People can communicate with me through technology, so things like text messages/calls/emails triggering alerts, that’s fine. But an app, OS, website, etc should never try to initiate any sort of communication or alert on its own (only in response to something I’m doing.)
Software breaks this rule so often, but every single time, it’s inexcusable. I don’t care about your newsletter. I don’t care about “trying out” whatever shit you’re trying to push on me. No I don’t want “tips”. No I don’t want to “see what’s new” (if I did, I’d seek out the thing in your app that tells me what’s new.) I don’t want my first run in the Music app to consist of this big modal dialog that prevents me from doing anything until I press a big “Start Listening” button.
Every single one of these product decisions likely came from some PM who made the case for it citing “it really increases engagement in A/B tests” or “studies show users don’t know about <feature> unless we tell them”, but every one of those PM’s should be removed from decision making until they learn to behave. The software you make should be a tool for the user, not a tool for you to juice your metrics.
Apple software has gotten worse, and worse, and worse with this over the years, so much that I’d consider abandoning the entire ecosystem if it wasn’t likely just as bad on the other side.