
Apple News has a notification spam problem - atrain714
https://www.matthewcassinelli.com/apple-news-notification-spam-2/
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egypturnash
Is this really an app you want to leave notifications on for, period? It feels
like the kind of thing where you just say "okay now is time to Read Some News"
and go see what's new.

YMMV, I have generally turned off notifications for _everything_.

~~~
ovatsug25
You actually can't turn off notifications for it.

I've done it—and on a day when you get something like the Mueller report or
the Notre Dame fire—my phone will buzz. :/

~~~
skinnymuch
Yes you can. I have never gotten any notifications. You may have not done it
properly. I’ve never opened the news app. I just have had notifications off in
settings.

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j-c-hewitt
I turn it off and every so often Apple decides that no, I want their dumb news
notifications again. Then it goes off again. I have never received an Apple
News notification that was not dumb, stupid, and useless. It's sort of like
airport CNN except in your pocket that randomly turns itself on after you have
opted out of it.

~~~
threeseed
I would be filling a bug report over at
[http://bugreporter.apple.com](http://bugreporter.apple.com)

Definitely not normal for the OS to be ignoring notification settings.

~~~
garmaine
It's not ignoring so much ass the internal array of notification options
changes, or the app is upgraded across a major OS release, or something else
which causes a new or replacement notification setting to take on its default
value.

The problem, if anything, is that whatever test suite they run doesn't include
someone opting out of everything, applying the update, and then checking if
they are still opted out of everything ( _including_ new stuff that didn't
exist before).

~~~
JimDabell
This definitely doesn't sound correct. Aside from the fact that the default
for notifications is zero permissions, Apple don't keep adding new
notification types. I've never seen the type of "reset" you're talking about
in 10+ years of developing iOS apps.

If you're certain you've disabled notifications (Settings > News >
Notifications > Allow Notifications), then file a bug.

~~~
saagarjha
> the default for notifications is zero permissions

Not for Apple's apps. Also, note that as of iOS 12 apps can post "provisional"
notifications without asking for permission:
[https://developer.apple.com/documentation/usernotifications/...](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/usernotifications/unauthorizationoptions/2993019-provisional)

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tomduncalf
It’s a shame Apple have not been as strict about spammy notifications as they
have about other aspects of iOS. I realised the other day that I automatically
don’t allow notifications for virtually any app, primarily because I expect
it’s going to spam me. Some apps would actually be enhanced by notifications
but I never allow it.

The default notifications allowed for any app should be only relevant, action-
based ones (“you have a new x!”, “time to practice your x!”, “user x remixed
your track” etc.) with an extra opt-in for spammy attention grabbing ones of
these are really needed.

~~~
jakobegger
Usually when an app sends a spam notification, I just delete the entire app.

For many apps getting push notifications would be the only reason that I
install them. But if they then go on to send me spam instead of helpful
notification, I don't see the point in using their service.

~~~
enumjorge
Could you share some examples of apps that you’d install mainly for their push
notifications?

~~~
jakobegger
A recent example is "willhaben", it's an Austrian classifieds website (like
craigslist), and you can use it to message sellers/buyers. It would be useful
to get push notifications on my phone when someone replies to my messages, but
since they send spam, I deleted the app.

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adnanazadsg
This is something I had noticed as well. Its really surprising that Apple
would allow this, since they usually care a lot about user experience. And
judging by the amount of notifications - I'd be very surprised if there's
anyone left who hasn't turned on notifications for the news app.

I wonder why they wouldn't just compile a Morning and Evening digest and send
notifications only then (even that would be aggressive in my opinion - but I
wouldn't be overwhelmed.)

I really miss the days of RSS and Google Reader.

~~~
hutattedonmyarm
I still and happily get most of my news from my RSS feed

~~~
adnanazadsg
What RSS reader do you use?

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knowingathing
I had this problem but then I spent 7 seconds turning off Notifications for
News.

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SyneRyder
There is a really, really good article from NiemanLab interviewing the
Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) about their use of Apple News
notifications. This notification spam is exactly what they/publishers want.
The Apple News notifications are used to A/B test what gets clicks against all
their competitors running the same story, and they use that Apple News
notification clickthru data to tweak which headlines & notifications they send
via their own app and on their own website - the platforms they _really_ want
you to use.

Stat from the article: nearly 5% of the Australian population have opted in to
the ABC's Apple News push notifications.

Australia’s Public Broadcaster Is Using Apple News Push Alerts To Reach New,
Younger Audiences

[http://www.niemanlab.org/2017/03/australias-public-
broadcast...](http://www.niemanlab.org/2017/03/australias-public-broadcaster-
is-using-apple-news-push-alerts-to-reach-new-younger-audiences/)

The full article is really worth the read - especially the part about the
notifications the ABC were going to send to target female runners at sunset.

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Bud
This is an article in search of a problem.

It takes 5 seconds to disable ALL notifications from this (or any other) app.

~~~
discordance
The problem is that this is the default behavior of Apple News and is poor
design. It doesn't even align with Apple's own Human Interface Guidelines[0],
which states "If you send multiple notifications for the same thing, you fill
up Notification Center, and users may turn off notifications from your app."

[0]: [https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-
guideline...](https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-
guidelines/ios/system-capabilities/notifications/)

~~~
JimDabell
> The problem is that this is the default behavior of Apple News

This is not the default behaviour. No application has permission to send you
notifications unless you enable it.

~~~
jimboj
That's not true for Apple's own apps. News can send notifications without you
enabling them (like you have to for 3rd party apps). I've even submitted a bug
report about this and it was closed as "working as intended".

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newsroll
This is a problem even without Apple News+.

When Apple News came out I really liked the idea of having a single place to
get pushed real breaking news as they happened. But sadly Apple News (and
News+) is not that. Some of it is on the publishers and media (ie everything
is considered "breaking" these days) but I think Apple is also part of the
problem by pushing out stories on their official[1] breaking news channels
that are not in fact really breaking news or news at all. I'm not talking
about the biases either, but it has pushed me notifications about active
shootings (good) and sports (bad) using the same breaking news headlines.

[1] one of the confusion is probably what is and isn't an official channel. If
i can't figure out if the channel is a hand curated one vs one generated by a
faulty AI then that's a problem.

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bradleybuda
From just a few days ago:
[https://twitter.com/bradleybuda/status/1119022752092921857](https://twitter.com/bradleybuda/status/1119022752092921857)

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dhruvarora013
I encountered this problem very recently as well. I like receiving
notifications for Breaking News but I don't need notifications for lifestyle
suggestions. Unfortunately there is no classifier for this in the News App. My
workaround was to go into the settings for News and turn off notifications for
every media outlet other than the New York Times. It's definitely not fool-
proof but keeps more sane.

There however seems to be no way to automatically get rid of notifications on
my iPad once I have read them on my phone...

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52-6F-62
I don’t seem to be having the same problem as others.

I get the odd notification, but they’re rare. I have notifications left on for
the app on my phone and work and home computers all.

Seems inconsistent somehow?

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saagarjha
Apple's services products are noticeably spammy and it bothers me. News's
alerts is one, but others in this category include Apple Music's trial offer
notifications and iCloud's badges to upgrade your storage plan. Honestly,
these all feel like they're in poor taste (I'd bring up the Human Interface
Guidelines, but they don't really apply in this case) and I think they annoy
people and might cause more harm than good.

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mark_l_watson
I turned off notifications for the News app a long time ago, so I never
noticed this problem.

The author just read ‘Digital Minimalism’ which is a good book so far (I am
almost half way through reading it). Like the author, from reading this book I
have been very mindful of use time on digital devices.

~~~
nottorp
Some people have turned off all notifications without reading any book ;)

Incidentally, I know this is iOS, but the OS X of old was very good at not
letting any background stuff disturb your work. These days we have
notifications even on the desktop and apps that steal the focus just because
they displayed a dialog. Not even Apple is what they used to be.

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tareqak
I wonder if there is any value for Apple to make an RSS reader comparable to
what Google Reader was, and have some way for readers to pay or donate to the
publications they subscribe to?

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jpz
This is a problem - I was getting 10-30 notifications a day - I've just
switched off notifications for this app.

It's a shame, as I'd like to be notified if some proper breaking news of
significance actually happens. One of my notifications for instance was on
Princess Eugenie's 29th birthday.

I have zero interest in lifestyle stories, let alone those of the royalty - it
is utter spam.

~~~
andersonnnunes
Yeah, the way to go is with a feed reader, so you can set up filters. Takes a
while, but nothing is better than having your own personalized news feed.

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granaldo
I stopped looking at notifications now

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PaulHoule
That notification screen is a sight for sore eyes.

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notimetorelax
I like how this negative publicity reminded me of Apple News and now I’m
thinking of trying it out!

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snypox
There is no bad PR, huh

~~~
notimetorelax
Heh, my comment doesn’t working out that well for me.

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martin-adams
I dislike Apple news purely because when my iOS device updated, the icon was
added to my home screen, and within one tap I was presented with a tragic new
story. I felt this was a step too far as I carefully choose when to consume
news and Apple shouldn't have made that decision for me.

