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.
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.
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.
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?).
Not only that, but now Apple is probably going to be very aggressive about kicking apps off the app store if they find even a single notification in the non add stream that they, in their sole estimation, consider to be an ad.
This might be a trap feature. I could easily see it being used to allow apple a reason to get rid of you.
As a user, good! I hate the fact that there are certain apps that to use properly I have to have push notifications on or it severely restricts the functionality of the app (uber eats for example). Then they send promotional ads to me which I can’t turn off which is really annoying.
I’m excited for Apple to enforce this policy. Yet another example of Apple being pro user.
Why should Apple be the police, they don’t even currently police their apps in a uniform way. So many apps violate the guidelines but are still in the AppStore.
I welcome the change but I’ve also seen Apple be a bully.
> Why should Apple be the police, they don’t even currently police their apps in a uniform way.
This argument could be used for any decision that Apple makes regarding the AppStore. While I dislike some of the policy decisions being made in the AppStore, I don't see any downsides with this specific case. Developers just have to clearly label promotional notifications going forward, no harm done. Users will be much better off with more fine grained control over what kind of notifications they receive. What's the big deal here?
There are some bad apps which will abuse it and use only one category for the important things and ads. But mostly - it's ok. Enforcing a channel for ads would be even better.
Yeah this works really well on Android, I'm surprised Apple hasn't taken a similar approach.
You don't want ads from Uber but still want a push when your ride arrives? Just block the ads channel in settings.
As you said I'm sure there's some bad apps out there that only have one channel, but I haven't noticed any. The big apps seem to support this quite well.
Don't enforce things if on average they already work. You don't know the second order effects. Currently developers have to balance spamminess versus people opting out completely, which probably diminishes future use of the app. That's a nice informal balance. Formalizing it may lead to much more spamminess since hey, you can always opt out.
> A built-in/centralized way in iOS to accomplish this
That would rely on the senders tagging the pushes correctly, as "ad" vs. "not-ad", which would ultimately fall back to App Store review enforcement anyways.
Funny I have had the opposite complaint of not getting any more reminders after the 1st month... since roughly 2 years.. and across different Android devices. They even have a setting for reminders and what time they should occur. I reported the bug multiple times and left reviews but the problem remains. I ended up resorting to cluttering up my Google Calendar with daily reminders.
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.
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.
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.
The problem is that sideloading is so difficult on iOS (you need a Mac, XCode, and then, after spending that $1k you realize that to keep the app on your phone for more than a couple days-one week, you have to pay Apple $99 per year) that people who would usually help open-source projects (where you use whatever tools you want and a free toolchain), have a much higher opportunity cost to getting involved with a iOS project.
If Apple had a mythical developer mode/SEP disengage button (like Macs and Chromebooks do) that voided the warranty, disabled the secure enclave (therefore Apple Pay and system-wide encryption), and put a big warning on the lockscreen in exchange for sideloading access to make development easier/cheaper, I think more people would do it.
Or if they let you build and compile apps on the iPad Pro that is super powerful but still can't be used for anything more taxing than word processing, but I've ranted about that on hn too much.
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.
Catalina's security is significantly more useful that Vista's. Unlike accepting a UAC prompt, which was equivalent to running as root and often required for innocuous apps to function correctly, while allowing non-UAC approved apps to access and delete almost all of the logged-in user's own data and files, Catalina has a sandbox feature that protects untrusted apps from accessing even the own user's files/photos/contacts/etc, while almost no apps ever require root permissions
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 :)
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.
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.
While I mostly agree that this would be abused, I disagree that there's no scenario where this is beneficial.
It's like email updates from online retailers. I unsubscribe from the majority of them, but I allow a couple of retailers I like to send me promotions.
> It's like email updates from online retailers. I unsubscribe from the majority of them, but I allow a couple of retailers I like to send me promotions.
Notifications are for when you need to know about something immediately and it's okay to interrupt you for it. How many of these retailers do you want that from? What's the benefit for the end-user over an email?
It's Friday, it's 4pm, I'm about to wind down for the weekend.
In London the biggest private hire cab firm that isn't Uber is Addison Lee. They sometimes send out a notification along the lines of "It's the weekend, enjoy it with us: £5 off your next 4 trips". Perfect. In the past I've changed my plans around that sort of advertising.
In an email, I'd miss it. It's timely, context aware advertising from a brand I'm happy to use and hear from, particularly in that moment.
The key here is that I can opt out of them, not that they appear everywhere no matter what: I can tell companies if I want to hear more from them in this manner.
I'm not an expert in ad affairs. With this information on the table, consider the following:
I subscribe to a "price alert" for a product in my sellers app. The price gets triggered, and because there's a lot of demand for this item, I have to be fast.
This, for me, would justify the "push notification".
But, would this also be considered an "ad"? From the definition of the word "advertisement"[1], which says it's "a notice, picture or film telling people about a product, job or service", it would qualify as an ad.
If there is no way to harass people with notifications for "price alerts", there will also be no incentive to create artificial pricing systems with sudden "promotions", meant to hijack users' attention and cognitive sovereignty.
Don't fall for the tricks. Think about the systems your are engaging with all the way to the end, and consider if you are being manipulated. This is an environment where it pays to be paranoid, because big companies are devoting a huge amount of resources to trick you.
I would say, treat this stuff as one should treat nutrition. Simple is better for your health. If you don't understand how something is made, or what its purpose is, you should probably avoid it.
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.
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)
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.
Exactly. My mother is a dedicated coupon-clipper on a fixed income, and she would be delighted if a grocery store offered her a couple customized chances to save money every time she walked in.
Also, let's not ignore that the headline is backwards: Apps can send ads via notifications right now, what Apple has done is made it a separate permission, so that users can turn off ads and keep other notifications.
They wouldn't, because they earn millions off of apps like Uber and co. It's why Youtube is more tolerant of bad behaviour of high-profile (read: high-viewer, high-income) channels, and Twitter hasn't banned Trump and his bots yet - they make too much money off of it, both directly and indirectly ('engagement', network effects, etc).
Apple forced Uber to stop their location-tracking shenanigans when they were found out.
I agree that such large apps are treated somewhat differently than smaller ones—anyone smaller than Uber would have been banned outright. That’s due to demand from
Apple’s customers, though, and not
Uber directly paying Apple.
But Uber still had to rush and submit a new version of its app. They didn’t seem to believe Apple was making hollow threats, nor do Facebook and Google and all the other big players adhering to Apple’s policies.
Even if Apple wanted to allow larger apps breaking the rules, they couldn’t. It would be very obvious if some apps were allowed to send ads and others weren’t, and it would lead to all kinds of problems in the court of public opinion and possibly a real one.
Directly from Uber? They don't make much money - Uber pretty much pays just for the Apple computers as well as Apple Developer Program.
However, this doesn't mean there is no gain for Apple in it as Apple is investing in Uber. That, and not having Uber could make users move to Android devices.
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.
I'm not clear what you think push notifications are. They're what you seem to describe as "normal notifications".
The news notifications you're getting are the same push notifications that other apps have had for over a decade.
The most unfortunate thing is that, if you configure settings inside an app, half the time it's disrespected and that setting is changed later. It's safer to change in the Notifications center in iOS (eg, in the phone preferences, rather than in the app preferences).
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.
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?
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.
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.
There are a lot of apps that are basically made of notifications. When I install Signal I want it to immediately ask me if sending notifications is ok so that I can say yes.
The app checks for notifications authorization on every startup, and the system checks it against stored user settings. To establish the user settings initially, the system pops up the dialog the first time you run an app with notification capabilities.
No, that's not the case. The user only gets a prompt if the app requests permissions. The user doesn't get a prompt if all the app does is check for authorisation – the state is returned to the app as UNAuthorizationStatus.notDetermined without showing a prompt.
If an app prompts the user for permission to send notifications as soon as it starts up, then it's the app's fault. It's been known to be bad practice (and counter-productive) for many years.
I do not think this is the case, I had a lot of apps require notifications permission at a separate page with a question asking the user if they would like to receive notifications from this app and pop up the system notification permission dialog after the user taps "I want notifications" button.
Interestingly, I run exactly this in one of my apps. A lot of users never actually figure out my app has notifications, but I sleep a lot better at night knowing that I'm not annoying people with prompts.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
