While the default iOS notifications are fine for the occasional text or push notification, they can become a righteous pain when you receive multiple pop-ups in a short period of time. This really comes down to two things: the first is the inability to track down individual notifications in the jumble of pop-up boxes, and […]
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Using Notified Pro and LockInfo to replace default iOS notifications [Jailbreak]

Dec 6th 2010 by

While the default iOS notifications are fine for the occasional text or push notification, they can become a righteous pain when you receive multiple pop-ups in a short period of time.

This really comes down to two things: the first is the inability to track down individual notifications in the jumble of pop-up boxes, and the second is how the pop-ups block all access to the currently active application (a particular pet peeve during action games).

Unfortunately, most users will have to sit, cry, and wait for Apple to (hopefully) address this issue in iOS 5. However, if you are one of those lucky members of the jailbreak community, you may want to try playing around with a combination of LockInfo (review here) and Notified Pro (initial review here) for a more flexible, and far less obtrusive notification system.

Setup

LockInfo:

  • set SMS, Push Notifications, and Mail to display on Lockscreen and InfoShade
  • disabled all native pop-ups on the lockscreen (Locksreen -> Block Popups)
  • each plugin automatically hides when there is nothing to report (General -> Hide Empty Sections)
  • InfoShade set to activate with a downards swipe of the statusbar
  • disabled statusbar icons for every LockInfo plugin (must be set individually within each plugin’s settings menu)

Notified Pro:

  • installed Notification GriP plugin for Notified Pro through Cydia
  • disabled all Alerts on Springboard and lockscreen (Notified Pro -> Settings -> Manage Alerts)

Notification GriP (options are in the iOS Settings app)

  • set to display along bottom
  • set to auto-close after 10 seconds
  • Max Visible on screen: one
  • enabled Rounded edges (ooo, pretty)
  • enabled Wake on lockscreen to on
  • enabled Rotation

Why this rocks

First of all, I’ve been using this setup for about a week now and have been enjoying a very stable iPhone. Maybe it’s iOS 4.2 or maybe it’s the fact that these extensions have just matured enough, but I’ve found this to be a very stable and speedy setup (that isn’t memory hungry either).

I’m also happy to report that Notified Pro is now working 100% as intended on iOS 4.2.. The extension used to occasionally fail to report notifications, leaving me in the dark about what was actually happening on the iPhone. Thankfully, those days are over and Notified Pro is now showing every single incoming notification through the GriP plugin.

Now to why I think this setup is so great. First of all, there are no default pop-ups to deal with, since Notified Pro actually completely blocks them and replaces them with specialized ones from the GriP plugin. I rely on GriP to provide me with up-to-date information in the short term.

These pop-ups are displayed along the bottom of my screen for a maximum of about seven seconds (even though the settings say ten), and each pop-up can be dismissed or used to launch the relevant app. Furthermore, each incoming notification immediately replaces the last, and because they don’t stack, I usually only have to press the ‘x’ button once. This is a hell of a lot easier than tapping “Close” over and over again when friends spam me with text or WhatsApp messages.

There are a few other options for Notified Pro plugins right now (nbfn, Notification Bar, and Statusbar), but none of them feature landscape orientation support, so each of them ends up feeling very awkward at one point or another. GriP, on the other hand, rotates quite smoothly, and feels like it fits right in with iOS.

However, GriP and Notified Pro can only tell me about the most current notifications, so I rely on LockInfo for longer-term catchup, or for the rare instances when I’m inundated with notifications from difference sources.  The lockscreen and InfoShade do a fantastic job of sorting all of my recent notifications into neat little lists, and tapping on the ‘x’ next to each notification will actually mark it as “read” (which means I don’t have to bother launching an app just to get rid of its badge). Notified Pro does feature a very similar (and prettier) list of recent notifications, but it really acts as a history, and it still requires me to launch and app to get rid of a badge.

As I stated earlier, I’ve been using this setup for about a week now, and am quite happy with it. Notified Pro helps me deal with iOS’ weakness to rapid fire notifications, and LockInfo helps me sort things out after all the notification pop-ups have settled. There is a very tiny window (seven seconds) for information overlap on the lockscreen, since both Notified Pro and LockInfo are set to display notifications there, but that seems like a very small price to pay for such a flexible custom notification system.

Speaking of price, that’s probably the only major downside to this system at the moment. Notified Pro is just $3, but LockInfo is a little more expensive at $8, bringing the total cost of this setup to $11.00 before tax. However, if you really can’t stand default iOS pop-ups, $11 is still a lot cheaper than switching to an Android device 😉

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