My earlier post “ on testing out iPhone push notifications with the Agile Messenger IM app “ has got me thinking about how I ‘d like to make use of push notifications generally.  I have a feeling that push is going to be a little like Location Services, at least at first “ with every […]
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iPhone OS 3.0 & Notifications – How Much Do You Want To Be ‘Pushed’?

Jun 12th 2009 by

iPhone push notifications

My earlier post “ on testing out iPhone push notifications with the Agile Messenger IM app “ has got me thinking about how I ‘d like to make use of push notifications generally.  I have a feeling that push is going to be a little like Location Services, at least at first “ with every app under the sun offering it up. 

And after just a little mulling this over, I think that there are probably very few apps that I want pushing notifications to me

As I mentioned in the earlier post, I think push notifications are crucial for IM apps “ they are crippled without them.  I definitely want push turned on for Agile Messenger.  Thing is, I started flicking through my home screens and thinking about which apps will probably offer push to me, and how many I ‘d possibly want to use it with.  Here ‘s a very quick rundown of my thoughts on the types of apps that may offer push and whether I ‘ll be taking them up on the offer:

  • Twitter apps “ I think I would not want push from a Twitter app, unless I can be much more specific in my settings “ as in, I don ‘t think anybody wants to get an alert every time anyone you follow tweets (I follow over 1,000 users).  The only way I might use push for these is if you could limit alerts to only when you receive a direct message, or possibly only those and ‘mentions ‘.
  • Other Social Networking apps “ Facebook, Friendfeed etc. “ no thanks “ just too much activity and very little or nothing I need to know urgently
  • News apps “ are these going to offer to alert you when there is new / unread content?  If so, no thanks again.  I ‘ll catch up on news often enough on my own.
  • Productivity Apps “ task manager apps, calendar apps, note-taking apps, and similar “ if I used these more within groups, with shared items etc, I might find this useful.  Right now I don ‘t though, so an alert when a new note / task etc is created is just not needed, since I ‘m the one who did the creating.
  • Games “ are some of these going to offer to alert us when a high score has been surpassed, or when new levels are available for in-app purchase.  Absolutely no thanks.
  • RSS reader apps “ yikes, no way “ I follow way too many feeds.
  • Books apps “ will Kindle and other eBook apps offer to send alerts when a new title by an author I ‘ve got in my collection is released or put on sale?  Or just when a new sale is on or similar.  I can definitely get by without that.
  • Music apps “ same as above.
  • Travel / Places of Interest apps “ will Yelp or others like it offer to alert me when there ‘s a new review of a favorited restaurant, or similar?  Again, just don ‘t really need that.

So I ‘ve gone through my little quick list, and I just cannot think of very many apps at all that I * do * want push notifications from.  I ‘m probably forgetting some, or being too harsh in my initial thinking, but I just imagine myself using Voice Control a heck of a lot on the new iPhone 3GS to say ‘piss off alerts ‘  if I don ‘t strictly limit the number of apps allowed to use them.

How about you all?  Looking forward to using push notifications a lot?  What sort of apps will you use them with?

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