13 ms·

Apple News has a notification spam problem

96 points by atrain714 8y ago

PaulHoule 8y ago
That notification screen is a sight for sore eyes.
adnanazadsg 8y ago
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 8y ago
  I still and happily get most of my news from my RSS feed
  - adnanazadsg 8y ago
    What RSS reader do you use?
- minikites 8y ago
  >Its really surprising that Apple would allow this, since they usually care a lot about user experience. They stopped caring about that long ago. Look at the experience of the Marzipan apps they shipped. Look at the bug rates of their software lately. Look at the experience of their laptop keyboards. Look at the matrix you have to check to figure out which model of Apple Pencil works with which model of iPad. Look at the port and dongle situation with their laptops. Look at the age of the Mac Pro they're selling for full price.
egypturnash 8y ago
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.
- 14 8y ago
  Agreed. I’ve turned off Facebook notifications years ago after they were spamming the heck out of me. A friend of a friend added a photo wow Facebook. It just became too much. Now I log onto Facebook a few times a month to usually about 30-40 notifications I often click once to clear but often don’t read through them. They are so desperate to have us engage with the screen.
  - nkrisc 8y ago
    They started texting me that I had notifications. I'm pretty sure I provided my phone for 2FA, or they just scraped it off my phone when I had the app installed (mistake). This was also shortly after they had one day shown me some kind of dashboard where I could see the various engagements with content I posted. It just stunk of sadness and desperation. I closed my account after that.
- mcbutterbunz 8y ago
  I agree. Up until very recent, most news was consumed later in the evening or the day after it happened. The current landscape is filled with a constant stream of events that have no immediate impact on my life other than distracting me from more important tasks.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    There were many years where I might have caught the evening news and subscribed to a weekly news magazine that would catch me up on anything especially notable that happened during the week. I'd probably learn about major news events by seeing a newspaper headline or the radio at some point. TBH even most "breaking news" doesn't have a lot of direct effect on my life.
Bud 8y ago
This is an article in search of a problem. It takes 5 seconds to disable ALL notifications from this (or any other) app.
- wangchungtonite 8y ago
  Bull. I turned all notifications off globally and went through each app and even turned off all the amber alert stuff etc. I STILL get news app alerts but only when it pleases left wing agenda in Silicon Valley.
  - mwfunk 8y ago
    Actually those filthy commies let you choose all the news sources, so you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps and construct your own fortress of whatever you want. I wouldn't suggest it, but the bootstraps are there.
- discordance 8y ago
  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-guidelines/ios/system-capabilities/notifications/ https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline...
  - threeseed 8y ago
    But it isn't notifications for the same thing. They are different articles.
  - JimDabell 8y ago
    > 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.
knowingathing 8y ago
I had this problem but then I spent 7 seconds turning off Notifications for News.
j-c-hewitt 8y ago
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 8y ago
  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 8y ago
    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 8y ago
      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 8y ago
        > 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/unauthorizationoptions/2993019-provisional https://developer.apple.com/documentation/usernotifications/...
bradleybuda 8y ago
From just a few days ago: https://twitter.com/bradleybuda/status/1119022752092921857 https://twitter.com/bradleybuda/status/1119022752092921857
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
tomduncalf 8y ago
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.
- TazeTSchnitzel 8y ago
  Spam notifications are against App Store policy, and yet…
- jakobegger 8y ago
  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 8y ago
    Could you share some examples of apps that you’d install mainly for their push notifications?
    - speg 8y ago
      One example I have is Environment Canada’s weather app. It is a laughably poor excuse for an app, so I never open it. but it does send me push notifications as soon as they issue a special weather statement.
    - jakobegger 8y ago
      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.
notimetorelax 8y ago
I like how this negative publicity reminded me of Apple News and now I’m thinking of trying it out!
- snypox 8y ago
  There is no bad PR, huh
  - notimetorelax 8y ago
    Heh, my comment doesn’t working out that well for me.
saagarjha 8y ago
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.
tareqak 8y ago
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?
martin-adams 8y ago
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.
jpz 8y ago
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 7y ago
  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.
newsroll 8y ago
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.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
mark_l_watson 8y ago
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 8y ago
  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.
52-6F-62 8y ago
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?
dhruvarora013 8y ago
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...
spork12 8y ago
And you can't even add any decent news sites to it.
granaldo 8y ago
I stopped looking at notifications now
SyneRyder 8y ago
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-broadcaster-is-using-apple-news-push-alerts-to-reach-new-younger-audiences/ http://www.niemanlab.org/2017/03/australias-public-broadcast... 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.

96 points by atrain714 8y ago

That notification screen is a sight for sore eyes.

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 8y ago
I still and happily get most of my news from my RSS feed
- adnanazadsg 8y ago
  What RSS reader do you use?
minikites 8y ago
>Its really surprising that Apple would allow this, since they usually care a lot about user experience. They stopped caring about that long ago. Look at the experience of the Marzipan apps they shipped. Look at the bug rates of their software lately. Look at the experience of their laptop keyboards. Look at the matrix you have to check to figure out which model of Apple Pencil works with which model of iPad. Look at the port and dongle situation with their laptops. Look at the age of the Mac Pro they're selling for full price.

egypturnash 8y ago

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.

14 8y ago
Agreed. I’ve turned off Facebook notifications years ago after they were spamming the heck out of me. A friend of a friend added a photo wow Facebook. It just became too much. Now I log onto Facebook a few times a month to usually about 30-40 notifications I often click once to clear but often don’t read through them. They are so desperate to have us engage with the screen.
- nkrisc 8y ago
  They started texting me that I had notifications. I'm pretty sure I provided my phone for 2FA, or they just scraped it off my phone when I had the app installed (mistake). This was also shortly after they had one day shown me some kind of dashboard where I could see the various engagements with content I posted. It just stunk of sadness and desperation. I closed my account after that.
mcbutterbunz 8y ago
I agree. Up until very recent, most news was consumed later in the evening or the day after it happened. The current landscape is filled with a constant stream of events that have no immediate impact on my life other than distracting me from more important tasks.
- ghaff 8y ago
  There were many years where I might have caught the evening news and subscribed to a weekly news magazine that would catch me up on anything especially notable that happened during the week. I'd probably learn about major news events by seeing a newspaper headline or the radio at some point. TBH even most "breaking news" doesn't have a lot of direct effect on my life.

Bud 8y ago

This is an article in search of a problem. It takes 5 seconds to disable ALL notifications from this (or any other) app.

wangchungtonite 8y ago
Bull. I turned all notifications off globally and went through each app and even turned off all the amber alert stuff etc. I STILL get news app alerts but only when it pleases left wing agenda in Silicon Valley.
- mwfunk 8y ago
  Actually those filthy commies let you choose all the news sources, so you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps and construct your own fortress of whatever you want. I wouldn't suggest it, but the bootstraps are there.
discordance 8y ago
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-guidelines/ios/system-capabilities/notifications/ https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline...
- threeseed 8y ago
  But it isn't notifications for the same thing. They are different articles.
- JimDabell 8y ago
  > 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.

knowingathing 8y ago

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

j-c-hewitt 8y ago

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 8y ago
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 8y ago
  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 8y ago
    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 8y ago
      > 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/unauthorizationoptions/2993019-provisional https://developer.apple.com/documentation/usernotifications/...

bradleybuda 8y ago

From just a few days ago: https://twitter.com/bradleybuda/status/1119022752092921857 https://twitter.com/bradleybuda/status/1119022752092921857

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

tomduncalf 8y ago

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.

TazeTSchnitzel 8y ago
Spam notifications are against App Store policy, and yet…
jakobegger 8y ago
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 8y ago
  Could you share some examples of apps that you’d install mainly for their push notifications?
  - speg 8y ago
    One example I have is Environment Canada’s weather app. It is a laughably poor excuse for an app, so I never open it. but it does send me push notifications as soon as they issue a special weather statement.
  - jakobegger 8y ago
    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.

notimetorelax 8y ago

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

snypox 8y ago
There is no bad PR, huh
- notimetorelax 8y ago
  Heh, my comment doesn’t working out that well for me.

saagarjha 8y ago

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.

tareqak 8y ago

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?

martin-adams 8y ago

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.

jpz 8y ago

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 7y ago
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.

newsroll 8y ago

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.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

mark_l_watson 8y ago

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 8y ago
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.

52-6F-62 8y ago

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?

dhruvarora013 8y ago

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...

spork12 8y ago

And you can't even add any decent news sites to it.

granaldo 8y ago

I stopped looking at notifications now

SyneRyder 8y ago

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