I, like many, were saddened to hear that absolutely no changes were announced to the iPhone’s notification system during the iPhone OS 4.0 keynote. Push notifications themselves are fantastic, and a great workaround for multitasking (despite OS 4.0 finally getting it) at the time. However now that I have just over a dozen push enabled applications, plus text messaging, I’m starting to realize that the honeymoon is quite over. The pop-over just doesn’t work. My complaints breakdown into three categories:

  1. Interruption
  2. Stacking
  3. Missed notifications

See what I mean, after the break.

Interruption

I’m right in the middle of playing a fast paced round of Bejeweled 2 when I get a notification from Facebook telling me that “Becky has written on my wall.” If I’m right in the middle of something intense, the notification may or may not pause my game (depending on how the developer set it). This leaves me quickly smashing the “Close” button to try and recoup my lost time. Alternatively, it could pop-over just a second before I tap where the “Open” button resides. My intention was to slide that blue jewel but instead, my progress is lost and I’m being taken away to Facebook.

Stacking

So I’m on the phone with my mother, we’re talking about my new apartment, the cat, and my plans to visit next. *boo doo doo!* I get a text message. *boo doo doo!* *boo doo doo!* *boo doo doo!* *boo doo doo!* *boo doo doo!* *boo doo doo!* *boo doo doo!* *boo doo doo!* *boo doo doo!* *boo doo doo!* *boo doo doo!* I get a dozen more messages from my brother, spamming my phone while I talk to our mother, on purpose (to annoy me). The prank continues until I cannot take it any longer, I must hang up the call and get back to her when my brother stops being a doofus.

I pull my phone from my face and see the text message alert. I hit close. The next alert pops up. I hit close again. Rinse and repeat until I’ve cleared all the messages. The pop-overs prevent me from clicking “End Call” for as long as I have a notification available. The same would be said for putting a call on hold, or changing to speakerphone. Talk about annoying.

Missed Notifications

This is probably the biggest point. Since notifications are one-off pop-overs, they get cleared if another notification pushes them out. If the notifications had a place to go, then this would be a problem. There are some notifications that I rely on that I’m missing because a robot on Twitter @replied me, pushing it away. Android has the shade, webOS has that pushy-screen thing. Never would I suggest that Apple blatantly copy one of these implementations, but iPhone users need something.

It is probably a pipe dream to hope that Apple will pull a fast on us before OS 4.0 is officially released. Currently, this notification Disastrophe is the only kink in my iPhone experience. I suppose there’s always next year, with OS 5.0…

Tweet