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Push Notifications From Popular Apps Are Becoming Increasingly Useless And Annoying (wired.com)
David Pierce, writing for Wired: Push notifications are ruining my life. Yours too, I bet. Download more than a few apps and the notifications become a non-stop, cacophonous waterfall of nonsense. Here's just part of an afternoon on my phone:
"Hi David! We found new Crown jewels and Bottle caps Pins for you!"
"Everyone's talking about Bill Nye's new book, Everything All at Once. Read a free sample."
"Alex just posted for the first time in a while."
I get notifications when an acquaintance comments on a stranger's Facebook posts, when shows I don't care about come to Netflix, and every single day at 6 PM when the crossword puzzle becomes available. Recently, I got a buzz from my close personal friends at Yelp. "We found a hot new business for you," it said. I opened the notification, on the off chance that Yelp had finally found the hot new business I've been waiting for. It did not. So I closed Yelp, stared into space for a second, and then opened Instagram. Productivity over. Over the last few years, there's been an increasingly loud call for a re-evaluation of the relationship between humans and smartphones. For all the good that phones do, their grip on our eyes, ears, and thoughts creates real and serious problems. "I know when I take [technology] away from my kids what happens," Tony Fadell, a former senior VP at Apple who helped invent both the iPod and the iPhone, said in a recent interview. "They literally feel like you're tearing a piece of their person away from them. They get emotional about it, very emotional. They go through withdrawal for two to three days." Smartphones aren't the problem. It's all the buzzing and dinging, endlessly calling for your attention.
"Hi David! We found new Crown jewels and Bottle caps Pins for you!"
"Everyone's talking about Bill Nye's new book, Everything All at Once. Read a free sample."
"Alex just posted for the first time in a while."
I get notifications when an acquaintance comments on a stranger's Facebook posts, when shows I don't care about come to Netflix, and every single day at 6 PM when the crossword puzzle becomes available. Recently, I got a buzz from my close personal friends at Yelp. "We found a hot new business for you," it said. I opened the notification, on the off chance that Yelp had finally found the hot new business I've been waiting for. It did not. So I closed Yelp, stared into space for a second, and then opened Instagram. Productivity over. Over the last few years, there's been an increasingly loud call for a re-evaluation of the relationship between humans and smartphones. For all the good that phones do, their grip on our eyes, ears, and thoughts creates real and serious problems. "I know when I take [technology] away from my kids what happens," Tony Fadell, a former senior VP at Apple who helped invent both the iPod and the iPhone, said in a recent interview. "They literally feel like you're tearing a piece of their person away from them. They get emotional about it, very emotional. They go through withdrawal for two to three days." Smartphones aren't the problem. It's all the buzzing and dinging, endlessly calling for your attention.
Android phone.
Hold on the notification.
Block all notifications.
Never hear from that program again.
I haven't yet allowed one app except those that actually NEED to inform me (e.g. a mail app) and even there, I paid for TouchDown so I could put on working-hours to turn off work-email notifications when I just don't care about them (i.e. outside of work days/hours) - maybe the default mail app does it now, but it didn't years ago when I bought TouchDown.
And if a program doesn't allow me to fine-tune notifications so I get spammed with "product updates" when all I want is the message my friend sent me? I just uninstall the app and - usually - use their website instead.
In the same way that the telephone is the rudest device known to man (ANSWER ME NOW, ANSWER ME NOW, I'M GOING TO KEEP RINGING, ANSWER ME NOW), notifications are the spam of the modern era.
Turn them off. How to do so on an iPhone/iPad? Don't ask me but surely there's a was as simple as the above.
"UNWANTED NOTIFICATION!" - hold finger on it, say "Fuck off" (purely for frustration venting), turn off app's permission to ever post a notification again.
Oh, and stop installing dozens of apps for unnecessary shit that you could just use the website (again - same thing, never allowed a "desktop notification" in my life on a browser).
Android has similar, with long-pressing on an app's notifications. The ability to disable notifications was in result due to a "service", AirPush that got installed with various apps, which would spam the notification bar with crap.
I came here to say this! I don't use android, but I believe it works similarly... you can control notifications. Lyft lasted a whole 4 days for me before I squelched it. Email and Text are the only things that I allow popover for, and Instagram can put a badge on their icon... that's it for me and this entire story seems like a cry for help from someone with a first world problem.
Which has more power: the hammer, or the anvil?
Then tell their site that you're using a computer instead of a phone.
Having my phone's browser claim to be on a computer instead of a phone has actually made the web usable again. It's gotten rid of all the horrible "mobile optimized" websites (Slashdot being among them), it's gotten rid of all the pop-up prompts to download the app for each website (I don't need your app to view your webpage, I have a browser for that! 90% of all apps seem to just be browsers pointing to specific webpages) And it allows me to see all the content on sites instead of just a small fraction of it.
I don't know about iphone, but for Android this is dead simple to do: Long press on the notification, tap block, tap done. The app still works as normal, just no notifications.