on android this is a solved problem via notification categories.

I recall some apps seemed to keep inventing new categories that I hadn't blocked yet.

These exist on ios too, but apps don't always respect them and will occasionally push 'important' marketing messages alongside the functional stuff.

In general this is a fast way off my handset.

It's a solved problem if the app developer wants it to be. Else it can just throw everything into the same category.

I have an iOS device, so can’t speak for Google, but I suspect that’s what Apple has been _trying_ to do.

The problem is that these apps are essentially adversarial in their notifications. If you have a mechanism for “only the most essential notifications”, then they simply mark all their notifications as “essential” (looking at you Uber). Try to limit their notifications using “only is summary” or disabling them and the app will gleefully deny you all notifications, rendering it basically useless. Uber is particular is guilty for this - the app is conspicuously free of meaningful notification controls.

I use Glasswire (Android) and block apps from accesing the internet, when not using them (e.g. Uber).

It's a bit of pain to turn it on before use, and off again afterwards, but I've realized it's much less stressful than having notifications popping up at all times.

YMMV

As someone who hasn’t used android in 10 years, what you are describing seems like a warzone

Depends what apps you use and notification settings, ie I don't have any uber app and my notifications are clean, just what I need.

That wouldn't stop iOS notifications; those are pushed from Uber's servers to the phone, not to the app.

Appears to be unmaintained. Not available for newer. Android versions. Any alternatives people tried and recommend?

> then they simply mark all their notifications as “essential"

That's like getting spam mail from your bank. In the physical world this would be illegal

Not illegal, from what I've heard — someone read the small print of their mortgage agreement, modified it, signed it, the bank person signed the modified agreement, the bank sent junk mail, he pointed out this meant the bank was in breach of contract and given how he'd modified it that he was apparently theoretically entitled to write off the remaining debt.

Apparently that last bit would probably not have survived an actual legal fight, but they never sent him any more junk mail.

(This was pre-GDPR, so perhaps things have changed?)

Some banks (CapitalOne) literally show ads in their banking UI, and send literal spam.

Perfectly legal.

Is it? Really?

Well, Apple is trying a 'do as I say, not as I do' approach, which isn't exactly working.

For example I got an Apple Music notification the other day telling me how awesome the new Classic Music App is, or how the new season of whatever show is available in Apple TV+ is just fresh out of the oven.

I like their products, and even their services, but in this particular case, they're as bad as Uber, just at a different degree (I used to get an Uber Eats notification everyday until I uninstalled the app)

Slightly off topic but another thing I noticed that’s infuriating me, is that podcast are now injected with local ads. I’m. It sure how they’re getting location data since iOS has extremely tight and secure authorizations for location access (even within their own internal processes). How can I be offered the ability to control whether Compass Calibration or Apple Pay Merchant verification get to use my location but not podcast advertisements??

In Android/Google land, notifications have self declared categories.

But at first, the app must ask you for notification permission to send any notification in the first place.

You can then turn on/off the self declared notification categories at the Android level but apps can be dicks and either not use the categories or misuse them.

> If you have a mechanism for “only the most essential notifications”, then they simply mark all their notifications as “essential” (looking at you Uber)

then perhaps Apple should say to them “either don’t mark these kinds of notifications as essential, or you get removed from the App Store”?

The solution is tried and true. Let the user mark notifications as spam and have a locally running spam filter.

I'm sure we'll get that soon. Enforcing notification categories is unfeasible for all apps.

The EU is about to make it literally illegal for them to do so, so no they can't.

Apple used to ban advertising push notifications. They began allowing them to avoid claims of anti-competitive behavior.

The funny thing was that even Apple violated that rule themselves: https://marco.org/2014/12/01/app-store-rule-5-6

This is not a problem from their perspective - it is a revenue centre.

They’re doing the psychological equivalent of slash-and-burn deforestation - there won’t be a next generation of engineers, just a legion of addicts with attention spans measured in microseconds, but it’s profitable this quarter, and that’s all that matters.

Google has this. You can make notification types as silent or normal or priority. Notifications from the same app have groupings of what type of notifications they will send. And you pick which ones you want to be notified about.

Doesn’t this rely on the app developer maintaining the correct labeling of each category? An unethical developer would just mix advertisements into all notification category, while an ethical developer wouldn’t be sending the spurious notifications in the first place.

That is true.

But careful the app developer that abuses this position, for they will more likely be the app I remove from my phone.

GDPR is the acronym you're looking for ^^ Seriously, it helps a lot gating abuses like that.