Hacker News Reader

Comment by TylerE | Hacker News Reader

I just wish they added (and enforced!) a distinction between transactional notifications and everything else.

Android forces app developers to categorize notifications (the API is called notification channels). Each channel can be muted individually in the system settings. Though it's up to the app makers to correctly categorize their notifications, in my experience most apps do this.

Whenever I see a spam notification, I immediatelly go mute the channel and the problem never repeats itself.

I have a Samsung and it doesn't show what channel a notification came from. Probably because of the amount of crapware Samsung bundles.

It shows, though it's a bit obscure. Long press the notification, then press notification settings. It will scroll you down and highlight the notification channels item. Press on it. After a second, it will highlight the channel the original notification was belonging to.

That's not "a bit obscure". That's almost completely hidden.

The problem is still bad actors. Take for example audible. They deliberately put everything into a single category "Member notifications"

If you want to know when your audiobook is downloaded or when you get a your next credit is available, you also have to put up with promotional "X book is 40% off" garbage spam.

> Android forces app developers to categorize notifications (the API is called notification channels).

There's nothing to force you to be honest. It only forces you to specify a channel when you post a notification. You can as well just create a single one for everything, which is exactly what some apps do.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com