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Many developers nowadays abuse notifications, using them as in-your face advertising, desperate pleas for attention and just "encouraging" you to rate their app. What a load of rubbish! The very concept behind notifications, regardless of which system we are talking about, is to give the user timely, necessary and useful information. Shoveling ads, is not any of those.

It's not all over the place and it's not in all categories of apps. The game sector of apps is grossly overrepresented in this and given the current state of spending on apps, I can kind of see where the developers are coming from. But when the really big suits, shall we call them proper companies and not just the lone guy in his bedroom, start doing it, I think we have a serious problem on our hands.

The problem in this case is not just that they are actively ruining their reputation, but also that they are annoying the customers and making notifications meaningless. A notification of new levels available, or that someone has just beaten your high score would be fine, where I think that frequently telling you that the competition you had no interest in entering will soon close, is not. Annoyance hits a new high when developers are not content in only pushing a small text to you, but let it be accompanied by a chime or other sound to really grab your attention. Begging the person to return to the game so they can earn more of the fantasy currency in said game would also be on the "no" side of the equation.

Despite my whining about this for a little while prior to writing this article, I haven't seen particularly much talk about it elsewhere. Is it that I have a knack for sniffing out the most notification abusing apps around, or am I just imagining this whole thing?

Perhaps the more tech savvy among us can stand these things, maybe even switch off the notifications for any given app that does abuse the system. But what about the normal, average people? In many cases I'm willing to bet they don't even know that they can switch them off, nor will they know why they keep getting these notifications. Personally I find myself on the receiving end of a nearly endless stream of questions regarding things around this, from normal people. Recently I think it's gone mad and I have had to kill the notification privileges for several games.

I do wish there were guidelines and rules strictly forbidding developers from doing this, simply because it's annoying as can be and doesn't add positively to the general user experience. Right now, and to the best of my knowledge, there are none. As a feature the notification can be a great source of convenience, but it also opens the door for brand new ways to drive you nuts.

Robert Falck

Robert is a freelance tech writer from Sweden. You can follow his posts here on the British Tech Network, listen to him yap away on the British Tech iOS Show and read even more of his stuff on his site streakmachine.com or you can even follow him on twitter @streakmachine. (But you won't find him on Facebook!)

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Robert Falck

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