How to deliver mobile notifications when a user is holding their unlocked phone | Hacker News Reader

How to deliver mobile notifications when a user is holding their unlocked phone

docs.criticalmoments.io

5 pointsscosman4 comments

Engagement farming dark pattern that ought to be outlawed by Apple's App Store gatekeeping iron fist. If an app sends me one of these, I'm at a minimum revoking notification permissions, and probably completely uninstalling it.

This is all bound by Apple's opt-in policy for notifications. You'll never get one from an app where you didn't consent to receiving them.

Full agree apps should only send notifications worth your time, and risk getting unsubscribed if they don't.

However if you've opted in, both the user and app can benefit from receiving them when the user has a moment to act. Too many important notifications (pill reminders, deadlines) get buried under my noisy chat apps.

Calling this "consent" dilutes trust in all apps, and the platform as a whole. When an app pops up a modal dialog asking for permission to send me notifications on first launch, with the implication that it's to receive transactional notifications rather than advertisements, and I get an attention-wasting notification like this as a result of my "consent", I'm going to stop "consenting" in the future.

I'm sorry you're feeling overwhelmed by too many notifications on your phone. The solution is not to burden the user with even more notifications that they didn't ask for, with the sole purpose of (as admitted in your docs!) boosting engagement. If I set a pill reminder, then by all means send me a notification on the schedule that we've mutually agreed upon, but don't "remind" me to complete an onboarding that I explicitly chose to abandon, or to open the app just because I've naturally left it alone for a couple days and you'd like to artificially juice your DAU numbers.

Asking clearly if an app can send you notifications is consent. Sounds like you have a high bar for notifications, and likely don't tap OK that often. That's fine; that's your choice. But calling a crystal clear opt-in mechanism non-consensual is just strange. Others are also free to make their own choice.

Yes, notifications can be used for engagement. That's okay too. Users often need help onboarding, learning how to use an app, reminders to complete actions on specific days, etc. You're assuming every notification or every attempt at engagement is unacceptable, and working back from there. Some can be. Some can be marketing but still welcome (thanks for the 50% off coupon DoorDash). Some can be essential to the user's goal for downloading the app (workout reminders, mindfulness check-ins, pill reminders, onboarding completion, etc).

If you don't like notifications from a specific app, turn them off. It's not that complicated.

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