Spyke

You are a program

rOzeclawz Follow 2d ago

what the fuck makes phone apps so cocky as to send me notifications telling me to use it. my grocery list app straight up went "you havent made a list in a while!" are you out of your fucking mind. you are a program. why are you speaking to me like youre my equal. i could replace you with a pen and the back of a receipt. idiot. i kill you now

View original on lemmy.world
DJDarrenreply
thelemmy.club

It makes me more angry that it should that Alexa talks back to me when I ask it to do stuff.

“NOW CONNECTED TO YOUR PHONE!”

YES I FUCKING KNOW BECAUSE YOU MADE THE BEEPING NOISE YOU MAKE AND THAT’S OK BUT DON’T FUCKING TALK TO ME

21
lemmy.world

Your problem is having an Alexa in the first place. That's a simple fix, though. Your local recycling center will take e-waste.

32
Macreply
mander.xyz

The only ground i will give in this argument is when my headphones tell me the battery is low.

5

I don't like those either. I like the tones the airpods use. A single beep has no intrinsic meaning. But the tone it uses for low battery is as intuitive as it can get. Also if you don't speak English the voice is just as useless as the tone. Especially if it's something like this.

That said my friend has a headset that announces "mic on" and "mic off" and we get far too much enjoyment out of mocking it saying my cock.

7

I have never heard the Airpod tone but i would prefer more than a single beep. I worry i would miss it. Maybe a long tone or a series of fast beeps would work well.

1

That's definitely an option but i think i would miss it. A series of five or so fast beeps, perhaps.

1
feddit.org

The worst are apps that send ads through notifications.

121
lemmy.world

The worst is when an otherwise great app does that! And they also send really important notifications too, so you can’t just disable notifications!

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cronreply
feddit.org

Many apps have "notification channels" (on android), to customize what notifications you get. You could choose to disable some notifications and keep others.

23
lemmy.world

Are apps able to lie though? Say, by putting ads into the same channel as essential notifications?

16
feddit.org

Yes and some do it constantly. Other have say two channels and just name them like “important stuff” and “really important stuff” and just mix ads in both.

There was a time, when the Amazon App complained every time you opened it (and every few pages of browsing) that not all notifications were allowed and constantly nagged you to turn them on, if you disabled any categories in the app or notification channels.

16

Yeah so the feature actually sounds completely useless against a determined adversarytiser. At the very least, apps should have no way of knowing whether notifications are turned on, including no means of knowing whether a notification was displayed or not.

App stores should also make a policy of banning apps that don’t explicitly keep all their ads in an advertising channel.

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cronreply
feddit.org

Probably yes. But most apps probably behave well

9

The type of app to send you ads through your notifications are the type that don't implement this, bundle them with "important" things, or just straight up lie.

2

Probably depends on the developer. Friendly independent neighborhood developer? Well behaved. Corporate app developer? Get fucked pleb.

1

Issue #363 - My phone notified me about an add

Issue #366 - My phone have notified me about ads twice

Issue #372 - My phone have notified me about ads three times

That's the good stuff.

14
PolarisFxreply
lemmy.dbzer0.com

Starbucks does it for me. The same notification channel is for orders and "announcements" which is essentially ads

3

Ya, easy. Stop going to Starbucks. They union bust by closing stores to shit on their employees. Terrible company. If you are a patron of Starbucks, you earned that shitty app and all that comes with it.

6
lemmy.world

You forgot the ones that decide they need to play their own sounds to accompany the notification.

It took exactly one time of the Taco Bell app making my phone do their stupid bong sound for me to swear off taco bell for life.

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lemmy.world

making my phone do their stupid bong sound

-Rapid bubbling- -Short burst of coughs- “Bruh, we should totally get munchies.”

11
lemmy.ml

One more reason why i prefer Open Source. There, apps get made for utility, not for money.

91
T0RB1Treply
lemmy.ca

Or ad campaigns! Don't forget terrible products that are popularized by ads alone!

19

It seems that Warp terminal is all the rage now, at least among my macOS using colleagues. I don't know if it's open source but iTerm on my mac does everything Warp does minus the AI, so what's the hype?

1
lemmy.blahaj.zone

Any app that does shit like that immediately loses notification privileges. At the very least. If it's something that I don't need (thanks for reminding me, app), then I will just remove it.

71
lemm.ee

I wish there was a more punitive option. Like, yeah, I disallowed notifications, but I also had a leaky gallon of liquid shit delivered to the CEO's home.

12

The most punitive thing you can do is give it a 1 star review.

As it so happens it's also the nicest thing you can do for everybody else since it makes it less likely people will download that app.

7

No application should have this privilege by default. I only gives it to apps that can't work without it.

5
fedia.io

"You are right, I'm not using you. Uninstalled."

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lemmy.world

It's the only thing worse than getting interrupted using the app asking for me to review it

53

I do review them when they pull that bullshit, I give them 1 star.

10
lemmy.world

This is why on newer Android versions you can just flat out reject being allowed to send notifications.

I will talk to you when I need it, not the other way around.

39

Well before the current Android version, you had to manually go into the settings of the app or your phone to disable them. Now you get this on first boot of the app:

This makes it a lot easier to reject them immediately

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DrDystopiareply
lemy.lol

WW3 have that unblockable Presidential Alert emergency notification. There's no escape. 😔

Unless one disabled the correct system APK through ADB of course.

3

My phone hasn’t made a sound in years. It’s hard on silent and all notifications* go to my watch so it can tap my wrist quietly and politely. _ *I say “all”, but it’s calls, messages, and reminders. General purpose apps aren’t allowed to talk to me.

2

This. I shut off all notifications from nearly all of my apps. Primary text app, phone app, and just a couple of others. I may temporarily allow them for a special purpose, but once that's over they all get silenced and I get to them when I get to them. I hate badge notifications, too. So, those are off for EVERYTHING. Grad school cemented that aversion.

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DrDystopiareply
lemy.lol

At that point why not just disallow it from running in the background?

2
.Donutsreply
lemmy.world

Some apps still need to be able to do that to perform their function, but generally speaking yeah, you could

4
DrDystopiareply
lemy.lol

What sort of apps would need real-time running if not to send notifications? Like logging software?

1

Playing music, viewing weather forecast at a glance, fitness tracking, that kind of stuff

6

But all of them are examples of apps needing to run in the background specifically to send notifications...

What apps need to run in the background for other reasons than to send notifications?

1
lemm.ee

Sometimes I put directions into Maps for a work thing and I have to be there before the location opens to the public and when I put the address in, before it will give me directions, the app says, "HEY, THE PLACE YOU'RE GOING MIGHT NOT BE OPEN, JUST THOUGHT YOU MIGHT WANT TO KNOW, STUPID ASSHOLE."

It makes me unreasonably(?) furious.

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.Donutsreply
lemmy.world

I get this happen to me too, but honestly it feels like a feature that helps more people than it annoys the rest. Even though I'm among those annoyed

26
sh.itjust.works

It's like when customer service call centers have 'longer than average wait times" because of "higher than average call volume" all of the fucking time. If it happens all the time, it ain't higher than average.

11

The average human being has one breast and one testicle. If you're closed at night, then all daytime activity is higher than average.

1

Breh my job involves driving to addresses outside of their normal working hours to the general public . It is so f u c k i n g annoying to have to listen to day in and day out. Same with "traffic is heavier than usual". Also every. Damn. Day at the same time of day.

15
lemmy.world

Driving somewhere unknown, I need gas..."hey phone, take me to the nearest gas station" "okay, here's a tiny list of gas stations to choose from, please click the one you want"

Hands free navigation at its finest.

6

And then it asks you if the gas station you want is one 8 hours away, instead of the one 3 minutes from your current location. This has happened to me many times.

1

Maybe you wouldn't have that problem if you didn't burn gasoline. Seems like a sensible solution to the safety concern too.

0
piefed.social

I changed my first name in part because of this kind of nonsense. In the old days companies would refer to you as Mr. Surname, these days they're gross and chummy. Stay in your lane, we're not friends, you can use my paperwork name that I have no emotional connection to.

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pseudoreply
jlai.lu

I'm using more and more "master" as a first name online. That helps a lot.

24

App developers should learn that the "Maybe later" button makes me delete their app.

Yes or no.

23
lemmy.world

It increases engagement and that's what the developer wants, especially if there are ads or purchases in the app. So you might hate it but it works.

16

In the end, the proof is the developer's income. They seem to think it's worth it on average. Of course the average public contains a bunch of people who want to help out that nice Nigerian prince.

1
lemmy.sdf.org

I hate how app send notifications constantly now. It's gotten to the point where I'll just uninstall it if it annoys me.

14

On top of that I'll sometimes put them entirely to sleep when I'm not using them. You get zero background privileges. I don't need you running in the background updating crap, when I only need to use you a few times a year.

3

Setting my phone to silent semi-permanently was a great decision. The sound of sensation of buzzing has become something I dread. Do not "ping" at me, machine. I will check for messages when I am bored, and no sooner!

7

The only apps that can give me notifications are my messenging app my phone app and my email app. The rest get notifications blocked on install.

7
lemmy.world

the only apps that are allowed to speak to me are messengers, weather, and my bank. Nothing else has speaking privileges.

7
dufkmreply
lemmy.world

Lol, I would never allow my bank app to speak to me. "Dude, you're broke as f***!". I know, no need to announce it on a full bus.

3

was thinking more "hey you just got your paycheque :)" and "someone in Cambodia is trying to access your banking account"

3

I just usually instantly revoke notification priviliges for any app that sends me a notification i don't like

4
P00ptartreply
lemmy.world

I don't know why you were down oted but it's true. Free apps exist solely to take your data.

3

I mean if you take a look into f-droid a lot of free apps that are tracking free and perfect to use. So there are apps that are free and good to use.

22

Sad reality is that most things want to get you hooked and engaged in some way or another. Heck, even websites show you native device notifications now if you allow them, but I guess it's easier for an app to get you to agree to that, even if the app is just a website wrapper...

3

My tablet for some unknown reason sends me messages about my phone and cable bill being due. Like not an email notification but a separate notification out of nowhere and I can't figure out how to turn it off. I removed my cable app from the tablet thinking it'd do it, but it still happens. Like fuck off, I know I owe you an exorbitant amount of money.

2

This came up a few weeks ago. It helps retention, which helps app store ranking.

2