The reason for Android’s Notification system being better than iOS, is solely due to the ability to turn off individual aspects of an application’s notifications.

Google, the poor multi-billion dollar scrappy startup that maintains Android, made a payment app that has one notification setting, “Google Pay”. So all the ads, promotions, everything.

3rd party apps like PhonePe & Paytm have a better system.

How do you manage to maintain this OS?

@MishaalRahman @androidfaithful @[email protected] @[email protected]

  • GenderNeutralBro@lemmy.sdf.org
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    1 year ago

    Let’s be honest though: Android’s notification system has been better than iOS’s since long before this feature was added. I’d still take Android 7’s notifications over iOS’s.

    Though to be fair, my experience with iOS notifications in recent versions is on iPad, not iPhone. So it might be better than I think nowadays

    • NightAuthor@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      They’ve added a couple of channels, “Critical” and “Time Sensitive”, with some options for allowing overrides of focus modes for those channels specifically.

      I also like the option for “mute notifications for 1hour /till end of day” I use it frequently when a group chat blows up and I’m not in the mood, or notifications about my server that I’m just not going to deal with rn.

      But android is way ahead

  • gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 year ago

    As someone with GPay installed and notify for it enabled right now:

    What ads and promotions? I only ever get “you paid for this shit” notifications

    • Nath@aussie.zone
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      1 year ago

      This thread prompted me to look into the Wallet notification settings. There was a setting where Google could send you notifications. I just turned those off. I don’t want them, but I also can’t remember ever getting one.

      I don’t really understand what the controversy is about. If an app abuses its notifications permissions to send me spam, I disable it. The post is right, granular notification settings in Android are great. I carry both android and iOS around every day and iOS notifications just kind of build up and periodically get cleared all at once. Too much noise in there. The android notifications are things I actually care about and want to be notified about in a timely fashion.

      • This Is ARTman@mastodon.worldOP
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        1 year ago

        @Nath @gamermanh so, the thing I’m pissed about is that Google doesn’t follow their own guidelines.

        These granular notification settings are implemented by every other payment app, except for GPay.

    • This Is ARTman@mastodon.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      @gamermanh

      This kind of promotion. Sure, it’s not a frequent issue, but you’re telling me you (Google) maintain an OS where everyone has to follow the rules for a certain way, except you? I call bullshit.

      • SteveTech@programming.dev
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        1 year ago

        Can also confirm I do not get ads/promotions from Google Wallet, and Google Pay isn’t an app anymore, so maybe you should make sure you have a legit version. I only get the you just paid notifications, which I would want to get.

        Can you show an example of the notifications you’re getting?

        • CrinterScaked@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          I have GPay and I frequently get notifications telling me to claim their reward points. Those notifications aren’t configurable separately from the payment notifications at the OS level. Super annoying.

  • danielfgom@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Not solely for that reason. The notifications are rich, you can reply from the notification and the notification icons in the top bar tell you what’s going on without even opening the shade

  • Ⓑⓡⓞⓚⓔⓝ@lemdro.id
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    1 year ago

    Google, the poor multi-billion dollar scrappy startup that maintains Android, made a payment app that has one notification setting, “Google Pay”. So all the ads, promotions, everything.

    Amazon is another poor startup that does that on their Android app.

    • Jack.@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Amazon first needs to learn how to make an android app. It’s by far the worst experience I’ve ever had using an app from a big company.

      • winkerjadams@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 year ago

        Why do you need the app on your phone? Just use the website, its perfectly functional on your phone and then you’re not giving them all of the data.

        • Jack.@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          If you use Amazon Pay then yeah. Otherwise the website is just a better experience overall.

    • jayandp@sh.itjust.works
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      This made me just realize that I turned off Notifications for the Amazon app at some point and never noticed. 😂

      I’ve just been relying on their emails for getting updates on my orders.

    • This Is ARTman@mastodon.worldOP
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      @Justly0250 bro don’t get me started on the Amazon app. I cannot handle that amount of rage.

      The fact that they’ve made it infinitely more difficult to find the settings in-app is just infuriating.

      Good luck finding anything in the in-app settings.

  • Anonymousllama@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Best part is when they’re shit and don’t categorize / separate out their notifications into categories I just turn notifications off. If companies want to play by the rules and have properly segmented notifications I’m happy to let some of them through, else they’re all getting disabled

    • Victron@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      AliExpress is one of the worst offenders. If you want “useful” notifications (like order updates) you have to put up with their ads and deals bs. I turn them all off.

      • DAMunzy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 year ago

        Get rid of the app. You really don’t need to buy that cheap shit anyways. I got rid of Alli and temu.

        • ByGourou@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          You have good brands on aliexpress, you just need to be careful before buying. At least better than amazon.
          And yeah delete that app, you don’t need theses fake 10 cents savings with their shitty coin.

  • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 year ago

    This is dev dependent, meaning iOS devs can implement it just as easily, just in an app settings page instead of the systems notification section.

    Would it be nice to have in iOS? Absolutely. But it’ll always come down to the devs implementing it.

    • lea@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      It is dev dependent, but I don’t agree with “devs can implement it just as easily” at all. One only requires using a built-in API to create notification channels (which you have to call anyway), the other requires designing and programming your own page for it.

        • NightAuthor@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          But devs would have to put a setting, then check the setting before sending notifications. On android, you just tag the channel as part of your notification call, and the OS handles it.

          And well, next to no apps have the function on iOS. So, I’m guessing it’s too much extra work. Even if not much.

          • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            1 year ago

            It’s not going to be much more effort than anything else in their app. Like, you’re essentially arguing that a variable and some strings are hard to do, and that just not the case.

            • NightAuthor@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Well, the difference (without looking at all the relevant docs) would appear to be an if statement around a call to trigger the notification.

              But I guess, since that seems too simple for them to not do it… it’s gotta be a convention / culture thing. When it’s built in to the OS as a feature, other developers are likely to implement it, in the same way, and the users will come to expect it, ask for it. But if you, as a dev, are left to do it yourself, there’s less motivation.

              Also, Android might have had some system by which they actively encouraged devs to implement.

              • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                1 year ago

                Many apps do actually have those kinda of notification options. Apollo for instance let you choose what notifications you wanted to receive. I’ve seen other apps do the same. Granted, it’s usually within the apps own internal settings and not within their settings page of the Settings app, but they definitely do exist.

                That said, it’s likely more that most devs want you to receive all notifications. “Want to get notified when your balance changes? You also have to see our promotions!” Sounds like a very capitalism thing to do.

  • plz1@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I always scratch my head at people griping about too many notifications. When I install an app, if it doesn’t immediately ask for the ability to send them, I proactively disable them. And if it does, I deny the. Mobile games are the worst about it, for sure I only allow badges for some apps, and even fewer get real notifications, and still fewer can break trough Focus Mode.

    iOS “could” allow more granularity, but in reality, spammy apps have a solution (disable them), and apps that want to send both “real” notifications and spam/ads/marketing indiscriminately have another (uninstall or yell at the company that made it by way of lousy app store reviews).

    • anonymous_bot@lemmy.world
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      For Android, having apps ask for permission for notifications is a very new feature (debut in Android 13 I think) so by default apps notifications were collectively permitted. It would be up to the user to explicitly go in and disable notifications after the fact. I think many people either didn’t know how to access the notification settings or just didn’t care enough to disable them.

  • SebKra@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    Also they’re just visually bad. The bubbles have way too much spacing. The low-contrast blurry bubbles make everything feel cluttered. When expanding a group, you’ll see the same app icon repeated 20 times, while the headlines are clipped. The typography doesn’t feel right: headlines are too large, text styles on individual notifications are too similar and the line heights are too small. The scheduled summary was a nice idea, but again it’s blurred background on blurred backgrounds. And if all of that wasn’t cluttered enough, let’s make everything overlap at bottom.

    Apple is usually really good at this, I don’t know what this particular design team was smoking.

      • snowadv@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I would too but gotta get these “good morning” and “celebrate the day of lightly salted cucumbers” pictures/post cards from my grandparents somehow haha

    • baatliwala@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Some channels are dynamic, so theoretically it could be a calls channel for each different person calling.

      That said I feel like I have seen an issue similar to yours for many different apps which use dynamic channels so I think this is due to poor coding and not malicious behaviour.

      • snowadv@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Good point about dynamic channels (even though it sounds bad if you consider the notification channel’s purpose) but not true in that particular case: I’ve talked to a bunch of people using Viber and it still has only one active “call” channel

        Probably bad coding - should create notification channel when there’s no existing one atm somehow. Probably disabling notification channel also triggers recreation

  • 30p87@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    And in contrast to iOS there’s eg. AutoNotification. So even with some very bad and intrusive apps, like my App tracking me driving and giving discounts if I’m good, that don’t allow such fine settings and refuse to work without all notifications on, you can just block specific ones. In my case it’s things like status information, reminders etc.

  • soulfirethewolf@lemdro.id
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    1 year ago

    Android notifications are definitely nice. I just hope they eventually get the focus functions from iOS. I know Samsung already has it but still would be nice to have a built-in version

  • pico@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    Yeah works well until I have like 6 undismissable notifications that clutter my shit :(

      • ByGourou@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Is it possible in older version ? Since I’m rooted I can block then but I believe it wasn’t possible before. I had an app in android 8 I think that did that without root access, but it doesn’t work anymore in android 10.

        I’m talking about notifications like low battery, do not disturb, keyboard open, connected to a vpn …

    • This Is ARTman@mastodon.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      @hiramfromthechi I’m not entirely sure… I remembered seeing something like that in the Developer options menu, but there isn’t anything there…

      If you’re on Android 12, you do get to add a Camera and Microphone Quick Setting (QS) tile in the notification shade. You were already able to control the Location and NFC sensors through here…

      Edit the QS layout and look for the Camera and Mic tile. They let you turn off the Camera and Mic access for apps. Same for the Location and NFC tiles.

      • HiramFromTheChi@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Hmm … Not sure we’re referring to the same thing. Perhaps I can clear it up:

        When you long press an app icon, there’s an option labeled “App info.”

        Jump into it, and it should show options to open the app, uninstall it, force stop, and disable. There’s other app settings listed as well.

        Then, if you jump into Permissions, does it have the option for you to toggle the network access, sensor access, etc.?

        • Skimmer@lemmy.zip
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          Sensors and Network access aren’t on Stock Android unfortunately (though they should be!), only on other OSes like GrapheneOS and DivestOS atm. Everything else besides those 2 however is present on Stock.