Are push notifications sacred?

iOS
#1

When it comes to push notifications on iOS, you’re in one of two camps: either you like being notified about every little thing that happens on the web and enjoy apps bothering you to come and rescue your candy, or you treat your push notifications as sacred and only have then enabled for stuff you actually want to be notified. Tsunami warnings being one of them, test or no test.

https://twitter.com/marcoarment/status/539589577116508160

A recent push notification from Apple promoting its Product(RED) campaign on the Apple Online Store led to a veritable tweetstorm from Apple technorati, including Marco Arment who vehemently opposed the idea, who (rightly) called it out for being promotional and in violation of the App Store developer guidelines.

People were then divided: while Arment likened it to having someone walking into your house and start telling you about their charity, and then saying it was below Apple to promote itself like that, others saw it as a simple awareness-raising for a good cause, brushing it off with “no harm done”. Arment’s response was to say that it was not about whether it was OK to promote a good cause or not (that’s obviously OK, apparently), but about crossing the boundary — like putting a free U2 album in everyone’s iTunes library uninvited.

So, I’m asking you guys: do you treat your push notifications as sacred? Do you only allow certain apps to notify you? Or are you all for being interrupted by every little thing, safe in the knowledge that you have the self-control to not look at your phone until you’re done with the task at hand?

#2

I’m in the sacred camp. I particularly don’t like Facebook or games notifications. But, sheesh, I’ve got better things to do than be outraged at one little Product(RED) notification. People these days…

#3

I agree - I turn off notifications I don’t want to hear from. I’m cool giving apps a chance, but if they annoy me a few times, it’s bye bye.

As for the (RED) notification, sure it was promotion/advertising, but it was a no harm done.

#4

I think it’s being a bit precious to say they’re sacred. They shouldn’t be a nuisance, sure, but that’s why there’s a toggle. I tend to assume apps can be trusted until they show me they can’t.

#5

I definitely only want to know about the things I want to know about. I tend to disable all notifications when I install a new app and enable the notifications if I find I need them later.

But lately I’ve been considering disabling all notifications completely. I’m working 70-80 hour weeks at the moment and I just find them to be impractical. I know there’s Do Not Disturb but I think I’m just over being notified about anything.

1 Like
#6

Eh, it’s not like I’m doing anything anyway…

#7

I disable notifications from everything that isn’t a messaging/communication app. The only exception is Pocket Weather because not being rained on is quite a good thing.

#8

I agree with Toby that I don’t mind them until they send one that crosses “the line”. Of course “the line” is going to be different for each person. Some apps are even nice enough to turn them off for you if you don’t seem to be responding, eg MyFitnessPal was nagging me to enter my meals and I wasn’t doing it (I only use it to record my weight now), and so after a few days it turned them off by itself.

#9

I agree with mitty. Generally I’ll turn them on, until they cross the line. Courtesy reminders are fine IMO (That’s why I have them installed), apps that start spamming me (I don’t have kids, I don’t need to know about specials on nappies) I’ll disable them.

IMO: Marco did have a point and he did have the right to complain, but at the same time thousands of people die every day from AIDS, and exercising that right to complain was a bit of an arsehole move (imo), let them have this one.