GigaOM » Apple

iOS 101: Take Control of Notifications

Josh Sunshine — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 21:29:19 +0000

The notification system in iOS is useful, but it can get a little overwhelming sometimes. Since notifications on iOS demand your attention by blocking what you’re doing until you click either ‘Cancel’ or ‘View’, it can get annoying if you receive a notification every two minutes. Luckily, there is a way to disable notifications on a per-app basis.

In order to change which apps can send you notifications, open your device’s Settings app, then tap Notifications. In here, you’ll find a list of all the apps you have installed which are able to send notifications, as well as a switch to turn off all notifications at once. However, I don’t recommend killing all notifications, since you’ll probably want important ones, such as those from to-do list apps to remind you of deadlines, to stil show up.

To edit what notifications a certain app will send, tap its name in the list. You’ll see up to three switches — Sounds, Alerts and Badges — depending on what options the app supports. From here you can choose how you’d like the app’s notifications to behave. Alerts is the option you’ll want to switch off if you’d like to stop the blue message boxes appearing. Badges determines whether an app should show a number badge (in a red circle) on its home screen icon. And sounds, as the name implies, controls whether or not you’ll get an auditory notice when a new notification arrives.

In my opinion, for an application which isn’t important, the best thing to do is turn off alerts and sounds, and just leave badges on. That way, you’ll still be able to tell which apps need your attention by glancing at their icons, but they won’t pester you with alert messages.

I much prefer the iOS experience without having to tap on a blue message box every three minutes. Adding the option to turn them off was a good decision on Apple’s part, and one that it pays to know how to use.

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Prowl: Get Any Growl Notifications Via Push On Your iPhone

Darrell Etherington — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 17:07:51 +0000

Remember when you had to click on an application to make it active, and hit refresh in order to find out if anything new had happened? It’s been a long while now, since most desktop programs can run in the background and notify you when something requires your attention. The iPhone approximates that same functionality via the newly introduced push notification features, though apps aren’t actually running in the background, so special support is required from app developers to enable it.

As far as I’m concerned, push has already been a game-changer. My iPhone is now my dedicated IM client, lets me monitor any and all Blue Jays games no matter where I am, and keeps me on-task with my to-do list. But that’s not all. Thanks to a new app called Prowl ($2.99, iTunes link), my iPhone can keep me abreast of pretty much anything, via my Mac and a useful app many will already be familiar with, Growl.

Growl, in case you aren’t aware, is an open notification platform for OS X that supports a wide variety of applications. Basically, it alerts you via an on-screen pop-up and/or sound when one of its supported applications receives a message, finishes a task, and so on. So, for example, using a Mail plugin, I receive a Growl notification whenever I get an email, or when I’m mentioned or receive a DM on Twitter via Tweetie’s built-in Growl support. It’s a very handy tool to have, especially if you keep your dock hidden, as I do, or if you’re working with many different applications on multiple screens.

Now you can receive Growl notifications on your iPhone, too, in the form of push notifications, thanks to Prowl. I can’t even begin to explain how useful this could potentially be, depending on your usage. Already, I have it set up to notify me of new mail (which works better than Apple’s wn push mail, in my opinion, because it allows me to see the sender and some content of the received message), let me know when I receive new @ replies and DMs via Twitter (which I can then check out in Tweetie), and alert me whenever Transmission finishes downloading or seeding a torrent file.

Not only can Prowl alert you of whatever Growl can, but it can also receive custom alerts sent from a web interface. When you set up Prowl, you sign up for an account that’s necessary for syncing Growl on your computer with Prowl on your iPhone. Using that same login, you can go to the Prowl web site and send yourself messages. Any applicable content in that message will be automatically hot-linked, like emails and phone numbers. Very handy for sending a contact number to yourself for future reference.

Prowl is potentially the most effective application of push I’ve yet seen on the iPhone platform, especially if you’re already using Growl (which you should be). The best part is that it’s limited only by Growl itself, which is infinitely expandable, so long as developers keep supporting it. Probably the best $3 I’ve ever spent in the App Store.

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One Juicer: Managing the App Store Beast

Darrell Etherington — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 14:00:18 +0000

There are many ways to keep on top of app releases. You could, for instance, just visit the app store on your iPhone and sort the lists by release date. You could also try AppSniper, an application designed solely with keeping tabs on iPhone releases and pricing. Or, you could go with a web or RSS-based solution, like AppShopper. Personally, I use a mix of all of the above, but I still feel like there’s something missing.

I didn’t know what it was until I came across One Juicer. It’s a new web-based service that works like Google Alerts, but specifically with iPhone app releases. It works just like it sounds. You type in a keyword and your email address, and App Juicer will alert you whenever an app featuring that keyword in its title or description is released. Sure beats searching manually every once in a while, and it has the advantage of being far more up-to-date than if you do it on your own.

Not to mention the advantage for developers. It can be time consuming and aggravating to keep tabs on potential competitors to your own app. There’s nothing more aggravating than releasing an app the day after one with identical functionality, but pricing yours twice as high.

You’re limited to three search terms per email address, and you can manager your terms and change them once you’ve set up your initial search criteria. The first email you receive will include a comprehensive list of all apps currently available in the iTunes store that contain your term, but afterward you’ll only receive an email when a new app is released. One Juicer is a free service.

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