Archive of July 2009
Push Notifications
One iPhone app that I particularly like is the companion to the Mac desktop software Things. I’m not a GTD disciple, but it comes in handy for organizing tasks and the interface makes me feel good. Some users, however, feel the mobile version lacks an essential feature: push notifications.
I disagree. From my understanding, push notifications are pushed to the iPhone from a web server (or “cloud” if you like buzzwords.) Logic would tell us that it has to have that information stored on it for the whole push thing to happen. I don’t really care to have all my To-dos stored on some remote server owned by some remote person. Same with those monthly scheduled bank payments I’m supposed to make. Even if privacy isn’t an issue for you, it’s still one more registration process to go through, no matter how painless it may seem. No thanks.
Aside from that, it doesn’t seem to me like push notifications will scale well. A one-time occurrence of a pop-up dialogue for every action that you could possibly be notified of could get a little cluttered. I know I’ve instinctively swiped to unlock my phone without really looking at a notification, thinking it was a text message that I’d read in the Messages interface. Instead, some jack-in-the-box app launches and I’m left wondering what I’m supposed to be looking at. At the very least, it would be nice to have some sort of log.
As far as user interface goes, I’m a bit envious of the way the G1 and the Pre do notifications. They seem less obtrusive than their iPhone counterparts. After all, an alert for 10% remaining battery power is a little more important than someone I never talk to sending a kind “sup?” instant message to the AIM account I forgot to sign off of. Or even a text message. Point is, they all look the same. Point is, Things shouldn’t have push notifications.
Things should have users that open the app more often. Heck, even the desktop version doesn’t have pop-up reminders1.
1 Not directly. It can sync to an iCal calendar which can provide reminders.
Chyrp 2.0
Chyrp 2.0 has officially been released. This site uses it. Which means I use it. Which means it’s cool.
Also on Github
July 08 at 10:31 PM Permalink
0 CommentsCan’t wait for this: Rolando 2
I hope the 3D maps don’t destroy the nice clean art style of the first game.