This is good but... all I wanted for Christmas was anti-spam that didn't suck donkey balls. Sigh.
Take a picture of a restaurant? Hey, did you know it's a place you can make a reservation at?
Your friend mentions a song offhand? Psst … wanna play it now?
Don't forget about how your cousin talked about that AppleTV+ series!
("Get an Android?" Yeah, I hear you, I switch ecosystems in anger with every phone, which is why I am so keenly aware of how badly Apple's anti-spam sucks -- but also why I am not over the moon at the prospect of my next switch: I know where the Android skeletons are buried, although hope springs eternal.)
Another example is my air filter. It’s nice to get a reminder when it’s time to change the filter since it’s so infrequent, but I can’t get that notification without also getting spammed with “news” about new machines I should buy. Apple actively enables this behavior while claiming that spam is against their terms of service.
They are clearly working for the spammers, not the user, because they profit off of their cut.
> Make sure people can manage their notification settings within your app. In addition to requesting permission to send informational or marketing notifications, you must also provide an in-app settings screen that lets people change their choice. For guidance, see Settings.
https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline...
I’ll even leave you with a third example: I can’t get shipping notifications about an online order I made without also opting into spam about sales and discounts. Apple could take a pro-user stance here and help us push back against scummy behavior, but they choose not to be helpful. They also happen to profit off of it, I’m sure that’s unrelated.
1) They could implement a “promotional” notification category the same way that they do “time sensitive” and let the user customize that the same way, or at least offer an opt-out.
2) Add a “report” button next to the disable notifications button.
3) Stop delivering notifications on behalf of apps that don’t correctly categorize promotional notifications.
4) Skip all this complexity and just ban developers that send spam. This is what their monopoly on app distribution is supposedly justified by: protecting users from malicious app developers.