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Comment by nextlevelwizard | Hacker News Reader

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nextlevelwizard

Why does Android need this? Does the OS not let you control notifications?

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Android does, at the level of "Allow notifications from app X" and "Block notifications from app X".

DoNotNotify gives granularity and rules (which a specific app may have chosen not to implement).

For example:

    "Allow <budget airline app X> to display notifications of gate changes"
    "Block <budget airline app X> from displaying advertising notifications"

Android 15/16 does allow you to control notifications even lower, at the level of notification category, but indeed the app must have chosen to use them.

Most apps that are in need of notification control either:

a) bundle everything in one category, from critical notifications without which the app can't fulfill its purpose to "HEY YOU HAVEN'T USED ME IN A DAY, USE ME NOW" spam

b) create a new category for spam every time they feel enough users have turned off the previous one, which is often

Companies do it with email unsubscribe categories to, which is skirting laws for sure.

I wish app review checked for this. It's hostile anti user behavior.

OEMs like Samsung turn off that ability by default unless you toggle it in "advanced settings". Thank you Samsung!

Yeah the problem is a lot of apps dump their ads in the wrong category if they even use categories :(

To give you an example of what this is form, some apps like to bundle notification categories in such a way that the Tracking notification is the same as the "Buy this item on sale" notification and you can't granularly turn it off. It's 100% intentional.

I assume this allows more granularity. Many apps avoid you blocking their marketing by not using the notification categories system. It's all or nothing. This app would presumably allow me to differentiate between the two if it can't be done with notification categories.

It does, but this appears to have a lot more granularity. You don't always want to block an entire app, sometimes you just want to block some of the notifications from a specific app.

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