
Dear Apple, please fix notifications - deeplearnerr
https://medium.com/@fairpixelsco/dear-apple-please-fix-notifications-647fe26ff1c4
======
untog
This smaller notification size would look pretty terrible on 4" devices like
the iPhone SE. In fact, it already looks kind of terrible in the mockup
provided.

IMO Apple is long overdue admitting that putting navigation buttons on the top
bar was a mistake. Fine in the era of the original iPhone, but as phones get
progressively bigger and taller, less so. The swipe back gesture works in most
situations, but I was a fan of Allen Pike's mockup of bottom navigation on the
iPhone X (or, "Pro", at the time):

[https://www.allenpike.com/2017/developing-for-iphone-
pro/](https://www.allenpike.com/2017/developing-for-iphone-pro/)

Having navigation at the bottom is one of the few things Android got
absolutely right at launch when compared to Apple. But back to notifications,
Android isn't great either: if a new notification arrives while I'm swiping
old ones away there's no consideration that I might not want to swipe away
something I haven't even read yet, so it disappears immediately and with no
way to get it back. Frustrating.

~~~
SentientNo4
> but I was a fan of Allen Pike's mockup of bottom navigation on the iPhone X
> (or, "Pro", at the time)

That looks too much like how Android navigation works. Apple will never go for
something like this.

~~~
dep_b
The Android back button is in the right position but does three things
depending on the application:

\- Go back one document (like internet) \- Go back one screen \- Leave the app

A lot of Android users just hammer the back button and then the application
icon again if they want to go to the Home screen of an application.

Also it's always there even if you don't have a document to go back to. Nor it
provides extra information about the previous document like the title.

Personally I would like a back button down there (next to the home button)
that also holds a miniature of the previous document that animates in and out
of place.

------
EdwardCoffin
This seems to me to be a special case of a more general problem which we've
been seeing for decades, which is that unexpected dialogues can manifest
themselves and then respond to user input intended for whatever application
they were interacting with before the dialogue showed up.

I've never been able to understand why the operating system does not manage
this case and ignore input that occurs within say 0.25 seconds of the
dialogue's appearance, on the grounds that humans generally can't react so
quickly to something they just saw, so they must not have really meant it.

~~~
beobab
I was thinking about this yesterday. Dozens of times I type a search into
cortana - see my item - click on it, and milliseconds before I click (but
before I can avert the action) the item changes. I have at times almost felt
the electrons racing down the nerves in my arm in my attempt to not click.

I like your idea of a .25 second delay. I can normally send a movement request
to my hand in about .13 seconds (fastest time I can click twice on a stopwatch
is .13 seconds), so .25 is good for me.

~~~
rayiner
This is maddening and makes me pine for the days before dynamic search result
lists.

------
NickBusey
I agree with the complaint, and this is a widespread UI flaw that extends far
beyond Apple, however I think his proposed solution isn't the best.

My generalized solution that would work in any interface layout is to add new
interface elements as disabled, and leave them disabled for maybe 1 full
second. This would eliminate 90% of false clicks on fast moving popups.

~~~
kipari
This seems like a better solution than what the author proposed. Another
thought could be that the pop-ups would only be disabled for the spatial parts
of the pop-up which have an interactive element located directly below.

~~~
csydas
I was imagining somethjng like this as well, but unfamiliarity with iOS made
me wonder if possible.

Personally I think the issue is slightly overstated (or I'm just not popular
enough and get fewer notifications) but my use pattern usually would naturally
lead me to ignore such notifications by turning them off completely. Only
messages get a pop-up for me on Android (or banner in iOS) and for large group
chats they only get buzzes or noises.

Maybe iOS and Android can have a priority group you can set for instant
delivery and then hold non priority notifications until a period of inaction
from the user, adding an small delay.

But really, the occurrence rate seems pretty low to me from my workflow. And I
live on my phone at work.

------
badgers
I'm not sure if it is possible, but for the iPhone Xs would it be possible
before deciding to show a notification to use the TrueDepth camera to take a
quick peek to see if a user's hand is near the top of the screen and delay the
notification until the area is clear?

~~~
djstein
now this is an actual innovative answer

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paulgb
> 2 seconds of agony, 3 times a day, that’s about 0.6 hours a year.

Kind of ironic to make this sort of calculation only to post it on medium,
where it can't be read until a pop-up nag is closed. I wonder how much agony I
accumulate in a year of accidentally clicking medium links.

~~~
untog
If you sign up for a Medium account you don't get any pop-ups. While I know
many would object to it, if you're looking at it purely in terms of agony per
year, it's an easy decision.

~~~
djtriptych
If you sign up, and

1\. Are currently logged in to Medium on your preferrred browser on every
computer you typically use.

2\. Are not in an incognito window.

3\. Are using the correct browser (e.g. don't be signed in via chrome then hit
a default browser link in ios).

------
kipari
I can see how the author finds this an issue, but I have to disagree with his
proposed solution. Halving the width of the notification in the way shown
would only work in the cases where the user is pressing buttons on the left or
right sides of the notification. If the notification width was to be variable
based on where it could be thought that the user would be pressing, the
notification's would have a very inconsistent look.

------
ballenf
Capacitive touch screens know when your finger is getting close to the screen.
Apple doesn't, afaik, open up that level of detail in its APIs, but it could
be used by the system to delay the display of a 3rd party overlay when the
user's finger proximity indicates a tap is imminent.

This same approach could be used to pause movement on a web page during mid-
render, for example if an ad or other content is late to load but the user is
already clicking on a link. How many times do we end up clicking on something
unintended because the page re-renders mid-tap/click?

Starting with the Samsung Galaxy S4 or S5 the phone had the ability to use
finger proximity as a highlighter of sorts. I loved it, but never saw the
functionality really used for more than visual candy effects.

------
intellent
While I completely understand the problem, I do not like your solution. To me
it doesn’t look as good as the original and takes away a lot of space for
information within the notification itself.

I’d rather build in a hidden timer, so taps on a notification only trigger an
app change after a certain amount of time. E.g. 0.5 seconds after it popped
up.

~~~
pvinis
Another problem they didn't consider for this solution, is the people that tap
the midde of the status bar to scroll to the top. With that solution, I still
go into "agony"-mode.

They didn't think of that. I guess in the same way that Apple didn't think of
the problem presented in that post.

Still, a solution is needed.

------
aseem
I've always wondered why Apple doesn't put navigation items on the bottom of
the screen much the way Android has soft keys on the bottom. It would solve
this problem and also make one handed navigation easier (or possible at all).

~~~
heavymark
Completely agree. Had hoped with iPhone X they would move to have interactions
at the bottom, since constantly involving reachability (which is now disabled
by default) to go to the top menus (since not all apps allow you to swipe from
the left to go back consistently). Several apps like Instapaper work great the
main navigation actions in the bottom. They have items in the top but those
are ones you won't need to access often. And they leave space at the bottom to
not interfere with the home button line area. Maybe we will see a push to this
UI direction from Apple officially in iOS12 as I imagine iPhone screens will
only get larger.

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sbenitoj
This would be a good change for them to make.

I wish they’d also force apps to differentiate between functional
notifications to actually use the app (eg “Your Uber has arrived!”) vs
advertising notifications (“Discounted Ubers today!!”) I want the former but
not the latter. Currently I don’t have that choice though, it’s all or none.

~~~
piva00
The latter is actually forbidden per the App Store guidelines:

 _4.5.3 Do not use Apple Services to spam, phish, or send unsolicited messages
to customers, including Game Center, Push Notifications, etc. Do not attempt
to reverse lookup, trace, relate, associate, mine, harvest, or otherwise
exploit Player IDs, aliases, or other information obtained through Game
Center, or you will be removed from the Developer Program._

 _4.5.4 Push Notifications must not be required for the app to function, and
should not be used for advertising, promotions, or direct marketing purposes
or to send sensitive personal or confidential information._

~~~
sametmax
Where can you report abuses ?

------
mokkol
This isn't something bothering me. What is bothering me is more than I get the
same notifications on different devices. I get Read This Email on my phone. I
read the email, 2 hours later I pickup my iPad and I see the same notification
while I already dealt with the email.

------
Cthulhu_
So you're saying that on a 4 inch screen, notifications should be made even
smaller. Hm.

Not everyone has the Plus model.

~~~
ajanuary
Smaller screens can keep it full width. The iPad (in some previous iteration,
don't know what it looks like now) already has notifications that don't span
the whole width. Seems reasonable other large screen non-iPad devices might do
the same thing.

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dantillberg
This is a rather general problem, and here's my general solution:

Currently(0), we use the same virtual grid for visual layout as for
mouse/touch interactions. If there's a box displayed visually, then there's a
corresponding box that's available to receive clicks. If that box moves 100px
down the screen, then the click-receiving box also moves 100px down the screen
_immediately_. If you clicked the original box's location _just as it moves_ ,
the computer replies with something like, "hey idiot, why did you just click
empty space?" Why can't the computer be a little less of a bully and recognize
the _intent_ of the user by looking into the past a little to see what the
user _tried_ to click?

Instead of keeping these grids in lock step with one another, the click/touch-
receiving grid should be delayed by 10-200+ milliseconds (and tunable --
esports players on one end and elderly/disabled folks on the other). This grid
from the past is _actually_ what you intended to click.

Back to the example above, if you click the box just as it moves, the click is
now checked against this slightly-old grid instead of the current (suddenly
changed) visual location of the box, and the computer correctly detects that
the click was aimed at the box.

0: in any system I've worked on; I imagine some system has tried to make this
better, though?

------
dewski
This article feels more like an ad for where the author works.

~~~
chaseha
A not great ad - the squished notification format looks terrible

------
zkomp
I disabled most notifications but is still occasionally hit by this; more
annoying imho is trying to use siri-app "suggestions", the exact moment you
press it often reorganize the icons making you enter something completely
unrelated!

------
Y-bar
> If only 0.002% of the 700M+ iPhone users have a similar experience on a
> daily basis, collectively these notifications are causing over 8400 hours a
> year of pain to users.

This echoes the Saving Lives[1] anecdote:

> "Well, let's say you can shave 10 seconds off of the boot time. Multiply
> that by five million users and thats 50 million seconds, every single day.
> Over a year, that's probably dozens of lifetimes. So if you make it boot ten
> seconds faster, you've saved a dozen lives. That's really worth it, don't
> you think?"
    
    
        [1] http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Saving_Lives.txt

~~~
dspillett
The problem with such calculations is the assumption (often incorrect) that
those little bits of "wasted" time would have been used for something more
productive and are anything more than statistical noise.

While my home machine came out of hibernation yesterday evening I stroked the
cat. I would have probably done that anyway while the authentication screen
waited for me, had it started up faster.

While my work machine started up this morning I discussed the outcome of one
of yesterday's problems with a colleague. This took several minutes so the PC
starting in 20 seconds instead of 30 would have made no difference at all.

~~~
freehunter
That's my reaction to that argument as well, whenever I hear it. "Over X
amount of time you're saving X minutes/hours/whatever". It's nonsense,
especially when we get into the seconds or microseconds, amounts of time
hardly worth saving.

There are far more important reasons to not interrupt someone's workflow than
"closing the notification takes precious seconds from my life". It's not the 2
seconds it takes to switch back to the other app, it's the 1 minute 45 seconds
it takes to get my mind back to my original task or the 23 minutes that I'm
distracted by whatever the attention-thief was.

Or worse yet, it's the lifetime and several hundred dollars when I become so
frustrated that I switch to another phone. It's the $3 and hours of use that
I've wasted when I switch to an app that doesn't demand push notifications.

Complaining about seconds wasted is ridiculous. If a second is "wasted",
you're losing a lot more than just that one second. Don't make your argument
based on the least impactful point.

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nottorp
That is, if you care about notifications.

Let's not forget that on iOS you can disable every notification, which is the
much better option.

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natch
Rather than a resize or a timer, I'd prefer to see the tappable area changed
to exclude the most commonly used hot spots on the screen, such as the top
left and right corner.

It could also detect when there is a tappable element under the tap-sensitive
middle of the notification, and introduce a short delay only in those cases.

If there was to be a delay, 0.5 seconds sounds way too long. More like 0.2 -
0.3 would be good, and in the meantime (during the delay) the banner could
pass the taps through to whatever element was visible before the notification
came along.

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willand31
The proposed solution sucks, but it is a valid problem that needs fixing.

~~~
elicash
Maybe just lower the notification by a half inch, so that the top of it is
below where the top nav links are? Could still, then, be full-width.

~~~
bowersbros
A better solution would be to use the status bar at the top, similar to how it
changes when "In call".

Have it change colour, and say "1 new Mail notification" etc, and if you tap
that, you get the proper context notification show up.

------
lev99
Reduced width of top notification would work well on the X and Plus, but would
be less usable on the smaller phones, with it being specifically unusable on
the SE.

With the exception of the iPhone X, all iPhone devices have almost identical
UX. In this way I do not think the author considered all of Apple's customers.
Furthermore the SE, 6s and 7 are entry level phones, and Apple has an invested
interest in attracting more entry level phone buyers, and in making current
entry level phone users have as smooth as possible upgrade experience.

When holding my phone one handed, and a notification appears I want to open, I
often tap the very side of a notification. Reprogramming my motion to reach
farther would require effort. This is a cost. The author makes no mention of
the costs of the UX change. Apple collects data on where a person taps on a
push notification and if it appears to be a mistake. Apple is in a place to
make data based design decisions. Fairpixel is not in a place to make data
based design decisions on Apple's operating systems.

The purpose of the article is not to inspire change in Apple's iOS, but to
push Fairpixel's brand as experts in UX/Design. I think it shows
impulsiveness. Suggesting changes on hundreds of millions of devices based on
evidence of one person's experience is irresponsible. Pretending like a change
in UX is 100% positive and will not have costs is dishonest. Marketing your
boutique firm as smarter then Apple at UX is arrogant. This article would
dissuade me from working with Fairpixel in the future if I were considering
it.

Edit: All edits are grammatical in nature.

------
instaheat
Can definitely relate. My only "solution" is to disable notifications for any
non-essential applications. Facebook for example.

~~~
conductr
I do this too but not for this reason. I just find most notifications are
annoying/spam.

~~~
instaheat
Agree

------
matt-attack
Wow, do people actually permit a new mail message to justify a Notification?
No wonder this guy has this problem. Notifications should be restricted to
communication channels explicitly intended for instant feedback (e.g.
iMessage). I turn off most other apps' ability to interrupt me. I just can't
conceive of a reason I need to be interrupted by most apps.

~~~
untog
Everyone's use case and life is different. Some people might need to instantly
react to an e-mail - there's no actual iron-clad reason why an iMessage is
more important than an e-mail, after all.

------
JohnStudio
Namely disable them. The website registration is about as annoying as pop-ups
now. It's one of those things, that once you open pandora's box on ... you
can't really put it back in the box.

I find notifications great for a phone, but terrible on implementation on
desktop. But maybe my workflow is more unique than most? Or maybe its just not
evolved. It drives me bananas, in general because its so abused.

The other portion of this is Cloud buy in. If you purchase a Cloud product
from Apple, the specific portion of Photos (the app) that unifies the
experience across platforms - iPhone, iPad, Mac desktop/laptops - does not
have one feature to back out photos and archive. You have to individually
select and the previous feature to "select all" or cntrl-click from start to
last on an image group has disappeared. They effectively make it impossible to
export a catalog.

 _argh!!!! JACKIE CHAN MEME!!!!_

------
bichiliad
Sorry for the long comment. TL;DR: this is a symptom of a larger problem
around how we use notifications.

I really don't like how notifications are used in general. They are a ui tool
that we would ideally use to interrupt ourselves when it's truly necessary,
but that's almost never the case[1].

When your screen is on, it's usually because you're doing something with your
phone. If a notification comes in during this time, it shouldn't be able to
disrupt your workflow unless you opt into that disruption. I love the idea of
using the status bar to give a heads up that there's a new notification in the
app. It's already used to provide a "back" button when you've opted to open an
app from a notification (which, granted, was a controversial UI decision), so
there is some precedent for it.

Generally though, most apps send you notifications when you don't need them.
I'd argue that users wouldn't hate being taken away from what they were doing
_as_ much if it took them to something both time-sensitive and actionable.
Notifications should be originate from a user's interactions (whether the
active user, like when setting reminders, or other users, like when sending
messages), and even then they should be used carefully. In the article, the
screenshot shows the user getting a notification about a promotional email.
There's almost never a scenario in which a user couldn't have waited until
later to read that promotion. I love that the Gmail app gives you the option
to only get notified for new emails in your inbox; that's a great first step.
Things like group chats are still pretty broken (you want to know when there's
unread messages in a chat, not every time someone in the group sends a
message).

[1]: [http://trydesignlab.com/blog/are-notifications-a-dark-
patter...](http://trydesignlab.com/blog/are-notifications-a-dark-pattern-ux-
ui/)

------
yeukhon
But one can argue about clicking the top while doing things like scrolling
upward and ready to click on an article on the page. There is a better fix
then shuffling the notification elsewhere. I argue a temporary freeze is
better - if there is no response from the user after one second, the user is
free to swipe up to hide the notification. This will prevent accidental click.
Yes, there is a possibility of in-between temporal display-and-click, but will
probably yield a better result. This needs research. One has to identify
common hotspot. This can be, however, at the expense of user experience. But
we can find a common ground or offer it as an option.

Another possibility is snoozing notification by learning how often a user will
read notification immediately, so that notifications will not display for
sometime.

------
johndoe490
What I'd like to see is a sort of queue for notifications while in quiet mode.

Just put them all in a queue similar to a twitter feed, that can be reviewed
later. This would be the best way imho to handle the need for focus.

Then people can decide to review these once a day, or multiple times a day,
but when it actually makes sense for them.

This would also require the ability to specify an exclusion for some apps (ie.
"notifiy always" vs "queue notification").

ps: the notification area is a sort of queue, but I don't want to see it on
the homescreen as it still is begging for attention. Put it away in a separate
app or area that can be reviewed _intentionally_.

------
dep_b
First of all those buttons shouldn't be up there to begin with. They're too
far away from the fingers of most users to tap comfortably one-handed after
Apple moved up to 4" screens and larger. Android has it in the right position
though that back button has other problems I won't go into here right now. The
"action" button(s) on the top right suffer from the same problem.

I would always put information on the top and buttons in the bottom half.
Unless it's stuff that's totally out of the normal flow of usage like a help
button or a feedback form.

That's the real fix of that problem.

------
bobajob23
Android simply lets you swipe the notification left to make it vanish - can
you not do something similar with Apple?

I guess its still an issue if you just want to ignore the notification for a
moment and not get rid of it yet however.

~~~
dbbk
Yes, you swipe it up. This is a nonissue.

~~~
kawfey
It is an issue, because as your finger is making its way to tap "Back" or
"Done" the notification pops under it. It's like when an ad loads directly
under your mouse cursor, overlaying something you want to click on, as the
neural signal to your click-muscle is already halfway down your arm.

------
monkmartinez
Great observation! This happens with Android as well. I really like the
solution, but would go even further. Give users an option to configure where
the notifications are displayed and per app control.

~~~
chrisrhoden
Android has more notification control, but I think the main reason that this
doesn't feel like as much of an issue on Android is that the back button is on
the bottom of the screen and the Up button isn't used nearly as frequently.

------
DennisP
I just block all notifications. Phones are much more pleasant that way.

~~~
bpicolo
Same. I allow lock-screen notifications from important things (mail, messages)
and disable every other notification. Getting constant notifications would be
my nightmare

------
TYPE_FASTER
Swipe left Siri suggested icons used to render, then move around depending on
your location, the last time you used the app. Similar UI, totally maddening,
and that changed in a recent release.

I'd prefer a setting where you would be notified after you returned to the
home screen. I'd like to finish the thing I'm doing before getting a
notification. Maybe you can accomplish the same thing by turning notifications
off, and just swiping down every once in a while?

------
mattbee
Cool observation - not as bad on Android due to a hardware back button, but it
still happens.

Or another option to solve it??? Just don't show notifications when the user
is "obviously" using their phone. e.g. if there's been any tap in the last 5s,
make the noise but don't show the pop-up until the screen has gone untouched
for 5s (the user can still swipe down from the top to see it).

~~~
natch
Good idea. Also, obviously using the phone could include when the front-facing
camera or sensor array (iPhone X) can clearly see that there is a finger
hovering close to the screen.

------
debt
I don’t mean sound curmudgeonly here but I haven’t turned on notifications in
nearly five damn years. They’re universally annoying.

I miss shit all the time but idc

------
tzakrajs
Allow taps to pass through the regions of the notification pane which have a
control underneath for 0.5 seconds after the notification pops up.

------
nibnalin
Here's an alternate solution: Have the sound for the notification play before
the popup actually appears on the screen, say 0.25 seconds.

~~~
zimpenfish
My phone is permanently on mute. How would that help me?

~~~
nibnalin
It does vibrate on notifications still, right?

I'd be willing to guess users who have vibrate turned off as well are a very
small percentage.

~~~
natch
I have all sounds and vibrations turned off. Works great in conjunction with
an Apple watch that has vibrations turned on. Not arguing with your percentage
guess; I'd guess the same thing... just saying there are some of us :-).

Edit: BTW the described idea probably wouldn't work with my Apple watch setup,
because it seems there can be some latency between the iPhone and the watch
with respect to notifications. I wouldn't want to get a vibration on the watch
then be wondering for a few seconds "when is something going to pop up on my
phone?" I realize technically the notification comes to the phone first under
the hood... but where it is displayed first is a matter of programming.

~~~
nibnalin
Very interesting. Slightly unrelated, but since this seems to be the primary
motive behind an Apple Watch(notification improvements), I'm curious how your
workflow works out for you?

Having seen how often the bluetooth/wifi calling and messaging fails b/w my
iPhone and Mac, I decided against trying an Apple Watch. Is it any better?

~~~
natch
There's not much workflow to it. Unfortunately I don't use the watch for much
other than two very useful functions: 1) getting bumped when there's an
incoming notification, or getting a hard to ignore vibration when I have an
incoming call; 2) using the "find my phone" feature, which is super convenient
compared to logging on to icloud.com, and makes your phone play a ping sound
even if it's otherwise silent.

Sometimes I have to turn on sound on the phone for things like Waze or for
playing videos or music. But the ringer stays off (due to settings).

The connection with the iPhone and Mac seems fine. However, with my watch (1st
generation) a couple of updates ago the lost phone ping feature got a new
unwelcome degree of latency. It can now take up to 30 seconds for the phone to
ping, where it used to be immediate. I don't know if this is the case for
newer models. Nor could I say whether the problem is on the watch side, or the
phone side (doesn't matter, I guess). But at least it still works.

------
imh
That's one solution, but random notifications are still a problem. There are
some apps where I want certain notifications, like "you have a new message,"
but other notifications are basically "hey! you haven't opened the app in a
while!" I need that granularity of control (or a report spam button).

------
cordite
I definitely hit this. Perhaps a size update would help, but I also feel that
there should be a slight invulnerability period so to say where taps on it do
nothing for half a second. Not noticeable for most intended use cases, but
provides a less agonizing context switching experience.

------
Splendor
Apple should make notification useful before they worry about this minor
annoyance IMO. I hate that doing something like reading the new email doesn't
dismiss the notification. I disable notifications for most apps because they
just give me one more thing to clean up.

------
siddhant
I wonder if it’s possible to keep track of what existed at the pixel (or
whatever the technically correct term to use here is) at the time the user
clicked there, and if a new notification overwrites that pixel, only apply the
user action to the previous notification.

------
rwc
Conversely, you’ve now put notifications in the most difficult to reach
position on the screen.

~~~
nkrisc
That might be fine. They'll continue to live in the notification tray, waiting
for you.

------
scoot
Not the notification issue I was expecting. On MacOS non administrative users
get notified of upgrades that they don’t have the appropriate permission to
act on, and can only defer the notification with “try again tonight”, or
“remind me later”.

Extremely frustrating.

------
Flimm
This is why I like Ubuntu Unity's notifications:

\- you can't click on them

\- if you hover them with the mouse, they go transparent

\- if you do try to click, the click will pass-through to the GUI element
underneath.

They never ever get in the way. And you can find them again if you miss one. I
like 'em.

~~~
singularity2001
and I thought this behavior (which drove me crazy) was a bug: you try to click
them and they fade away. what were they thinking?

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miles_matthias
Don't know what the solution is, but this happens to me _all_ the time too.

------
shill
I just want my sms messages to be correctly ordered by sent/received time
again.

~~~
zackkitzmiller
I think this is fixed in the most recent iOS version.

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AliAdams
It seems like not accepting any user interaction within the first 500ms for
popup dialogues / notifications like this would be a better solution than
crushing the notification into the middle of the screen.

------
zimpenfish
Another annoying failure mode is when you notice a notification and go to
dismiss it ... just as it disappears and now you're accidentally phoning
someone at 3am via WhatsApp/Viber/Messenger.

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apple4ever
This is definitely an annoying problem, but I don't like the solution. Rather,
they should just ignore the tap for a 250ms or so to allow people to process
what they want to do.

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twoodfin
I have this problem more often on the Mac than on iOS. In particular, Mail
notifications only have “Reply” and “Delete” actions.

Anyone know how to quickly dismiss these without taking an action?

~~~
nstom
You can swipe (with the trackpad or magic mouse, only works when the cursor is
hovering over the notification) or drag the notification to the right to make
it go away.

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vpribish
solution is easy to imagine and has been implemented before (I've seen it in a
video game that I can't recall specifically). If an unanticipatable navigation
element is activated less than ~.1 sec after appearing, ignore the command.
human reaction latency means that that could not have been intended.

I don't recall if the click was sent to the now-obscured target or if it was
just cancelled. either way, Apple could apply this to all notifications very
easily.

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KyeRussell
As someone with a visual impairment who has large text size turned on, I laugh
at the short-sightedness of this solution and associated Medium thinkpiece.

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zerostar07
And the alarm , which fails to wake me up, or oddly wakes me up ~30 minutes
later. And the random "reminders" that i get from 487 days ago.

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shaki-dora
> By the time I’ve navigated back to the Notes app and performed the
> originally intended action, I’ve experienced pure agony for about 2 seconds.

Is this a parody? Don’t people have real problems? This level of petty
self–indulgence is almost worrying.

I‘m not disputing that this may be a minor annoyance. But to invoke „agony“ is
an insult to anyone who has ever experienced real suffering or existential
dread.

And to slap on the old „Dear Apple“ cliché just to get your 15 minutes of
(limited) attention is somewhat sad.

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akhatri_aus
This is really really irritating on OS X when you want to hit something on the
toolbar or a tab.

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kj01a
Did iOS get rid of the "turn off banner notifications," or whatever it's
called, in settings?

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asimpletune
Couldn’t you still accidentally tap it?

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maxwellito
Maybe the option to double tap on the notification to open them? Thats simple
and doesnt break layout

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jonbarker
Feature idea: allow the user to change the app permissions directly in the
push notification.

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youngtaff
Just add a back button to iPhones - it's proven workable solution

~~~
pwinnski
There already is one when app-switching. So in the example described, the
writer would have ended up in Mail, and could then hit the upper-left corners
to get back to Notes immediately. Not even two seconds. Not even one second.

~~~
youngtaff
My daily driver is an iPhone, the touch area in the top left is nowhere near
as good as the 'physical' Android button

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nathan_long
Related beef: Apple wants me to update something on MacOS, and the pops a
notification with the options "Install Now" and "Details" \- meaning "Yes" or
"Tell me more!"

What about "No" and "Not right now"?

~~~
natch
I think they tried that, and found fewer people were updating.

No solution is perfect for everybody. There are tradeoffs. If you read between
the lines you can see that in this tradeoff, they are optimizing for getting
more people to stay up to date. Which has many benefits which arguably
outweigh the annoyance you experience.

~~~
nathan_long
Fair point.

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operatorequals
Now this is a "First world problem"...

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45h34jh53k4j
deal with the root cause, disable notifications.

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zeveb
This is solved nicely on Android with its back button …

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gnclmorais
Dear Apple, please disable notifications. Nobody needs them.

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dschuetz
Apple customer care: "We absolutely can help you! Please deactivate
notifications for the apps which bother you. Nothing as easy as that!"

~~~
jsjohnst
Except what if it’s an application I care about, but just not this 0.25
seconds?

Also, why the implied snark?

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iApplePro510
I honestly find myself taking a shit load of screenshots on the iPhone X. Now
that’s annoying af!

