While the web notification story on android is much better than on iOS, it still has it's own share of issues.

The biggest one that i've run into is how exact timing of notifications is difficult. Sometimes notifications can be delayed for hours and there's not really much you can do to fix it, other times they will arrive minutes later.

I previously worked on a PWA which had to be converted into a thinly wrapped webview for Android because we needed notifications to pop within seconds of their scheduled time, and we just couldn't achieve that with web notifications at the time.

Apple will never give in and implement webpush on mobile safari because that would affect their precious app store. How will they extort developers then? That's also the reason mobile safari is so limited in other features.

You mean extort developers who are mostly publishing free apps backed by services or advertising?

How many apps do you use on a daily basis that you paid money for, find notifications useful, and would have been suitable as a web app?

Apple changes their mind fairly often, so I wouldn't say never. And in general, predictions based on incentives are often good bets but they are less reliable than many people pretend.

Is it possible that they haven't figured out how to sandbox the little bit of code that handles the notification from the rest of the webpage? Maybe this is solved already by the webpush standard but some websites are a ridiculously overcomplicated hot mess of javascript ads which make my phone heat up, I don't want them waking up my phone all the time and draining the battery.

The sites I build at work have proper push notifications. This problem has already been solved.

I will never enable push notifications from websites. This problem has not been solved. It also doesn't hold across devices or if the browser isn't open.

Why not? You do, for apps, right?

App PNs also don't "hold" across devices. You don't need to have the browser "open", whatever that means.

BTW there are tons of apps that do push notifications wrong. There are many apps which keep sending you PNs after you log out or switch accounts. This can be really sensitive content (e.g. chat apps).

Replying to myself, here is a NSFW example: https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/e8ux6j/tifu_by_lettin...

How did you solve the lack of push notifications on iOS?

For iOS, can't you just wrap your web application in a thin native app layer that provides the push functionality?

From the app store guidelines:

4.2 Minimum Functionality

Your app should include features, content, and UI that elevate it beyond a repackaged website. If your app is not particularly useful, unique, or “app-like,” it doesn’t belong on the App Store.

4.3 We'll continue to get away with this until the EU makes us stop.

Would push notification support not be exactly the kind of feature that would qualify for this rule? In practice there are hundreds of apps like this on the app store.

Right! I ran in to this when I wanted our app to “portal” to the website and just move Bluetooth data along. Apple thought about this and doesn’t like it.

Perhaps the main distinguishing app-like thing is distracting notifications.

Yes you can and there tons of apps that do just that.

The important part is that they go through the app store, so that apple has complete control of what goes through.

Yes you can and we are exactly doing this since quite a while. Actually a lot of companies do this.

You can, you just can't publish it on the appstore.

How do you distribute it in that case? Outside of enterprise apps, which are not allowed to be public.

Sorry but I think I don't understand your question.

If you use a native wrapper and load a webview inside you can publish it in the AppStore.

They probably embedded the browser in a client.

for iOS you can have a work around. The users using the web based app in safari, then whenever a notification needs to be sent, twilio api will send a SMS message to alert the user. Of course it will only send an sms message if the user allows it and enters the mobile number.

Short answer: He didn't. You cannot do it without your app being in the App Store.

I can’t stand push notifications, I disable them all except for a couple (like signal). They are usually only part of the app to manipulate you into using it constantly

What's your point? Do you think you represent most people? Can you not just turn it off?

Notifications have fine tuned controls on both iOS and Android with schedule Do Not Disturb features and varying levels of priority (iOS has 3 tiers). Plus per-app controls to disable them from annoying apps, which in newer versions of iOS prompt you before they turn on, making them opt-in.

It's essential for communication apps (texting, email) and useful for breaking news or a simple highlight of big news on WSJ/NYT on your activity feed, so you don't need to open either app to stay on top of big events if you're a news junkie like me.

I'd personally go as far as saying push-notifications + the activity feed is very underrated feature of smart phones and has become a core part of people's day-to-day lives (which plenty of technologies can't say).

Its true that tons of news sites ask for permission just to spam you, or outright sell notifications to advertisers. I think the web notif channel has already been abused beyond repair. It may be time to redo the concept from scratch

Killer feature for email: add an email header that turns an email to notification. Then email apps would push the notification to the user, bypassing apple’s block. Websites already have the user’s email, so no need for more subscriptions. If gmail implemented this, it might push for adoption

That's a novel thought. I imagine then the native mail apps would expand in settings in order to block some bad senders from abusing that email header.

Tangentially related, iOS mail app has a VIP setting.

[1] https://support.apple.com/lv-lv/HT207213#vip

The apps don’t even need to think of spam, that would be handled by the mail server just like all other spam.

> Do you think you represent most people?

I've seen poor push notification quality increase uninstall and churn rates. I think the lesson is that many people are quickly annoyed with push notifications.

I think that's inaccurate. There are plenty of push notifications that don't annoy people, that are often the primary basis for how people interact with certain apps — Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp, Slack, Discord, etc.

Let's not assume that all push notifications are cynical attempts to get people engaged with the app or to push DLC. For things like mail, messaging, and plenty of other online services, push notifications are not just an important interface to the app; they can be the interface.

several applications require them to be useful. Security events from my home cameras, messages from clients, timers, email

Anytime I'm using a peice of small business software I'd probably like it to be able to give me notifications

Honestly curious and hopefully not rude, but how can you concentrate on anything? Or does your work/life not require you to concentrate ever/most of the time on anything?

(I have turned all but phone call and sms notifications off on my phone. I will check my email/whatsapp when I want and see notifications there as needed. If someone has something urgent, they know how to call.)

Not grandparent but for me:

1) only certain notifications that are important have unique sound, vibrate, etc.

2) other semi important notifications flash. Light is not that bright to notice.

3) other notifications have numbers on app so there are some despite not seeing any notifications.

Result: I stopped checking every hour. It's actually been an improvement for me to stay away from phone.

I noticed that some apps abuse you for disabling notifications and Viber is biggest example. I don't care about holiday wishes or viber news but I need app to stay in touch with some people. Sadly, I only check at most once a fortnight because of this disabled notification nagging.

I wish there was a standardized or common methodology for classifying notifications. App developers could adopt this and consumers could take the pattern with them across all types of interfaces - desktop, smartphone, speakers, tv. Maybe someone knows if any government entity or force has a methodology for this?

Simply, it doesn't affect me adversely at all. I think you have a misunderstanding as to how many notifications are generated.

Today I received:

* 3 reminders to eat

* 1 security alert (delivery)

* about two dozen instant messages between myself and clients

* a couple of dozen CI alerts

* 3 emails

Its easy to have different levels of notifications, and filter message channels. I have less distraction now than I had in an office by several orders of magnitude.

Everything is either immediately relevant or very important. The notifications I have make me more effective.

Do you use Whatsapp / Messenger regularly for social stuff? Coincidentally I was looking at my Digital Well-being settings in Android today and was told that I get over 170 notifications from Messenger a day.

I do. But I can't say I'm that popular! They are also muted and don't vibrate.

Most people I talk to work at the same time as me, so to get a social message during the day would be unusual.

Everyone knows to call if it matters.

Note: also be aware that the digital wellbeing count counts updates to an existing notification as a notification. As such my morning alarm counts a few dozen notifications (alarm in 8hrs, alarm in 7hrs, 30mins, 2 mins, etc.)

What kind of reminders to eat are you getting? Like "don't forget to eat?" or "don't forget, this is your plan for lunch"?

I'd assume some sort of "go eat now, it's time" scheme, so he can stay in deep flow without neglecting his food intake.

You got it!

For me neglecting food intake means:

If I don't eat enough I get grumpy. This lowers the quality of life of myself and my loved ones. Alternatively if I get hungry it can cause me to over-snack (justified by anti-grumps thoughts); then I get fat and lower my quality of life slightly slower.

So these notifications are perhaps the most important ones.

This is exactly what I was thinking a while ago. Most apps won't give you good notifications, just spam you so there could be an app that lets you have some good notifications instead of disabling them all through a filter.

I never looked into whether this is possible to do on android or iOS. I thought it might not be given the power available to hijack all the notifications available.

I love push notifications. Its honestly how I stay up to date on whatever is happening. I aint got time to scroll through everything

are you the one exception that makes us all suffer from notification induced FOMO ? :)

No one makes you suffer through anything. You can’t get push notifications without specifically opting into them, and you can disable them forever for any app with about 3 taps.

their existence annoys

Honest question: is there some reason you can't use standard web tech for push notifications? ie polling, WebSockets, etc?

You can use polling or sockets when the browser is open; the problem is showing those notifications on the phone's lock screen or when you're in another app.

Oh duh. And it sounds like iOS doesn't support that for PWAs yet?

Correct, many websites say that such support is "coming soon" but I've been hearing that for years now.

Sometimes I wonder if Apple wouldn't support web apps at all if they could get away with it. A fully functioning PWA could essentially sidestep the app store for a huge class of applications. The incentives really just aren't aligned.

I was under the impression that under memory pressure all of the tabs in every mobile browser (Firefox/Safari/Edge) I have ever used is unloaded by iOS.

There is an edge mobile browser?

There's no reason why a web app can't work with push notifications. Won't? ya. Can't? no.

Even if you think your app depends on push notifications, your customers don't necessarily want them. I would bet that in 98% of the cases you have in mind, I would be perfectly happy to use the functionality without push notifications. (For example, "all chat". Even if your app is capable of chatting with me, I doubt I actually want it to.)

Building a chat app without notifications is a good way to get exactly zero users.

They were likely referring to chat apps. Good luck building a messaging or chat app without notifications.

Yes, apps over-use notifications for marketing and engagement metrics just like email has been overused. They’re still remarkably useful for a large swath of other use cases, and downright necessary for many others. If you don’t like them, don’t enable them for a given app. Easy.