MARCH 2020 PCWorld 103iPhone’s notifications
management is far, far
behind Android. The
phone dumps notifications
into a different section after
you’ve seen them once,
making it difficult to track
things down. When you do
find that notification, the
snippet might be too short,
and notifications don’t
expand like they do on
Android. You have to open
apps to get more
context—how barbaric.
Clearing notifications also requires multiple
actions (like a swipe, followed by a tap). And
then we have the icon badges, which are a
profoundly bad way of relaying information to
the user. Apps can notify for all kinds of
reasons, and the red counter doesn’t tell you
anything about why an app wants your
attention. They also have zero relationship with
what’s in your notification center.
Lightning and charging: I’m heavily
invested in USB Type-C at this point. I have
computers, headphones, cameras, and even
keyboards that use the new standard. So,
moving to Apple’s Lightning port was
extremely disruptive and it offered zero
benefits. USB-C is not only universal, it
supports extremely fast charging speeds.
Even with Apple’s new, faster charger,
many Android phones leave it in the dust.
Apple has already moved to USB-C on
tablets and laptops, so it’s probably just a
matter of time until it does the same on
phones. Until then, iPhone users are stuck
with this proprietary cable.
Siri: Apple was the first smartphone maker
to push a virtual assistant as a game changing
feature, and Siri was basically unopposed for
several years. But Google Assistant is a much
better experience than Siri today. Assistant
has more smart home integration, much
better general search functionality, and it’s
much more adept at understanding queries. I
also like that Assistant is more fully integrated
with my data on Android. Perhaps Apple’s
careful approach to privacy is part of the
problem here, but I’m willing to trade a little
privacy for a digital assistant that doesn’t
make me want to pull my hair out.Apple’s approach to notifications is just bad UX. Bad, bad, bad.