After being scarce for the first couple of weeks following the new iPhone 3.0 software rolling out, apps with Push Notifications are now rolling out at a healthy clip. And that’s great, because the feature is really useful. To a point.
The issue I’m noticing now is that if you have too many apps with Push Notifications turned on, the whole system becomes a lot less useful. You see, Push Notifications are basically Apple’s way to get around allowing third-party apps to run in the background of the iPhone. So apps can now send these push messages to your phone to let you know if there’s some kind of message or update that you should open an app for. But if you have a lot of push messages coming in, I’m finding that you either have to pull out your phone every couple minutes, or risk still missing notifications that you probably want to see.
The problem is that the Push Notification message indicators are not built for heavy use. If you have multiple push messages coming in to you phone, only the latest one will be shown on the screen. And even when you unlock your phone, it’s hard to tell which push messages have come in. Though you can set a badge on app icons to let you know there is a message, if it was overridden by another message, you are forced to open the app to figure out what it was.
And let’s be clear: It’s not like I’m using Push on a ton of applications. I’m basically only using it (regularly) on three right now: Foursquare (a location-based social network [iTunes Link]), GPush (which does push for Gmail, which sadly isn’t approved in the App Store, yet), and Boxcar (which does Twitter @replies and DMs [iTunes Link]). At one point, I had it on for AIM too, but that got to be too much to handle in and of itself.
Between just those three, I’m getting pinged every few minutes during the regular hours of the day (if not more often during peak hours). And while that’s fine, because I can change things like the audio notifications, I want to be able to see a full list of what has come in since I last looked at my phone. Google’s Android platform handles this in a much nicer way, with a top drop-down menu that breaks up your notifications (which are also a bit different since applications can run in the background on Android). Of course, that is only after you unlock your phone, but still, that would be much more ideal than the current iPhone method.
But better would be some sort of way to break up these messages when you still have the phone locked. I’m thinking first of all maybe breaking up Push Notifications, text messages and calls by colors, and displaying them in a list on the screen. Then then having some way to further break down Push Notifications on that screen, maybe placing the app icon next to each and saying something like (4) new Foursquare messages, like Apple currently does for text messages.
This guy did a nice mock-up last year, but that was before Push Notifications were even available. And Apple has been thinking about this too, according to its patents. A system that is something like this (right) is needed even more now.
Naturally, this should all be user-adjustable in the settings, but it seems like an easy enough thing to do. Because as many people are shortly going to find out, the current way of handling Push Notifications just isn’t cutting it unless you’re only using one app that gets messages once every few hours. And with more Push-capable apps coming everyday, the problem is only going to get worse.
[mockup: robertsdonovan.com]
totally agree. This is going to get way out of hand real quick.
Ha Ha… this is where my Nokia N82 & Nokia 6300’s Active screen comes very handy.
On N82, I usually have about 15 apps running in background and updates of ALL apps can be viewed on home screen without even scrolling/sliding anything. Just click and view. Be it mail, twitter, facebook or anything.
5800 XM is a jewel too.
True, I don’t get the UI Experience, but for the functionality and the quality of results, the phones are just superb!
Even WinMobile 6 beats Apple on this aspect.
Welcome to the real world Apple, it’s not just about the User Experience after all, Functional aspects should also be considered.
You guys compare apple to be faster than anything, of course, it does not have to load or display flash! Today, most of ads are in Flash, think of this aspect again when you compare the speeds. A blog survives on Flash Ads!
Youre a douche based on your first two words.
its really gud yaar
+1 for palm pre then
yeah that iphone mockup looks just like the pre
…so the point of this article is that when you have too many things coming in at once it’s difficult to differentiate the important ones from the unimportant ones? How incredibly insightful.
No, that’s not the point at all. The point is there are many things coming in yet you only get to see the latest one. Which is silly.
MG, ever thought of trying Nokia XM5800 or Nokia N82
UI may “suck” but when it comes to functionality, they are really great phones. You wont face such problems on Active screen. You can prioritize on the apps and notifications that should be displayed on top.
It’s hard to bash on UI for a product so new–not to mention the inundation of countless third-party apps, written with varying levels of competence.
Nashville,
I didnt intend to bash S60 UI
I have been using Nokia 6300 since Jan 2007 and Nokia N82 since Dec 2007 and I have no plans to upgrade any of these until E52 comes out.
I will pass by N97, it’s not worth that cost.
you are absolutely right
The last photo shows a nice list of Push Apps updates, hope thats possible to implement!
The Notification shade is one of my favorite features of my G1. I think EVERY phone should have a similar system. Being able to read all Tweets/IMs/Email subjects without opening the applications is definitely a must-have. Hopefully Apple will get moving on this implementation.
P.S. I think your pic is on the (right) not (left)
heh, yes it is
Notifications (and multitasking) are the two key areas where the G1 and the Palm Pre really put the iPhone to shame. You can tell that each was designed from the ground up, around the idea that people would want to have things going on in the background, and they’d need information presented in a useful way.
The iPhone just wasn’t. Like the Macintosh OS before it, the iPhone was meant to perform one function at a time. Even today, the Mac menu bar continues on like a vestigial appendage, held over from a time when Macs could not multitask. Don’t even bring up Fitt’s Law, because it just doesn’t apply; the menu bar is lame and antiquated.
For all it’s innovation, Apple is extremely slow to change course when it comes to design decisions. We’re two years out from the launch of the original iPhone, and for all the talk of “50,000 applications”, the iPhone still can’t multitask, and their notification system is a poorly implemented, half-hearted workaround for a severe deficiency in their platform.
What is really of concern to me is that it took them so long to get their kludgey notification system up and running after they announced it. They wouldn’t have gone through that effort if they weren’t planning on sticking with it for quite some time.
So, we’re going to see at least one or two more iterations of the iPhone OS and iPhone hardware before we see meaningful progress toward actual multitasking from Apple. That’s a lot of time for Palm and Android to make up ground in other areas, and build upon their strengths.
They’ve got a head-start, but Apple really should be moving more quickly than they are, if they want to stay ahead.
You bring up some very good points. I like the analogies too!
Apple is just a perfectionist—they don’t do anything unless it will work perfectly. They claim that background processes will dramatically shorten the battery life which is the main reason why they don’t have such things. However, take a look at their competitors. Like you mentioned, the Pre and G1 both do background processes and their battery life is fine.
I have a good feeling Apple will suck it up and allow background processes. Even if they don’t do that, they need to come up with something along those lines.
Currently, when you close your phone, the only app running is a system set up to receive notifications which are then linked to an app. I think instead of the classic background process, apps should be given the opportunity to pass the processing load onto the central unit—this way, apps can do things like finish uploading pictures or monitor your GPS location.
The good thing about this would be that it could let apps consolidate processes. Lets say there are two apps that want to monitor location; with standard background processes, they would both be running—doing the same thing. If the phone handled it for them, there could be a single process to monitor location and each app would be able to specify a criteria that they are looking for and be notified when it is met.
And, currently, servers are set up to keep a users session intact and to send them notifications when something happens but the notifications are just flat text/sounds/numbers with a link to the application; they can’t automatically preform a task. So, I suggest that when a server sends a notification, they can have the option to ask the phone to preform a task (like discover its current location) and report back to the server. The tasks could have time-out limits on them so that they don’t end up sucking the battery dry.
Anyway, I think there is some room for innovation here and Apple just isn’t comfortable going along with the standards. I hope something like this gets implemented soon though!
For the record, the location notification is exactly what Android does: you can register a listener for a location, pass it a reference to your app, and it’ll call you to let you know when the phone is entering or leaving that location. The app doesn’t need to be running at all, background or foreground, for the system to call it.
There are actually quite a lot of said ‘listeners’ in Android – for example, I’ve published a simple weather alert monitor, and rather than running in the background, I just get the system to wake me up either when the phone boots or every 30 minutes or so. When I’m done checking for typhoons, I set another alarm and my app exits – it doesn’t sleep, it exits completely, trusting the system to run it again when needed.
exactly….. u r right
eBuddy has push notifications for only 30 mins from the time you close it which makes the whole thing a bit worthless. If other apps like foursquare can keep running, why doesn’t eBuddy do the same thing? I definitely turned off push for a few apps because of overload.
How did you get GPush on your iPhone?
Heard the same thing last night from someone. That is so pointless.
Got GPush ad-hoc so I could review it. They’re still hoping it will hit the store soon.
I totally agree and I’m sure Apple must have seen a problem with this even before they launched the PNS.
I’d also say that while the PNS is nice, a combination of that and true multitasking is the perfect solution. Hopefully both situations will be fixed with OS 4.0.
So true. I’ve really noticed this especially with the Foursquare notifications. Nothing like hearing your phone go off when someone checks in at a bar at 2:30 AM. You roll over, look at your phone, hoping it’s not something important and sure enough, your friend David A. just checked in at Jones Bar in LA.
Would love to be able to limit push notifications between a set of hours customizable by app, maybe even user at some point, would be a significant upgrade. I’m actually turning off foursquare push notifications, because while I love the app and service the notifications are annoying ATM.
You know you can put the Push Notifications to “sleep” on Foursquare, right Morgan? Click on the pings button, there are options. It’s nice, I wish all apps would do this.
I should comment here more often. I learn something new every time I do!
I love my iPhone, but the word I would use for its notification interface is “broken.”
It’s one of those things we’ll have to suffer with for some indeterminate period of time, until Apple graces us with a solution.
Let’s just hope it’s nothing like the wait for copy/paste.
I couldn’t agree more.
I have always been thinking this. There totally needs to be a screen where all notifications can collect. The screen shouldn’t just be notifications though, it should have lots of useful info for you that you can add.
I think it should be one of your home screens—to the left of the search screen. On that screen, there should be all the notifications you’ve received, missed calls, calender events for the day, a summery of how many emails you have, how many tests you have, etc. Also, there should be an API for app’s to add to that screen so that they could post content to there that isn’t necessarily a notification.
This would be very useful so that you don’t have to go looking around everywhere to get updates from many services!
Also, thanks from bringing Boxcar to my attention!
very well said…
Absolutely right. And the solution is simple. Of course, a reasonable “Today” screen on your phone would be nice too, as would a reasonable method for arranging apps on the screens, but hey, who’s picky?
Something I’ve found on the iPhone is that you have to strip things down to the very bare essentials. In this case, I only turn on notifications for the stuff I absolutely need to ping me when in a particular context. Laborious to a point, but I’m not missing my foursquare notifications, either
Victor, great solution. When Apple releases it, it will be known as the new “Advanced Today Screen!” and it will borrow from all the today screens that are already available on Windows Mobile, Palm, Samsung, Blackberry, and countless other phones.
I love the G1 and Pre for the notifications.
IPhone just sucks when it comes to notifications . Its too intrusive and comes in your way !
Love the mockup above but when your are pushing in a lot of data, wont the already below par iphone battery take a beating ?
calls by colors seems to be appealing feature too!
This was bound to happen. What will happen when you have 10 apps that are all notifying you? The problem is that it is a hack for something that they should have thought of when the phone was first designed. Obviously, Apple’s apps (such as messages, email, and calendar) are running in the background and if you jailbreak your phone, you can use Backgrounder to run apps in the background so the question is really why not let other apps run in the background? That is a question that Apple has answered very poorly with very bad reasons. My first blackberry that I bought 5 years ago ran apps in the background. Hell, the oldest Windows Mobile device could do it. So how come “the world’s most advanced phone” can not do it?
Push notifications are also extremely limiting since they require the software producer to have a server that is constantly running and sending out notifications. Many software developers might not want to setup that type of infrastructure in the first place. And for somethings, it goes against good software design to force the notifications to come from a third party source.
The biggest problem is Apple’s denial that it missed the mark with background processing. But all is good because when they do allow it, they will release the next “world’s most advanced phone” that took three iterations to have copy and paste, and notifications.
I personally am waiting for the 6GS to come out which will finally feature the ability to mark all messages as read, collapse folders in the email app, forward SMS, and allow custom dictionaries to speed up typing. The 5GS will not be enough since it will only feature a new Apple icon and the removal of Google as the default search since Google’s Chorme OS will be out by then and their CEO will not sit on Apple board anymore.
Come on Apple. For a company that claims to be the most innovating in the industry, your product is so 2003.
Forwarding SMS is already there, so I suspect you’ll only have to wait for the 5GS for the rest of your wants.
The problem with the “so 2003″ comment is that until the Pre, everything else out there was *even worse*, but for different reasons–Mostly that all the features were a horribly disjointed experience to actually use. The Pre gets some things right that the iPhone doesn’t, but it’s still lacking in speed, which is likely because of the multitasking.
This was bound to happen. What will happen when you have 10 apps that are all notifying you? The problem is that it is a hack for something that they should have thought of when the phone was first designed. Obviously, Apple’s apps (such as messages, email, and calendar) are running in the background and if you jailbreak your phone, you can use Backgrounder to run apps in the background so the question is really why not let other apps run in the background? That is a question that Apple has answered very poorly with very bad reasons. My first blackberry that I bought 5 years ago ran apps in the background. Hell, the oldest Windows Mobile device could do it. So how come “the world’s most advanced phone” can not do it?
Push notifications are also extremely limiting since they require the software producer to have a server that is constantly running and sending out notifications. Many software developers might not want to setup that type of infrastructure in the first place. And for somethings, it goes against good software design to force the notifications to come from a third party source.
The biggest problem is Apple’s denial that it missed the mark with background processing. But all is good because when they do allow it, they will release the next “world’s most advanced phone” that took three iterations to have copy and paste, and notifications.
I personally am waiting for the 6GS to come out which will finally feature the ability to mark all messages as read, collapse folders in the email app, forward SMS, and allow custom dictionaries to speed up typing. The 5GS will not be enough since it will only feature a new Apple icon and the removal of Google as the default search since Google’s Chorme OS will be out by then and their CEO will not sit on Apple board anymore.
Come on Apple. For a company that claims to be the most innovating in the industry, your product is so 2003.
You seem to be thinking so much about a company that is, in your opinion, so technologically incompetent. Any deeper issues regarding obsessing about things you don’t own/use?
How about you thinking before you write? I own three iPhones, two iPod Touches, two MacBooks (13″ and 17″ pro uni-bodies) and my kids all have iMacs in their rooms.
I use the products and that is what gives me the right to talk about it. I also used to have Windows Mobile devices, Blackberry devices, and Palm Devices as well. I personally use the products because they are good products.
But using them does not mean that I find them to be perfect. The iPhone is a great device, but the excuses that Apple gives for not supporting background processing are not sufficient enough to convince a technical person like me. Their excuse of battery life is just an excuse. How can it be that Nokia, LG, Samsung, Blackberry, Palm, and countless other phone manufacturers are able to get around that issue (my daughter’s LG Vue’s battery lasts a couple of days even when she uses AT&Ts live TV service – on a 3G network) and Apple has not? It just plainly does not make sense for a company like that. The same goes for not introducing copy-paste until 3.0. If I changed the name from Apple to Microsoft (or any other company), people would simply say that it was because Microsoft was stupid and was not innovative enough to think of it.
I personally think that it is done to prevent software developers from completely replacing the native apps that come with the iPhone. It would be simple to create a much more useful email app than the native app but it would be useless if it could not run in the background. Same goes for Calendar, Phone Manager (seriously Apple, you can’t automatically dial the default area code when a number is dialed? Blackberry devices do that), Messaging, and other apps. Not that any of these would get approved by Apple, but the first obstacle is background processing.
To sum this up. Try using your computer today only one app at a time (let me guess, you can’t wait for the Chrome OS to come out so that you could say that you will not really need multiple apps other than the browser) and see how productive you are.
I agree with many of your points. I don’t think Apple is by any means 2003 but some decisions do feel that way. If it wasn’t for Apple we wouldn’t have this spur of innovation streaming in from multiple carriers. I remember how crappy the phones used to be (like my wife’s phone) and rarely updated. It’s not like Apple reinvented the wheel they just made it easier to obtain applications and made touch worthwhile.
Unfortunately the planned obsolescence does suck. I hate the thought of having to wait 2 years for something like this to be ironed out. I’d rather take a battery hit if I could finally multitask like the Pre or G1 does. Not to mention the rant we could talk about being stuck with AT&T.
Apple definitely stirred the pot in the phone industry and really introduced mini computers that had phone parts in them. Some could argue that Blackberry and Windows Mobile did that before but those felt like computing devices first and phones later whereas Apple reversed that feeling and put a phone in people’s hands that was also a computing device with enormous power.
That, however, does not spare them from the criticism that is well deserved considering some of the decisions that they made regarding features of the device.
It would be great if Apple addressed the background processing issues in a forum that is not filled to capacity with Apple fanboys who cheered when told that it was battery life that was the culprit. What is interesting is that every time that Microsoft’s name was mentioned (in a negative aspect of course), everyone cheered and clapped. I guess we all forgot that their devices did have that capability with great battery life for years.
I’m not all that thrilled with iPhone battery life, but when I used Motorola Q the battery life made it absolutely unusable. I had two in the family and dumped them after one month.
I compared notes with a G1 owner one day in McD’s and he was -really- distraught about G1 battery life.
So for now I can live with a PNS architecture, but we need a better notification screen. \
Also previous app/next app gestures. (Like ALT-TAB) this workflow is a big part of what makes multi-tasking feel so useful. If apps can launch quickly enough it could hold a lot of people over.
We are using urbanship to handle our pushes, no need for setting up our own servers.
very well said….
That UI is pretty great, wondering how come it has been a year already and there is no sign of UI improvements yet (apart from silly patents papers) you would expect 3.0 to have rolled out with this little things sorted out.
they’ve to find a balance between being user-friendly and being techy.
true
I can’t stand the notifications – they are so overly intrusive that it seems hard to believe that I ever wished for them. Push over background seems like a big bag of fail to me in general but at least this could have been done right. The Pre and Android both do this 100% more usefully and 1,000% more elegantly.
I dropped my iPhone on the road on Friday – no obvious damage externally but now it refuses to turn on.
Just thought I’d share the pain – forget notifications – I got nothing!
Getting a new iphone tomorrow
You’re a moron.
I agree with most the comments posted here, a Today screen is a must have, I dont want to open up my calendar to see what I have to do today,how about tasks and todos. I love the Palm pre notification, I hope the jailbreak community can come up with a better solution, after all the whole “app store” idea was theirs before apple made it legit.
They should have a notification’s widget that is very similar to the messages widget. Click in there, and see the recent history of notifications. Problem solved.
This still wouldn’t be as good as the G1/Pre, but it would be a step in the right direction and easy for Apple to put in a 3.x release.
I often wondered what Apple was thinking by just popping up a single notification message like they do. It just never seemed really thought out to me. I agree that it’s probably only temporary but come on? Who doesn’t realize that all those people with 100+ apps don’t want to be bombarded by 15-20 messages from applications they can’t even read or know where they came from in some cases.
Being a designer/developer this seems pretty straightforward to me when building an interface and something you must consider but it must of been missed by someone over there in Cupertino.
Either way it works for now but I’m hoping Apple eventually allows background processes and a unified messaging system that allows you to nab all your most recent events in a time line in one place.
Similar to Twitter, G1 or the Pre.
good….
-______-
MG, have you used a Palm Pre? The notification system that you described is almost exactly how Palm does it. And unlike Android, it displays these notifications even when the phone is locked. For example, the Pre sits on my desk on the Touchstone charger (the Pre notifies the same without the Touchstone obviously). It displays the time with nothing else in view. If I get an email, I get a notification on the bottom of the screen. On the right it tells me how many emails I have received, on the left it gives me the subject of the latest one. If I get an instant message, this notification stacks in a different color above the email notification. Same with a missed phone call (shows who called, stacks, different color). Same with a voicemail. The unlock key moves up higher as each notification is received. It is very elegant, and it’s why I’ve decided on a Pre and not an iPhone. It really is. The notification system is a very important part of a smartphone in my opinion and the Pre is vastly superior to the iPhone in this respect. (iPhone is vastly superior in others as well, IMHO.)
Yeah used one a bit, but not with notifications. Good to know. Perhaps one area Apple should lift from Palm.
strange that you should suggest such a system. I do believe the soon to be release windows mobile 6.5 lockscreen works just like that.
So are you suggesting that Apple copy Microsoft?
huh, the horror!
i think at the very least the 3G S should have some sort of backgrounding maybe with like a 3-5 app limit. I used to run backgrounder from cydia when i was jailbroke on the 3g only for a couple apps and i never really had a battery issue im sure apple could do better.
There are also issues with the background apps. What apps are allowed to run in the background? .Im sure no one wants assasin’s creed running in the background for example. I also think that there might be a design issue involved, Apple will need to design an elegant and user friendly way to suspend,resume and quit apps. Palm pre comes to mind again.
L love this mobiel
I love this Mobile
I will get a new iphone next week
good..congrats dear
@MG – If you’re on a Mac and use Growl, consider getting Prowl – you’ll get your Growl notifications pushed to your iPhone, and if you happen to receive several, they’ll all be saved/queued in the Prowl app itself.
The developer has also provided an API so that you can write your own web scripts that push these notifications to your phone.
The iPhone desperately needs a better homescreen.
Good call, been meaning to try that out. Thanks
i been using prowl for a few days and its great. i use it with Gmail notifier, twitterific, transmission and handbrake. The most useful of all is the twitterific with prowl. You can customize @messages, direct messages, timeline and new tweets. its worth every penny of 2.99. it takes about 5 minutes to set up but your good to go after that.
This recent engadget article really summarizes most frustrations with the iphone…
http://www.enga...the-job-market/
at the end of the day its a toy (no, thats not a negative comments. yes, I’ve owned one).
I think all smartphones are still in the toy category when it comes to this. You can’t do substantial work on any of them. They are mainly for -consuming- content. Effective content creation is another couple years away.
This article in 140 characters: Push notifications are becoming more and more like facebook notifications
I would love to see that on the iphone *concept of push notifications* Way more useful then what it is now, when more and more apps begin to implement push notifications.
“But better would be some sort of way to break up these messages when you still have the phone locked. I’m thinking first of all maybe breaking up Push Notifications, text messages and calls by colors, and displaying them in a list on the screen. Then then having some way to further break down Push Notifications on that screen, maybe placing the app icon next to each and saying something like (4) new Foursquare messages, like Apple currently does for text messages.”
Hmm – I think I have seen something like this on a Palm device that Tech Crunch hates on regularly…
I’m surprised nobody’s mentioned GRiP or Intelliscreen. I know they’re only for jailbroken devices, but they are viable solutions. Or they will be, once they get support for push notifications
yeah righttttttttttttt
Well, I mean, viable temporary solutions, until Apple do something better
I came across this interesting post that spells out an alternative method for apps running as a background process. This may solve the push problem as well assuming the user doesn’t want real time updates, but wants the application updated when they choose to view it.
http://punk.pos...inking-receipts
I would like to see more (configurable) push notifications, but you know what would also be nice? If they fixed the bug that makes SMS notifications block the alarm clock from going off.
Seriously – if you set your alarm clock, go to sleep, and get a text message, the alert/popup that notifies you of the text message will keep your alarm clock from going off until you dismiss it. Which, you know, doesn’t happen if you’re asleep. This has been a problem since at least the 2.0 software update, and continues into 3.0.
I kept thinking of the Palm Pre throughout this article. I was a bit shocked when it was never mentioned when Blackberry and Android were.
Palm seems to be the only one to have almost perfectly solved this problem in a very elegant(and Apple-like, some would say) solution.
Seriously try and get a hold of webOS and a Pre and really see what you’re missing.
I should also mention the way webOS handles the notifications if you want to clear them. You simply expand the notification window by tapping on it, then slide whatever notification to the left or right to dismiss them.
Regarding alternative notification system for iphone, see GriP (grip for iphone), available in beta for jb iphones…it´s what i use to replace stupid popups
http://code.goo...orkpx/wiki/GriP
One solution until Apple updates to a better management system for push is what I’ve worked very hard to do with my app iTweetReply.. it will remember what has been pushed and until the app is opened it it will “cue” notifications: i.e. “Replies from @a, @b. Direct Message from @c”
You are complaining ?
What about the millions of unlocked IPhones which do not allow ANY push notifications?