Windows Phone Notification Center
There are some leaks out now on what the Windows Phone notification functionality is going to look like. As always with leaks, these may either be non-final versions, or may even not be legitimate. The appearance looks legitimate enough. But that doesn't really say anything. I've seen many designers put out their spin on how something should look, or simply fakes that end up looking better than the final product. But, assuming this is real and more or less final I'll dispense with my thoughts.
I like the look. I like the ability to quickly toggle settings. I hate the entire notion of a notification center. Appearance is irrelevant though. I have an iPad, therefore I have used OS's with notification centers before. And there are 2 fundamental problems with them.
1 - Adding more gestures to the screen creates more scenarios where you inadvertently pull up the notification center when you didn't plan too:
This is super common in gaming. But, really, any app that gives you a reason to go near the edges of your device becomes a nuisance. Every screen edge that triggers a system interface of some sort effectively reduces the useable space on the touch screen. And since the vast majority of modern smart phones and tablets are touch only, this is a huge degradation of your primary input mechanism. This is 100% true in the Apple world, and as far as I know 100% in the Windows Phone 8 world (there was at least one keyboard slider for WP7). Android has a lot more options, but, the high-end and popular models all seem to be touch only as well.
2 - Data overload:
Games, email apps, arbitrary apps and sometimes even the OS itself. These are all things which dump information into your notification centers. And maybe this is just me... but when I have multiple informational elements on the same screen, and presented in the same way, I expect them to be of similar importance. But the problem with a unified notification center, is that is almost never the case.
Apple in my opinion, chose the notification center approach for 2 very simple reasons. Reason 1 is that both Android had widgets and Windows Phone had Live Tiles which both allowed at-a-glance information that was far more valuable than just a counter on an icon. And reason 2 is that Apple built an OS and eco-system in such a way as is was impossible to build anything else that would give them the same degree of information without breaking existing apps and design policies, etc...
Now, don't get me wrong. The notification interface that Apple added, does add value above and beyond simply enabling a more detailed notification methodology. Having a dedicated system overlay meant it could be activated from within another app (double edged as mentioned above), it also means consistency in representation and consolidation of data (also double edged).
To understand why I felt Apple designed it this way because prior decisions forced it is important. Because it also explains a bit more why I don't feel either Windows Phone or Android actually needed such a feature.
What did a notification in iOS look like prior to the notification center? Well, there were two approaches and both still exist. One was a non-actionable, modal pop-up, and the other a counter badge on the application icon. The pop-up is a nuisance. It gets in your way, doesn't allow you "drill into" it and respond and so were generally disabled for all but the most important apps. The counter was a great idea, but without the pop-ups you got no real-time notification inside of another app and no way of extracting additional information at a glance.
On Windows Phone, there are actually several improvements over these designs. Firstly are the toast notifications. The WP equivalent of iOS's pop-ups. But, they aren't modal, and when tapped can jump straight into the native app to respond. Or they can be ignored and they will simply disappear. As a result, they don't often interfere with anything, and there is less reason to turn them off. The added ability to tap on them to deal with the notification goes a step further and allows you to jump into the exact spot in another app (even one which isn't open) where you need to go to respond, without going back to the start screen. Or it can be ignored, and the separate app won't start, and the notification will simply go away after a few seconds.
This may not sound all that revolutionary. But, what you need to consider it that this functionality was there at launch of Windows Phone 7. At that point, the notification center didn't exist in iOS. And there was absolutely no way of accomplishing those feats at the time in that OS. To prove that, here are the release notes for iOS 5 announcing the notification center and here is a Wikipedia entry indicating the release date of Windows Phone 7. I can vouch for this as I had a WP7 day 1 and an iPad at the same time. As you can see, there was basically a full year between the WP7 release and the addition of a notification center to iOS. The timing actually backs my theory that Apple may have only done this because it felt pressured.
The other features Windows Phone employed that resolved the detailed notification issue were the People Hub and Live Tiles. If you weren't in an app when the message came in and it was from a service the People Hub integrated with, you could get a feed of all activity there. And, even better, if you created groups, those groups would have a news feed filtered by the group members. This, I think, is one of the most overlooked gems of Windows Phone. And, when you combine it with the next item, you get something truly magical.
And that next element is live tiles. With the People Hub, or pinned groups from the People Hub, you can get at a glance information from all integrated social services, and, if a group or individual is pinned, the live tile updates are filtered by those groups or individuals. I have one for friends, family and my wife. And that Live Tile functionality is accessible to all apps. So my twitter tile can update as new tweets come into my feed. Facebook can show the latest updates. News apps can show breaking news headlines. Whether tiles can update with the latest weather. All without ever launching the app.
This is the other crucial piece iOS was missing. A counter on the icon is nice... but generally meaningless.
Apple needed a solution that wouldn't break what was already a massive store worth of apps but could allow for all of those things. Non-invasive, actionable and more detailed. And thus the notification center was born. Of necessity.
I'm not sure what the state of Android system notifications was like at the time. I've actually never owned an Android phone. But widgets solved the at-a-glance data from outside an app even better than Windows Phone does. So, all Google would have needed to add if it wasn't already there was actionable toast like notifications and they would have (People Hub aside) functional parity with Windows Phone. For whatever reason, they went the same path as Apple and built a notification center.
And now, Microsoft has finally buckled under the repeated demands for functionality which makes no sense on their platform and appears to be on the verge of releasing their own notification center equivalent. Frankly, I would have much preferred that they simply extend the SDK to expose some system level events that another app could listen for to produce a dedicated notification center app. While it wouldn't be the same as serving up your own and would rule out a system overlay it also allows for the community to build their own which is something iOS and Android don't permit and would create a much greater variety of such apps. And it also eliminates that silly swipe down gesture that became the bane of my iOS experience.
I like the look. I like the ability to quickly toggle settings. I hate the entire notion of a notification center. Appearance is irrelevant though. I have an iPad, therefore I have used OS's with notification centers before. And there are 2 fundamental problems with them.
1 - Adding more gestures to the screen creates more scenarios where you inadvertently pull up the notification center when you didn't plan too:
This is super common in gaming. But, really, any app that gives you a reason to go near the edges of your device becomes a nuisance. Every screen edge that triggers a system interface of some sort effectively reduces the useable space on the touch screen. And since the vast majority of modern smart phones and tablets are touch only, this is a huge degradation of your primary input mechanism. This is 100% true in the Apple world, and as far as I know 100% in the Windows Phone 8 world (there was at least one keyboard slider for WP7). Android has a lot more options, but, the high-end and popular models all seem to be touch only as well.
2 - Data overload:
Games, email apps, arbitrary apps and sometimes even the OS itself. These are all things which dump information into your notification centers. And maybe this is just me... but when I have multiple informational elements on the same screen, and presented in the same way, I expect them to be of similar importance. But the problem with a unified notification center, is that is almost never the case.
Apple in my opinion, chose the notification center approach for 2 very simple reasons. Reason 1 is that both Android had widgets and Windows Phone had Live Tiles which both allowed at-a-glance information that was far more valuable than just a counter on an icon. And reason 2 is that Apple built an OS and eco-system in such a way as is was impossible to build anything else that would give them the same degree of information without breaking existing apps and design policies, etc...
Now, don't get me wrong. The notification interface that Apple added, does add value above and beyond simply enabling a more detailed notification methodology. Having a dedicated system overlay meant it could be activated from within another app (double edged as mentioned above), it also means consistency in representation and consolidation of data (also double edged).
To understand why I felt Apple designed it this way because prior decisions forced it is important. Because it also explains a bit more why I don't feel either Windows Phone or Android actually needed such a feature.
What did a notification in iOS look like prior to the notification center? Well, there were two approaches and both still exist. One was a non-actionable, modal pop-up, and the other a counter badge on the application icon. The pop-up is a nuisance. It gets in your way, doesn't allow you "drill into" it and respond and so were generally disabled for all but the most important apps. The counter was a great idea, but without the pop-ups you got no real-time notification inside of another app and no way of extracting additional information at a glance.
On Windows Phone, there are actually several improvements over these designs. Firstly are the toast notifications. The WP equivalent of iOS's pop-ups. But, they aren't modal, and when tapped can jump straight into the native app to respond. Or they can be ignored and they will simply disappear. As a result, they don't often interfere with anything, and there is less reason to turn them off. The added ability to tap on them to deal with the notification goes a step further and allows you to jump into the exact spot in another app (even one which isn't open) where you need to go to respond, without going back to the start screen. Or it can be ignored, and the separate app won't start, and the notification will simply go away after a few seconds.
This may not sound all that revolutionary. But, what you need to consider it that this functionality was there at launch of Windows Phone 7. At that point, the notification center didn't exist in iOS. And there was absolutely no way of accomplishing those feats at the time in that OS. To prove that, here are the release notes for iOS 5 announcing the notification center and here is a Wikipedia entry indicating the release date of Windows Phone 7. I can vouch for this as I had a WP7 day 1 and an iPad at the same time. As you can see, there was basically a full year between the WP7 release and the addition of a notification center to iOS. The timing actually backs my theory that Apple may have only done this because it felt pressured.
The other features Windows Phone employed that resolved the detailed notification issue were the People Hub and Live Tiles. If you weren't in an app when the message came in and it was from a service the People Hub integrated with, you could get a feed of all activity there. And, even better, if you created groups, those groups would have a news feed filtered by the group members. This, I think, is one of the most overlooked gems of Windows Phone. And, when you combine it with the next item, you get something truly magical.
And that next element is live tiles. With the People Hub, or pinned groups from the People Hub, you can get at a glance information from all integrated social services, and, if a group or individual is pinned, the live tile updates are filtered by those groups or individuals. I have one for friends, family and my wife. And that Live Tile functionality is accessible to all apps. So my twitter tile can update as new tweets come into my feed. Facebook can show the latest updates. News apps can show breaking news headlines. Whether tiles can update with the latest weather. All without ever launching the app.
This is the other crucial piece iOS was missing. A counter on the icon is nice... but generally meaningless.
Apple needed a solution that wouldn't break what was already a massive store worth of apps but could allow for all of those things. Non-invasive, actionable and more detailed. And thus the notification center was born. Of necessity.
I'm not sure what the state of Android system notifications was like at the time. I've actually never owned an Android phone. But widgets solved the at-a-glance data from outside an app even better than Windows Phone does. So, all Google would have needed to add if it wasn't already there was actionable toast like notifications and they would have (People Hub aside) functional parity with Windows Phone. For whatever reason, they went the same path as Apple and built a notification center.
And now, Microsoft has finally buckled under the repeated demands for functionality which makes no sense on their platform and appears to be on the verge of releasing their own notification center equivalent. Frankly, I would have much preferred that they simply extend the SDK to expose some system level events that another app could listen for to produce a dedicated notification center app. While it wouldn't be the same as serving up your own and would rule out a system overlay it also allows for the community to build their own which is something iOS and Android don't permit and would create a much greater variety of such apps. And it also eliminates that silly swipe down gesture that became the bane of my iOS experience.
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