
Apple now allows iOS developers to send ads using push notifications - Dutchie2020
https://www.developer-tech.com/news/2020/mar/05/apple-ios-developers-send-ads-push-notifications/
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sanedigital
Depending on how this is implemented, this could actually be a step in the
right direction. Lots of apps already send "promotional" push notifications
(including big names like Lyft and Uber). The only way to turn them off was to
turn off all notifications, which meant missing actual important updates. If
this change means being able to opt-out of one without losing the other, I'm
all for it.

~~~
a_imho
Interestingly I interpret the article as apps were abusing push notifications
without a second thought in the past when it was explicitly against the
guidelines, I fail to see how they will self moderate now some of it is even
allowed.

With the ample data we have so far it most probably will lead to dark UI
patterns with dysfunctional opt-outs and/or blanket consents at most if
someone takes it seriously at all.

~~~
amelius
Then these apps would be removed from the app store, I suppose.

~~~
fmajid
Apple's enforcement of the app store rules is sporadic at best, specially the
widespread abuse of notifications for marketing.

~~~
rekoil
But perhaps the reason they have been so lax in enforcing that particular rule
is because they know they are doing it themselves in their own apps, and
didn't want to attract lawsuits?

If so, now that they are introducing this new functionality they might start
looking more carefully at notification system abuse.

~~~
solarkraft
They don't seem to concerned about lawsuits, considering the advantages their
own apps get on the platform.

They seem to enforce the guidelines purely based on politics (whether the
publisher has friends at Apple and how important the app is to the ecosystem).

I do wish they'd be legally bound to treat everyone the same way (EU?).

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makecheck
The problem to me is that it is increasingly difficult to find software that
is just useful, without disrespecting users constantly.

There are tons of issues in the App Store off the top of my head that I would
_rather_ Apple solve first (“making advertising easier” is #67422 on the
list). And incidentally, their changes to search have made it incredibly hard
to find apps I want, while adding...advertising!

Now, every day at least, when I open an app _because I want to do something
immediately_ , at least one will instead disrespect my time by popping up some
modal first. “New features!” ”Promotional offer!” “Don’t you want to give us
your E-mail first!?!?” Actually, no: I launched your app because I wanted to
get something done, and your ad has made it slower.

Same with notifications, especially if you have secured your lock screen so
that the subject of the notification is not immediately apparent. I want
_useful_ things, and I want everything else to go away. This seems like
another step sideways or backwards from useful software.

~~~
rudolph9
I wish there were more open source iOS apps. Recouping development costs is
probably a big driving factor and provided I haven’t dabbled in building iOS
apps in years I imagine the open source community driven scene hasn’t hasn’t
changed much in the iOS community and turn costs remain high.

~~~
dahfizz
The problem is that it costs money to develop iOS apps. Even just the
$100/year or whatever it is, is enough to severely discourage open sourcing
your apps.

On Android, you can create apps for free in your spare time and distribute
them however you want. The lower barrier to entry means a lot more open source
hobby projects.

Distribution is another big issue. Even if you found an open source iOS app,
how are you going to run it on your own device? You can only run apps blessed
by apple or pay the developer fees to compile it yourself.

Apple severely restricts the hobby/ open source market from both ends.

~~~
tracker1
While you can use a third party build system, you pretty much have to buy mac
hardware at inflated pricing as well to develop for iOS.

------
Razengan
After Catalina's increase in ostentatious nagging for the supposed sake of
security, something they made fun of Microsoft for during Windows Vista [0], I
really hope there isn't some paradigm shift inside Apple to become just as bad
regarding alerts and popups.

[0] [https://i.imgur.com/442C7Ij.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/442C7Ij.jpg) (slide
from an ancient WWDC)

~~~
saagarjha
I'm not sure they "get it", to be honest; most of the engineers run with
security protections disabled so they don't see these…

~~~
amake
> most of the engineers run with security protections disabled so they don't
> see these…

Are you talking about engineers within Apple? What is your source for this
information?

~~~
saagarjha
nvram boot-args="amfi_get_out_of_my_way=0x1"

~~~
hundchenkatze
Sure, the option may exist, but that doesn't mean that Apple developers use it
daily.

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Tepix
As a consumer, i uninstall such apps. One example is the german „KaufDa“ app
which was quite useful to me. I complained about the unwanted push messages
and their support pretended to be dumb. I ended up uninstalling it.

Only if consumers refuse to accept these annoyances it will stop.

~~~
MrMember
I was an Audible subscriber for 5+ years until they started sending ads
through push notifications with no way to disable them (media controls are
done through the notification system on Android so I didn't want to disable
them at the OS level). I canceled my subscription and told them why.

~~~
therealdrag0
I don't remember every having notifications so I went looking. Found them all
disabled: [https://imgur.com/QKdDIqz](https://imgur.com/QKdDIqz)

~~~
MrMember
I had all of the notification options disabled in the app and I was still
getting them. I even submitted a support request thinking it was maybe a bug
but the response I got back was that it wasn't possible to disable the
notifications I was getting.

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kdtsh
Not that it makes it okay for Apple to allow this, but it goes without saying
that any app that does this, paid or unpaid, is getting immediately
uninstalled.

~~~
lilyball
Or you could just turn off the ads, since the article says apps will be
required to have a way to do so.

~~~
onion2k
I'd still uninstall the app.

~~~
yreg
Would you uninstall Uber if they sent you a coupon via push notification?

~~~
onion2k
I've uninstalled lots of apps when they've sent coupons via notifications.
Notifications are to notify me about things I need to act on. They are not a
marketing channel. So, yes.

~~~
ajscanlan
If you had the option to block the marketing notifications but still receive
the important ones, would you do that?

~~~
onion2k
That depends. A business that uses notifications for marketing isn't one I
want to do business with. If there's a decent competitor I'll switch. If there
isn't then I'll decide to begrudgingly put up with it (and probably complain a
bit on social media) or to do without it.

So far I've never put up with it and always either switched to a competitor or
abandoned the whole thing.

------
martinbeentjes
From what I understand is that this an actual step in the right direction as
Apple is formalizing how users get these ad-notifications.

> The new rules will only permit sending push advertisements to users if they
> agree to it. Users must also be able to opt-out of the ads whenever they
> want.

With their growing policy on advertising, tracking and privacy I think they
will move towards not allowing advertorial push notifications unless an user
allows.

------
adonese
I turn off all notifications except for sms and calls. And even for sms, i
muted most of the operator promotional sms. The urge to check for the phone
and the demand that you have to check for this notification was killing me.
Surprisingly enough, _some_ people would go nuts when seeing a kid nagging in
demand of certain thing, while they are totally ok with their apps doing the
exact same thing and even worse

It comes with a gotcha though, as i sometimes check some chat apps awaiting
for response, but the good thing is when that happens i notice it, and it is
not the norm.

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aedron
I have some hope that the EU will outlaw promotional push notifications that
are not opt-in, similar to email spam. As it stands, push notifications are
almost entirely useless because of all the noise.

~~~
bad_user
What apps do you use?

I'm an iPhone user, I have a lot of apps on it, I receive a lot of
notifications and I get no promotional notifications. I hope the " _almost
entirely useless_ " line was hyperbole :)

~~~
robszumski
Lyft is the abuser on my phone. I'm close to removing all notifications for
it, but they are kind of an important part of using the product...

~~~
bad_user
Ah, I don't use Lyft. In my city in addition to Uber we've got Bolt (Estonian,
ex Taxify), Yandex Taxi (russian) and Clever Taxi (something local).

If you have the possibility ditch them, because promotional crap in the
context of a payed service, with no way to easily turn it off, is an abuse
IMO.

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JensRex
How about Apple bring down the hammer on apps that are abusing notifications
right now (or you just uninstall them), instead of allowing ways to shove more
ads into peoples eyeballs.

There is no scenario where this is a benefit to the consumer.

~~~
samatman
Sure there is. Walk into a grocery store, get a push notification for some
sale items.

There are also plenty of annoying things developers can do with it. I'll turn
those off, or more likely uninstall the app.

~~~
tcd
That's....Not beneficial, at least in terms of what is going on behind the
scenes.

1: App knows your location - most likely is profiting from that

2: App can see how often you visit $place, all for the cost of a few 'sale'
items.

3: More extensive profiling can possibly occur, depending on what data the OS
allows you to access.

As apposed to:

1: Walk to shop, no smartphone, see discounts inside shop.

There's 0 reason this information needs to be presented via any form of
'notification'. It could literally be done by $shop.com/discounteditems.txt.

~~~
jw1224
Of course it's beneficial! Can you not put yourself in the shoes of a normal
consumer and recognise that?

They probably don't care if the app is tracking their location to tell how
often they visit the shop.

In exchange for this inconsequential sacrifice to their privacy they get easy
and convenient discounts, tailored to them, when they go about their daily
routine.

I'm privacy-conscious and technologically literate, and even I wouldn't have
much issue with this example if it would save me some money.

~~~
cloverich
You see geo location data that can (and is) re-sold throughout the industry
and aggregated by political parties as inconsequential? (Intentionally extreme
example, but this is not hyperbole)

~~~
jasonlotito
Not the person you were asking, but no, I don't see that as significant. There
are other far more significant things in my life. Data being aggregated about
me isn't a significant issue in my life. It seems like most people are this
way.

------
izzydata
I've only recently heard of push notifications. I feel like we are being
inundated with so many notifications that we now need a super notifications.
Where does this notification creep end? Normal notifications should be
perfectly acceptable if things weren't spamming that method to begin with. I
feel like notifications and eventually push notifications will go the way of
the phone call. You won't even bother looking at them anymore because you know
it has such a high chance of being nothing.

At any rate anything that puts an ad in my notifications is as good as
uninstalled. I'm already unsure how to turn off the news push notifications
that I'm getting now.

~~~
hundchenkatze
If you've used iOS or Android within the last 12 or so years then you've
almost certainly received push notifications.

Google introduced Google Cloud Messaging [0] in 2007 and Apple introduced
Apple Push Notification service in 2008 [1].

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Cloud_Messaging](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Cloud_Messaging)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Push_Notification_servic...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Push_Notification_service)

------
aguyfromnb
Judging by the number defenders of advertising every time one of these sorts
of threads shows up on HackerNews, it's astonishing to me how many people's
livings are dependent on this garbage.

~~~
rtkaratekid
I’m amazed as well! Notifications are like permission for strangers to
interrupt my life at their leisure. I don’t want their coupons, their
announcements, their... whatever else. I’ve got important things in my life
that I want to give my attention to and the last thing I need is a direct line
into my pocket, desk, and home to try and get my attention. To me this sounds
like a dystopian society where ad agencies rule the world. I recognize that
not everyone is as extreme as me, but why can’t we agree that such
notifications are not the best thing for us?

~~~
Kaze404
I agree. I ended up turning all notifications off except for the ones that I
do want to be interrupted for (like texts from my SO or Uber) and my time
spent on the phone decreased significantly.

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8fingerlouie
It's fine.

Personally, any app that insists on spamming me with adds is not worth my
time, and i replace it with "something" else that fits the bill.

The same goes for apps that have subscription models, apps that require access
to gps/microphone/etc without an explicit need for it.

I've replaced about 20 such apps in the past couple of years.

I understand that not everybody is willing to make that move, but everybody
has the option to do so.

~~~
amelius
Sounds nice in theory, except: network effects.

~~~
8fingerlouie
As i said, i understand not everybody is willing. I personally am willing to
do it for the most part.

There are of course apps/services where it's not practical, like facebook
which seems to have become the worlds social life agenda, and even my kids
school posts arrangements through facebook.

That doesn't mean that Facebook has the run of my phone, in fact i don't even
have the app. I use the web interface along with content blockers (1Blocker)
and PiHole/PFBlockerNG on my network.

Almost every service has some option to at least limit your exposure.

------
Razengan
Throwing a "This app wants to send you notifications" dialog as soon as you
launch an app for the first time, should be banned.

~~~
tasogare
Conversely, I find it really useful to block any notification from the get go.

~~~
ajscanlan
Notifications are blocked by default.

~~~
saagarjha
They're only blocked when you don't allow them.

~~~
ajscanlan
If the app doesn't ask, they can't send them. They're opt-in.

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axismundi
This is ok as long as it's explicitly opt in and I'm not going to be nagged
every week to opt in for the same thing.

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oefrha
> People with an app installed for their favourite clothing brand, for
> example, may welcome a push notification to alert them when a sale is on.

So this wasn’t allowed before? But those “check out this stupid post from that
random stranger” push notifications were allowed (maybe not on paper but
definitely in practice)? Seems only fair then.

~~~
deergomoo
Promotional push notifications were technically against the rules but it was
never enforced. Hell, Apple does it themselves.

~~~
yreg
App Store rules / human interface guidelines don't apply to Apple. They
believe they (as opposed to 3rd party devs) don't need these restrictions to
ship secure, high-quality apps with a great experience.

Whether they succeed is debatable, but the reasoning (although perhaps unfair)
is understandable.

------
izacus
Does iOS have notification channels like Android? So you can disable the ads
and keep other notifications from one app?

~~~
ewidar
Right now there is only one notification channel.

And indeed, the plan seems to separate ads and genuine notifications into two
channels, similar to what Android apparently currently has (not an Android
user).

You can then decide which channel should be enabled.

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mlang23
Apps like "Bring!" are already far too spammy with their notification. The
moment I see the first real _ad_ pushed as a notification, I will disable
notifications completely, for all apps.

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butterfi
Apple has already conditioned me to turn off notifications, now they just seem
to be doubling down on how obnoxious notifications can be.

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gentleman11
Skip the dishes spams you with ad-like notifications, but you need
notifications turned on for the app to be fully useful. I just uninstalled it.
It’s incredibly rude. What’s next, YouTube sending me push notifications to
buy Dominos

(they have been showing me dominos ads every time I go to the grocery store,
even when I pay with cash and have location turned off)

------
radley
There's an obvious reason for the change: Apple plans to push their new
subscription services heavily via the OSes.

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auiya
Sounds bad on initial read, but to me this is a great shortcut for which
applications to uninstall.

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whatsmyusername
I’m fine with this. If an app is push notifying me with Ads I know I need to
uninstall it.

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throwaway55554
Any app that spams my notifications with ads is an instant delete. Apps that
did this in the past are not going to adhere to the "guidelines". Apple will
be kinda lax at enforcing them if history is any predictor of the future.

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uyuioi
I have turned off all Instagram notifications (in their settings) and still I
get their junk notifications of who to follow and what to think. Hate it. If
these ads are anything like this. Consider notifications off completely.

~~~
Tepix
Did you know that you can use instagram in your browser? The only thing that‘s
missing without the app is video upload.

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PZWaRzU2HVh63Tk
I thought this was allowed for apps in Chinese AppStore? All big-name apps
like Taobao, WeChat, Didi sent me unwanted promotional notifications

~~~
dwhl
In theory, promotional notifications were banned but in practice, it was never
enforced, with even Apple's own apps breaking this rule.

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swiley
So ads can get pushed to my phone but not IRC mentions and PMs?

I’m done with this. Now I need to get iMessage working in qemu...

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ubermonkey
If you send me a promotional push notification, odds are I'm going to delete
your fucking app.

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nraynaud
My bank was already sending me advertisement by push notifications on my
phone.

~~~
dewey
A lot of apps did, even Apple itself for Apple TV+, Apple Music (and they got
criticized a lot for that as it was against their own rules).

The idea of having finer grained permissions for that kind of notification
seems reasonable to me.

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kalium-xyz
They lost the battle it seems.

