at WWDC next week<\/a> is notifications. Rumors haven\u2019t pointed to any big change this year, but a boy can dream. But the big problem with notifications isn\u2019t really with Apple, or Microsoft, or Google \u2014 it\u2019s with app developers.<\/p>\nPoshmark, a platform for buying and selling fashion items, is a perfect example. My spouse gets constant notifications from the app, making me wonder why she hasn\u2019t just turned them off. Turns out that when you\u2019re selling something, you want to know if someone messages you or buys something \u2014 but sorting those notifications from the myriad of other promotional junk the app shoves at you is near impossible.<\/p>\n
To test things, I just went through the onboarding process for Poshmark myself. After creating an account and signing in, the app asked if I wanted to turn on notifications. Every app on iOS is required to ask you if you want them \u2014 but if you say yes, you\u2019re opting in to anything the app wants to send you. Buried in the Poshmark app itself are more granular controls that let you turn various types of notifications on or off, including things like \u201cparty invites,\u201d \u201cjust picked for you\u201d items, \u201cdaily deals,\u201d \u201clive events\u201d and more. In fact, there are nearly two dozen different notification types in this app alone! That is too many<\/em>. I also got something like four notifications in the first hour, after barely using the app. Too. Many.<\/p>\nApple has done what it can to help users find these settings. If you go to the global iOS notifications settings, you can manage preferences for every app on your phone. There\u2019s now an option at the bottom of that list to take you directly into the app to let you do things like turn off most of Poshmark\u2019s 23 different notification types. There\u2019s also an option to allow \u201ctime sensitive\u201d notifications (things like direct messages or calendar reminders) to alert you immediately while shuttling other notifications into a summary.<\/p>\n
The problem is that most people don\u2019t have the time or mental bandwidth to do this for every app they install, which leads to situations like the one that Qualcomm so cleverly skewered in its awful ad. I\u2019ve accepted the fact that when I get up in the morning, I\u2019m going to find a ton of notifications cropped up on my phone that aren\u2019t meaningful, even though I\u2019ve done my best to aggressively prune them where possible. At this point, it\u2019s a crapshoot whether I\u2019ll find anything useful when I swipe into my Notification Center, which means that I am surely missing important reminders about things I need to deal with.<\/p>\n
It’s also worth noting that Apple has tried to fix notifications over the years with tools like Do Not Disturb, grouping notifications, sending them to a summary and of course letting you decide how intrusive they are to begin with. You can easily turn off red bubbles if they give you agita, or make it so your phone doesn’t light up with every message you get. But again, the onus is on the user to be aware enough of the many ways they can customize notification settings, and a lot of people don’t do that until their phone is completely overwhelming them with pings.<\/p>\n
Of course, I don\u2019t have anything useful like a \u201csolution\u201d to offer here, but I think the best way forward is for Apple to figure out how to disincentivize developers to flood users with notifications. Perhaps in addition to the existing opt-in dialog for notifications when you first launch an app, Apple can force developers to show you the notifications preferences so you know exactly what an app wants to send you. And instead of turning on all notifications, an app could start with everything off by default and you only check the things you actually want to see.<\/p>\n
But I\u2019m also skeptical that more settings to wade through are going to fix anything. People are still going to want to install an app and get started using it without spending five minutes going through an increasingly granular notification settings process. The end result would be the same, too many apps taking up valuable real estate on your phone and in your brain. But they pay Craig Federighi and company the big bucks to figure this stuff out, not me \u2014 here\u2019s hoping he has some good news on Monday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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