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Apple now allows iOS developers to send ads using push notifications
- kdtsh 7y agoNot 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 7y agoOr you could just turn off the ads, since the article says apps will be required to have a way to do so.
- onion2k 7y agoI'd still uninstall the app.
- yreg 7y agoWould you uninstall Uber if they sent you a coupon via push notification?
- onion2k 7y agoI'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 7y agoIf you had the option to block the marketing notifications but still receive the important ones, would you do that?
- foxrob92 7y agoIf I could set the default for all apps to "block ad notifications", then yes.
- onion2k 7y agoThat 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.
- have_faith 7y agoAs long as this option is presented before attempting to display any push ads, and not after.
- xxs 7y agoWhile I got no uber - totally. The taxi service I use sends stuff (receipts mostly) to email - it works well.
- whatsmyusername 7y agoDoes your app provide real world value like ubers or is it just Tinder for Dogs?
- throwaway55554 7y agoDon't have it installed in the first place. Why feed Uber any business at all? It's a trash company.
- bjelkeman-again 7y agoSo in fact it is an improvement. As some apps intersperse ads with useful notifications now.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- saagarjha 7y agoNow, if only you could uninstall the system apps that did this without losing critical functionality…
- sanedigital 7y agoDepending 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.
- Flockster 7y agoIf Runtastics reminders to start exercising again also fall under this category, I'm all for it.
- glenneroo 7y agoFunny 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.
- viraptor 7y agoThis seems to work pretty well even when not enforced on Android: https://developer.android.com/training/notify-user/channels https://developer.android.com/training/notify-user/channels 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.
- wjnc 7y agoDon'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.
- 7y ago
- oefrha 7y ago> 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 7y agoPromotional push notifications were technically against the rules but it was never enforced. Hell, Apple does it themselves.
- yreg 7y agoApp 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.
- Razengan 7y agoThrowing a "This app wants to send you notifications" dialog as soon as you launch an app for the first time, should be banned.
- tasogare 7y agoConversely, I find it really useful to block any notification from the get go.
- saagarjha 7y agoInterestingly, 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.
- layoutIfNeeded 7y agoWhy don’t you do it the first time they access a feature related to notifications?
- mlang23 7y agoApps 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.
- JensRex 7y agoHow 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.
- Cthulhu_ 7y agoThey 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).
- lotsofpulp 7y agoHow does Apple make money off of Uber and co?
- GlitchMr 7y agoDirectly 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.
- KarlKemp 7y agoApple 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.
- axismundi 7y agoThis 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.
- Tepix 7y agoAs 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.
- anoncake 7y agoOr, more realistically, when it's outlawed. Though that's actually just customers collectively refusing to accept it.
- Angostura 7y agoNow you will be able to use the app but not opt-in to promotional junk.
- MrMember 7y agoI 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 7y agoI don't remember every having notifications so I went looking. Found them all disabled: https://imgur.com/QKdDIqz https://imgur.com/QKdDIqz
- MrMember 7y agoI 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.
- jsjddbbwj 7y agoYou can disable notifications without uninstalling it.
- izacus 7y agoDoes iOS have notification channels like Android? So you can disable the ads and keep other notifications from one app?
- ewidar 7y agoRight 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.
- PZWaRzU2HVh63Tk 7y agoI thought this was allowed for apps in Chinese AppStore? All big-name apps like Taobao, WeChat, Didi sent me unwanted promotional notifications
- dwhl 7y agoIn theory, promotional notifications were banned but in practice, it was never enforced, with even Apple's own apps breaking this rule.
- martinbeentjes 7y agoFrom 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.
- uyuioi 7y agoI 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 7y agoDid you know that you can use instagram in your browser? The only thing that‘s missing without the app is video upload.
- 8fingerlouie 7y agoIt'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 7y agoSounds nice in theory, except: network effects.
- 8fingerlouie 7y agoAs 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.
- nraynaud 7y agoMy bank was already sending me advertisement by push notifications on my phone.
- dewey 7y agoA 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.
- Razengan 7y agoAfter 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 7y agoI'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 7y ago> 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 7y agonvram boot-args="amfi_get_out_of_my_way=0x1"
- hundchenkatze 7y agoSure, the option may exist, but that doesn't mean that Apple developers use it daily.
- morpheuskafka 7y agoCatalina'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
- kalium-xyz 7y agoThey lost the battle it seems.
- aguyfromnb 7y agoJudging 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 7y agoI’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 7y agoI 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.
- aedron 7y agoI 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 7y agoWhat 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 7y agoLyft 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 7y agoAh, 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.
- therealdrag0 7y agoYep this is the biggest annoyance for me too.
- ubermonkey 7y agoOn iOS at least, you can control which apps can send you notifications. I see no unwanted ones as a result, because I only let well-behaved apps use notifications.
- auiya 7y agoSounds bad on initial read, but to me this is a great shortcut for which applications to uninstall.
- whatsmyusername 7y agoI’m fine with this. If an app is push notifying me with Ads I know I need to uninstall it.
- swiley 7y agoSo 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...
- throwaway55554 7y agoAny 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.
- ubermonkey 7y agoIf you send me a promotional push notification, odds are I'm going to delete your fucking app.
- butterfi 7y agoApple has already conditioned me to turn off notifications, now they just seem to be doubling down on how obnoxious notifications can be.
- adonese 7y agoI 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.
- radley 7y agoThere's an obvious reason for the change: Apple plans to push their new subscription services heavily via the OSes.
- izzydata 7y agoI'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 7y agoIf 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_service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Push_Notification_servic...
- rconti 7y agoI'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).
- makecheck 7y agoThe 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 7y agoI 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 7y agoThe 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 7y agoWhile 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.
- gentleman11 7y agoSkip 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)