Hacker News Reader

Comment by eloisius | Hacker News Reader

If I could ask Apple for one thing it would be to require approval of every push notification that an app developer wants to deliver. That an app gets either cart blanche to send me notifications or nothing at all drives me crazy. I don't want to miss a notification that my delivery food arrived, but I don't want to be bombarded with daily advertising messages from foodpanda trying to get me to change my behavior. Require app developers to submit a template string (and not "\(message)") for each notification the app can deliver for approval in the App Store and let me have an on/off switch for each one.

"Notifications" across every platform drive me crazy, because they usually start out as useful, but because people tend to pay them more attention than all the other channels that have already been tuned out, companies start juicing them for engagement. I use twitter rarely, but every time I do I am perplexed why my "notifications" are full of crap about who recently tweeted. Shouldn't that just be in my timeline?

View on HN

>I don't want to miss a notification that my delivery food arrived, but I don't want to be bombarded with daily advertising messages from foodpanda trying to get me to change my behavior.

This is exactly what the Android notification channels allow you to do, and it actually works really well.

For UberEats I have the Delivery notification channel enabled, but the Marketing channel disabled. It's really the best of both worlds. And even more surprisingly it seems most apps support this, instead of putting all notifications under one channel.

I'm surprised Apple hasn't followed suit; NIH syndrome maybe?

In UberEats (and many other apps) you can configure which push notifications you get. Is that functionally different than channels for the purposes of turning off marketing notifications? Both seem to rely on the App developer allowing you to turn off the notifications you don't want.

The problem I have are the apps which don't allow that, which presumably also wouldn't allow to separate them into channels for the same reason they don't let you turn them off.

A difference is that there's a unified UI for disabling channels, and app developers don't have to do anything except annotate each notification with the channel it belongs to and list the channels somewhere in their manifest (IIRC). If you get a notification you don't like, you long long-press it and a menu appears showing you the different notification channels and prompting you to enable or disable them.

I haven't used Android in a while. What stops a developer from not categorizing notifications and effectively saying "oh they're all General notifications, ha ha ha, you can't get the thing you want without all the slop"?

Bad apps do this. Some even create a new channel for each individual notification so you can't possibly block it. Except for a blanket ban which you can always do. So it does depend on the developers goodwill.

Nominally, the Play Store QA process. (As if there was such a thing.)

>Is that functionally different than channels for the purposes of turning off marketing notifications?

I don't think so, it's just built into the OS which I personally prefer.

>The problem I have are the apps which don't allow that, which presumably also wouldn't allow to separate them into channels for the same reason they don't let you turn them off.

I think Apple is in a good position to enforce this though, given how strict their review process can be. They could easily reject apps that didn't use notification channels properly. I'm sure some would find a way to abuse but I think that would be a minority.

As I said I was surprised on Android by how many apps actually used them, despite not being enforced. I can only imagine they would be even better on iOS, which is why I'm so confused as to why Apple hasn't.

>I'm sure some would find a way to abuse but I think that would be a minority.

Like bookface?

> Is that functionally different than channels for the purposes of turning off marketing notifications?

The key feature for me is that, as soon as I get a notification that annoys me, I can long press on the notification and disable that channel or notifications from that app altogether. I don't have to go into the app and dig through a settings menu; it takes me all of 3 seconds to do what I want.

> And even more surprisingly it seems most apps support this, instead of putting all notifications under one channel.

Maybe because developers want to do the Right Thing, and they can implement these notification groups with no effort and without the marketing department noticing it?

Unlikely. Marketing keeps up with its industry. As soon as Gmail introduced the smart inbox thing, their goal was immediately to make sure their messages don’t go to the promotional tab.

Wait, so iOS doesn't let you fine tune your notifications? I don't know how I could deal with my phone unless I could turn off, or turn down notifications.

In iOS one can turn on/off notifications per app at the OS level. Some apps have fine grain control for types of notifications, but this type of fine grain control does not exist at the OS level.

Apple is adding a lot more fine grain control in iOS 15

https://9to5mac.com/2021/06/09/how-to-use-iphone-focus-mode-...

Absolutely this. Android's notification channels are a lifesaver for apps like Snapchat, Instagram, or any of the other social media apps that only serve to suck you in. It makes it super easy to disable all notifications except for DM alerts (which is what I typically do for most apps). It's crazy how many apps actually support it, and it's even crazier that Apple hasn't followed suit yet. Even with iOS 15, Apple's notifications are still a last-gen mess.

Not a replacement, but for anyone who doesn’t know about it: you can configure Instagram notification types even in the iOS app. Surprisingly good system.

Would be great if iOS copied Android and had systemwide channels.

Apple has made changes in the upcoming iOS 15 where apps have to categorize their notifications into categories like “marketing” and functional categories. Users can then use the more granular controls to block notification categories either for all apps or app by app. This can also be mapped into the new Focus modes where users can setup different modes such a “work”, “sleep”, “driving”, etc. Different apps can be allowed or blocked in different focus modes.

https://techcrunch.com/2021/06/07/apple-refines-ios-15-notif...

https://9to5mac.com/2021/06/09/how-to-use-iphone-focus-mode-...

[added additional external reference]

> Apple has made changes in the upcoming iOS 15 where apps have to categorize their notifications into categories like “marketing” and functional categories.

I don't think that's true. They will introduce 4 different priority levels a notification can have. It's still vastly different from Android's notification channels.

And then there's the Audible app for Android, which puts both ad notifications and their playback control widget into a single "Member notifications" channel, so that you can't disable the ads without losing access to playback controls.

Sounds like Audible believes the benefits outweigh the downsides of abusing their customers

> I'm surprised Apple hasn't followed suit; NIH syndrome maybe?

Because this is something apps should have been doing themselves. But I guess Android will prove (or has proven, at least to me) that it's necessary to enforce this.

After all, nothing is stopping apps from providing a single channel, right? It all comes down to providing developers with a basic framework, making it easier to do the right thing.

That sounds neat. Does the developer chose which message goes into which category?

I don't recall getting marketing notifications from Uber Eats. What infuriates me are the follow up notifications (paraphrased):

"How was $RESTAURANT_NAME? Please rate and tip!"

"How was $PERSON_NAME's delivery? Please rate and tip!"

"$PERSON_NAME says thanks for the tip!"

I imagine Uber Eats would categorize them under Delivery so you can't opt out of these without opting out of the notifications that are actually useful.

I've had apps which group all their advertising notifications under useful channels so that you can't disable their advertising without losing functionality. I've had apps create completely new channels out of nowhere in order to bypass my settings.

Looks like a nice feature to have Android 8.0+ for [1]. Just learned about that because my older /e/ [2] phone is based on 7.1.2.

[1] https://developer.android.com/training/notify-user/channels

[2] https://e.foundation/

Something really should be done about this. The food delivery apps are worst for this, they seem to know you can't turn alerts off without losing a key feature, but then use it to advertise. They should be made to split this out so you can turn one off without the other.

I'd love to customise the alert level for news apps. I would leave on actually important breaking news, but I have to turn it all off because they bombard me with worthless stuff. I want to know if the PMs head explodes, but I really don't care which royal has had another baby.

Agreed. It seems short-sighted of Apple to let notifications become an advertising channel. It works against their customers. A start could be requiring developers to categorize their notifications as transactional or advertising, but I'd really like the granularity to switch certain types of notifications on and off from the Settings app, or on the "manage" menu of the notification itself have the option to not get notifications like this one anymore.

> The food delivery apps are worst for this

My bank, which is otherwise great, does this. Critically important push notifications and a pretty steady stream of meaningless advertisement.

What kind of important notifications does your bank send? I don't think I've gotten a single notification from my bank about anything. They do still send paper mail though.

Several of my bank apps will send me push notifications when a payment requires 2fa so I can authorise in app, a much better process than the SMS based 2fa most do.

How often does your bank flag your transactions? I’ve been called once in a decade to authorize a tx.

In my country we confirm every transaction with 2FA, if the site supports secure payments (almost every website)

Sigh. I wish the US would encourage this. It would make me feel so much more confident about fraud prevention.

EU caps card interchange fees (.3% credit .2% debit), so the baseline is lower. US has comparably huge card rewards, those have to come from somewhere, so with 1.5-3% interchange fees the incentive to implement 2FA to cut, say, 0.2% off commission is just not there..

Why would Visa/MC/Discover/AmEx or the banks issuing credit card accounts have to lower commissions? They can implement 2FA to reduce their fraud costs, but they can pocket the difference unless they feel competitive pressure. But if there exists enough savings from 2FA by preventing fraud such that they can offer more rewards to credit card users, then it would be a competitive advantage.

The US doesn't even do chip+PIN, just chip. I have to assume the US is fine with a higher baseline level of fraud than the EU. I don't know how the economics make that work.

And online, the validation/authorization isn't any better - as long as somebody has the card number and my zip code, they can do as they please (until/unless some banking anti-fraud algo picks it up).

It’s crazy to me too. A few years ago, all the card networks told merchants that any in person merchant who does not use chip transactions will automatically lose chargebacks, so whatever in person merchants have not converted to chip are simply not willing to invest in updating their systems.

They've pretty much all moved to chip at this point, at least IME. It's the lack of PIN that confuses me. All the terminals have pin pads already, but whether they request the PIN is pretty spotty (seems to be bank card vs true credit card?).

Not OP, but every time I do a purchase online with a new shop, my bank does this. Also every time I spend more than x euros in one transaction.

Before that they sent an SMS code, I much prefer the app notification.

I have my banking/credit card apps push notifications every time a transaction occurs (transfers, deposits, withdrawals).

Sure, 99% of them are expected, but it's nice to confirm deposits from my employer were on time, automated payments triggered as planned, etc. Plus, it catches anything nefarious (we had one card hacked a few years ago).

My credit cards also send reminders when payments are scheduled or due (1-2 are set to autopay, but 1-2 are manual pay).

Edit - none of my banks send junk notices. And most of them are configurable for which notices I want, with $ thresholds as well.

I started using M1 Finance, and while they send useful notifications about when transfers and rebalances occur, they use those same permissions to send marketing type notifications that you can't disable: nagging me to take out a loan from them or refer friends to their platform. It's obnoxious. These should never be notifications, let alone ones you can't even selectively opt out of.

I get notifications for large or anomalous transactions that must look "weird" but not quite fraud-like to some system.

So far, they've all been purchases I authorized, but I like knowing that I'd get a heads-up if something shady were going on.

Withdrawals using my card. It’s reassuring to see that notification seconds after I use an ATM, knowing that if my card is ever stolen/hacked and used I’ll know about it.

Same for bank transactions over a size I specify.

That’s a great way to get people habitually ignoring the important notifications

I get around this by only enabling notifications when I order food, and then disabling notifications after delivery. It's a few extra steps but worth the serenity.

It's more interesting in Android. There's no notification permission, as every app is able to send notifications by default. But, there are notification categories. You can turn them off individually. Yes, the app developer is supposed to specify them themselves. And most actually do. Those who don't drive me nuts tho. I'm very careful with what I receive notifications about.

Apple could definitely copy that. Right now the iOS notification system is useless because of how overwhelmed you get with everything and how notifications disappear by themselves when you unlock the phone.

>notifications disappear by themselves when you unlock the phone

I get a bunch of messages from my friend on Steam, so I tap to read them, but if I tap the wrong way it opens the app instead, makes all the messages disappear, and I have to wait until I get to a place with internet again before I can see what he said.

I'd partially blame this one on the Steam app too. If it is able to receive the message and give you a notification, it should also let you see that message in-app without internet.

Discord is the same way and it drives me mad, especially considering how fussy it can be about connecting. Snapchat on the other hand handles it right. If I get a notification (for an actual chat at least), I am able to open it anytime later regardless of whether or not my phone is still connected.

I've been using Android for around 10 years. I'm very much used to using the notification shade like a to-do list: I often leave non-urgent notifications to hang in there to deal with them later.

Another thing that drives me absolutely nuts in iOS, and that stems form its lack of a usable notification system, is that it considers it okay to interrupt your train of thought with modal alerts. When your battery gets low, you get an alert in your face. When there's a system update, you get an alert in your face when you unlock the device (and then an annoying, very dark-pattern-y "enter your passcode to install overnight" screen). When there's any number of things about Apple services you couldn't care less about, you get an alert in your face, too. On (stock) Android, all these things are notifications that can be ignored for as long as you desire.

>Right now the iOS notification system is useless because of how overwhelmed you get with everything and how notifications disappear by themselves when you unlock the phone.

Who allows those kind of notifications to appear on the lock screen?

I have all but about 5 notifications disabled on my lock screen - I don't need some rando picking up my phone and reading whole convos or anything else

Severe weather alerts I'm fine with people seeing

It looks like they’re adding interruption levels with iOS 15: https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline...

See “Helping People Manage Notifications” section.

That will be abused like crazy. Every marketing notification will be accompanied by an "order now to get 5% off your order" message so it can be classified as time sensitive.

Looks like they address that:

> Never designate a marketing notification as Time Sensitive. For guidance, see Helping People Manage Notifications.

Although I'm not clear on whether this are just HIG guidelines for notifications or if they are enforceable App Store rules.

App store rules are a joke, a lot of apps should be banned for violating them, but apple just doesn't give a fuck - and there aren't even proper channels to complain about it.

Potential abuse is not a reason for not doing this feature. Bad actors will be bad in the current system or the new one.

A couple of years ago: Allow all or no notifications, hard to find settings to turn off

Current: Allow all, but easy to manage from home screen, apps that want to offer a choice of types of notification must figure out how, create config UI, make sure system is stable. Users must find, and each app is different and often report options are not working

iOS 15: A general framework that at the code level, each notification can declare. iOS unifies the UI for managing levels per app. Good actors will have lower costs, bad actors can be detected in device predictions.

I only see benefits, and you can still block apps abusing it

It's not a reason for not adding the feature but I'm sure abuse is something they anticipate. Hopefully there's some way to click on a notification and submit it to Apple as a violation of their guidelines and the app gets pulled from the store once a pattern emerges.

Personally, I just want a global setting for "Apps can send notifications" that I can turn off.

Every app that I install, I have to go through the same routine of finding and killing all the various types of notifications it tries to send me. But I don't want apps to notify me of things. Ever. I'll check my email a few times a day, and the various messenger apps once every few weeks, and they will have a list of new messages.

I'm fine with the phone ringing when one of my contacts calls. But that's the full extent of where I'm prepared to allow it to distract me.

On iOS, apps needs to ask permission before they send notifications. If you missed that, there's also a single toggle in Settings -> Notifications for each app. There's no situation where you should have to "kill all the various types of notifications". While I agree a global "Disable Notifications" toggle would be nice, I don't think it's too much work to just tap "Don't Allow" when an app initially prompts you?

The iOS notification ecosystem is actually miles better than it was in the iOS 4-10 days, I think it's fairly user respectful now.

There are also trial notifications, which only show up in notification center. Every app can just do that without any permission.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/usernotifications/...

Am I misunderstanding? Isn’t this already possible on iOS? You can either disable notifications for individual apps or just turn on Do Not Disturb mode and leave it on. Fairly sure there is a setting to allow phone calls.

Apple also abuses push notifications to sell their services so I don’t see this ending any time soon :(

I can't remember an Apple push notification that wasn't transactional or an update notification (which is also transcational I guess).

Do you have an example?

"Helpful" tips when you get a new iPhone for one example. I also think I vaguely remember being very surprised that Photos advertised to me about being able to buy printed photo albums or something like that once? But I may be mis-remembering it with Google Photos.

They push Apple Music promos from time to time. They also send notifications via the Apple Store app about new product releases.

To be fair, they don't ABUSE it to the extent that it happens frequently. But they are still promotional messages I didn't want. I'd say they send 6-8 per year.

The Apple "Tips" app sends TONS of messages too. Granted that can be fixed by deleting the app. But people like my Mom still gets those messages to this day because she doesn't realize they are tied to that app and I don't believe they are opt-in, I think they are opt-out, meaning they are enabled on new phones by default (like Messages app and your Phone app). I know everyone here has deleted that app, but I bet most of our parents or children still have it installed and still get those messages.

The funny thing about this comment in general is that many people probably don't realize they get notifications from Apple either. But as I mention examples they probably think, "Oh yeah, I've gotten those too". That is the biggest problem. We get so many notifications that many of us simply forget them. You get a notification that the new Macbook Pro is released and you simply read it on the backthread of your brain and dismiss it without much intentional thought. That is how Notifications have become for people. I tried to get my mom to clear up her notifications recently and she simply doesn't think about it anymore. It is just something you deal with if you own a modern phone. It isn't something you control. Like how you don't really control the billboards that you see while commuting to work. You can't disable billboards (other than actively driving to avoid them). But you brain doesn't dwell on them either. You are aware of their presence, but don't expel energy to digest every one. Notifications have become the same way. But they shouldn't be that way. We can (technologically speaking) disable them and the tools to disable them or control them should be granted to smartphone users.

Every time I get one of those Apple Music notifications I think there must be a way to turn them off and I spend a few minutes poking around in settings trying to find the toggle before I lose interest. Your comment prompted me to figure it out once and for all! They can indeed be turned off but the setting is hidden pretty well and not at all where I would have expected to find it:

1. Launch the Music app.

2. Select the “For You” tab at the bottom (little heart icon) this will take you to an advertisement page trying to get you to sign up.

3. Towards the top of the page and to the right of “$date For You” there’s a profile icon. Select it to bring up a tab called “Your Account”.

4. Select “notifications” and you can toggle “New Music” off.

Oddly enough, mine was toggled off when I checked and I know I’ve gotten these notifications in the very recent past. I wonder if it changed to default-off in a recent update in anticipation of iOS 15’s new “focus” feature and Apple’s newfound commitment to battling notification pollution?

> They push Apple Music promos from time to time.

Ah, I have Apple Music, that would explain why I don't see these.

Yeah, that ain't right.

> That is the biggest problem. We get so many notifications that many of us simply forget them.

And it's a game of whac-a-mole to turn them all off. And keep them off.

I've gotten activity challenge notifications about special events, despite me turning off all notifications for activity.

I had to turn these off. They were on by default without permission: https://www.digitaltveurope.com/2019/11/04/exclusive-apple-a...

When does Apple ever send push notifications other than software updates?

For Apple Music: https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/18/18229492/apple-music-push...

I recently switched from Android to iOS and it irritates me that Apple push their own product multiple times a week. It might be because my account is new but at least once a week I get notifications of the free year of apple tv and apple arcade without any way to disable this (if you guys know of one please respond)

Besides the notifications I think it's a dark pattern from Apple to actually show a red number badge above the settings app when there is no actionable item except the two things mentioned above.

I agree that would be a dark pattern, but you can dismiss the offers and the red badges go away.

>Apple push their own product multiple times a week

I call bs - unless you've invited the notifications

I've never gotten such a notification in over a decade of running iOS

People say this

Yet in over a decade of owning iPhones & iPads ... never seen it once

This kind of thing is already against the App Store Review Guidelines:

> Push Notifications should not be used for promotions or direct marketing purposes unless customers have explicitly opted in to receive them via consent language displayed in your app’s UI, and you provide a method in your app for a user to opt out from receiving such messages. Abuse of these services may result in revocation of your privileges.

Apple has now introduced a way for developers to report other apps that break the guideiness. Rest assured I will be making reports every time an app sends me advertisement notifications that I did not opt in to.

> I don't want to miss a notification that my delivery food arrived, but I don't want to be bombarded with daily advertising messages from foodpanda trying to get me to change my behavior.

Yeah, this really drives me crazy.

I use Android, which lets you enable/disable particular notification categories.

I've simply uninstalled all food delivery apps that send promotions using the "General" category (IIRC Grubhub was the work offender).

Uber Eats and DoorDash categorize their promotional notifications appropriately, so I never see them (and do get notifs about my deliveries).

Notification pollution is real and I'm glad Apple is taking real steps to address it in the form of the new focus feature which lets the message sender determine whether to alert the user.

I've been asking for this for a long time[1], But it shouldn't be only for 'Do Not Disturb' but rather for every message.

I don't want to be alerted for meme or forwarded messages, Letting the users determine the notification level - Delayed (to be notified when I check the phone) or Immediate can go a long way to habituate message etiquette.

As for non messaging apps like you mentioned, They should be shamed in the 'Notification Pollution' panel.

[1]https://needgap.com/problems/59-notification-pollution-mobil...

agreed. my dating apps I obviously want to leave notifications on so I get notified of a new match but the company uses notification to try to get me to use the app more and I can't turn those off.

Similarly the Meetup app has started spamming me with Meetup.com blog type info with no way to turn it off but I need the notifications on for meetups . this one in particular is odd given than the Meetup app has some of the most granular notification settings of any service out there.

The Lyft app does this a few times a year as well.

I just want the ability to time-gate notifications. It's convenient that I can shut off notifications from Teams when I'm on vacation, but why isn't it possible to disable notifications from Teams between 6pm-6am and on the weekends? Why can't I disable push notifications from my work email on Saturday and Sunday? It's the one single quality of life feature I've most hoped to see in every iOS update since they introduced granular notification control.

The Teams iOS app already has this. Go to Settings > Notifications > Block Notifications > During Quiet Time, then specify what hours you want the app to be quiet.

Agreed with this entirely. The worst offender to me is Booking.com which will pop notifications and badges (I'm a compulsive badge clearer) on my device for marketing stuff, when I really only want notifications for messages in app around reservations. It also has added insult to injury during this pandemic season as Booking has continued to run promos and pop them when there's no reasonable way I could travel.

Ooh, I agree. Amazon does this, too. I had notifications enabled in their mobile app for a while. I work in a cottage behind my house, so it’s useful to get a notification when something’s delivered.

Sure enough, after about half a dozen deliveries they started spamming me with promo messages as well. I quickly turned off notifications.

As usual, spammers ruin everything.

Try https://shop.app it’s absolutely great for the use case you described! You can even login to Amazon directly from the iOS shop app.

The food apps are so bad that I typically uninstall them when they send me a spammy notification, and then re-install them when I need to use them again.

The natural outcome of this is that the first app which does NOT send me spam will be the one on my phone when I want to order food, and will be the one I actually use.

What you probably really want is to see a choice right after ordering some food: "Enable foodpanda notifications?" with options "enable", "keep disabled", and "enable for 2 hours".

I was so glad to see iOS offer the ability to grant apps access to a subset of your photo library, rather than your entire photo library or nothing at all. I hope they take this approach with notifications too.

This. I mean, technically (or operationally) that's a challenge, but I hate that they use the same permission to bug me with ads and send me ultra important information.

Oh, and my phone runs android. :)

I really like this idea, but template strings won't work for things like news of any type.

It is called FilterBox on Android. But Apple will never allow such an app on iOS, no way.

How about just making notifications costly?

Maybe even rev-share with users.

This would be an amazing feature!!

> If I could ask Apple for one thing it would be to require approval of every push notification that an app developer wants to deliver.

Personally I would ask them to stop glad-handing with china and using their slave labour. But that is just me.

Okay, fair. I'd ask for an iPhone that was not dependent upon China's labor and supply chains first, then to give me granular control of notifications.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com