Shawn Blanc on Notifications
As we get more and more devices in our lives, we need more and more syncing going on between them. Shawn illustrates an very common issue when apps want to notify us:
iCal alarms that go off on my iPad, iPhone, and Mac at the same time. I can think of two ways to fix this: (a) the devices know when they are on the same Wi-Fi network and then just one device displays the alarm; or (b) give me the option to set a default device that is the only one that ever displays the alarm.
Some of Google’s apps on Android are smart enough to do this. If I get email, I can see the notification on both my phone and in my web browser. If I deal with the email in my browser, the Gmail on Android is smart enough to remove the notification from my phone a few seconds later. Gtalk also will alert both places of incoming chats, but once you start using one, it stops pestering the other device.
This is what I think all apps should start doing. They should keep track of what device I’m currently using, and make smart decisions about that. Take Twitter: when I’m looking at the website, I’ve obviously seen a bunch of tweets recently. Currently when I pick up my phone, it still thinks I haven’t seen a bunch of @replies.
