the app (if such a practice is even allowed).

Spamming ads to the notification bar is a popular technique on Android. Zynga loves to do it, as do others.

Short of blocking them with a host file addition after finding the adhost, one can block notifications for individual apps via the app info (hold press on notification and select app info).

Must be on Android 4.1+ I believe though. I dont think ICS had it. There's also a bug in blocking notifications for 4.1 that inadvertently blocked Toast messages within apps as well, but it was fixed on 4.2. Just something to be aware of if you go blocking them and a developer was not aware enough to avoid putting important info in Toasts.

Re: Nobody Knows That I Use These Apps

#48

Post by error54 »

freehunter wrote: post #32
error54 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the Google Now widget does quite a good job. It tells me the weather, if I have a package being delivered, sports scores, and quite a few other things. Granted, I've used Live Tiles and did find them pretty useful and I like the flat UI so I think my ideal experience would be a combination of both Now with Live Tiles.

If I could get all my apps to work with Google Now, I would love it. However, Facebook, for one, does not update Google Now. Is there a public API so apps can push data to Now?

Not yet but I believe it's in the pipes over at Google.

Re: Nobody Knows That I Use These Apps

#49

Post by Groxx »

benjamincburns wrote: post #39
ikhare wrote: post #35

Seems like the author has only worked with iOS. On Android push notifications are done through GCM (Google Cloud Messaging), when it's sent your application gets a callback (Intent). So it is up to the application to decide what to do with it, whether it is to show a notification or do something else entirely. So on Android you have a pretty good idea that the the user is actually getting a notification. Jelly Bean a…

> On iOS when a remote push notification is received it there is not indication sent to the application at all. I'm not well versed in push notifications, but I thought this was part of the value that a company like Urban Airship would provide?

Only if you use their inbox-like thing, which will still not tell you deliverable rate, it just ensures the recipient can see a list of all attempts.

The actual push notification itself is entirely untrackable unless the recipient actually taps on it, or it is received while your app is running. IIRC you can read out the application's badge number, but that only shows you what the most-recently-received notification was (if it set a badge value), it implies nothing about any intermediate ones. There is no way to list the notifications, nor count them. You can do this with local ones you generated yourself, but not ones pushed to the device.

While someone is actively in your app, you do get a method called that gives you the notification as it arrives - which is handy, because the system entirely mutes it (doesn't go into the notification center, doesn't appear at the top of the screen). You can do that to do a negative tracking system ("they didn't receive this, don't count it in the stats"), or to show it yourself.

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