Thoughtful post from Jason Snell for Tom’s Guide, with some interesting suggestions for iOS 12.
One section focuses on Notification Center:
Notification Center on iOS is kind of a mess. It’s time for an overhaul. App notifications should be grouped together, with more opportunities to act on notifications directly from the notifications list. Clearing all notifications should be an obvious feature, and one that’s available even on devices without 3D Touch.
I’d add this: Consider requiring a longer tap to jump from a notification to the app tied to that notification.
Why? I frequently find myself going to tap on something toward the top of the screen and, just as I’m about to make contact, a notification appears and I end up tapping the notification instead, launching myself out of my app. If a bit of a long press was required to respond to a notification, my simple tap would be ignored by the notification and I could dismiss it and return to my tap-happiness.
Hardly ever use Notification Center except to view my AirPod battery charge. Putting Control Center in upper right was a poor choice, but I do not have a better solution. Surely, Apples anonymous feedback data can guide them on which features are used often and which aren’t.
I prefer (at least in theory) the original leak where control center was a card in the app switcher especially now that I have mastered the swipe up and to the right to get into app switcher. I use control center a lot less now that it has moved to the top right swipe down.
Sure, but if they make that an actual major feature of a release (not just something they talk about) it says to me that they’re running out of substantive ideas. And whether we like them or not, there are still real actual things that can be improved.
“App notifications should be grouped together”
I can’t imagine anything I’d like less that didn’t involve some physical damage to my body.
And that’s not even the worst idea on the list.
The two I want from that list are the improved DND and AR in Maps. For the latter, I’d go farther than Snell and say that I should be able to point my phone at a business and see a Yelp review if one is available. “Hey, is that falafel place across the street any good… (points)… Oh cool, 4 stars…”
They need to lay off the stupid emoji BS. I get the cute appeal, but it’s not good when emoji stuff is the center of a release.
Notification and control center are, I think, in transition… the X uses different gestures than other phones and iOS needs to account for both sets.
Emoji is what muggles upgrade for. I don’t think it’s slowing down or compromising the releases; it’s very likely done by different people.
As an app developer, I want people to keep upgrading.