Forget Apple Intelligence, iOS 19 needs to overhaul this core functionality

iOS 19 is coming next year, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the next WWDC will be bursting with innovations Apple Intelligence Things that will gradually appear before us in late 2025/2026.

Apple, a late and reluctant player on the AI scene, has been bitten by the AI bug and likely won’t stop integrating AI into all aspects of its operating systems, be it iOS, macOS, iPadOS or watchOS.

I’ve tried most of them now Apple Intelligence Given the features available so far, I’m increasingly pessimistic about the overall value that Apple’s latest software bells and whistles bring to its large user base.

But will iOS 19 be all about that? Apple Intelligence? I hope not, because one aspect of iOS needs a lot of improvements and general functionality overhauls (notifications).

My issues with iOS notifications

The one thing most iOS users can agree on is that everyone has their own bones about how to send notifications. like that on iOS. Apple has made many attempts to fix notifications over the years, and overall the trend is definitely positive, so things are slowly improving. But there is more confusion to be sorted out. Here are mine:

ecosystem problems

Apple’s strong ecosystem is one of the biggest reasons to choose the iPhone; because the iPhone integrates seamlessly into Apple’s device lineup and encourages investment in other Apple products.

However, despite all the advantages it offers (Handoff, Continuity, Universal Clipboard, AirPlay, Sidecar, Focus Modes, etc.), there are still problems with notification synchronization in the Apple ecosystem. My anecdotal experience has been that I would interact with a notification on my iPhone or MacBook, and an hour or so later, the same notification would pop up on my iPad while I was reading an e-book. Not an ideal user experience.

An ergonomics nightmare

Another important issue is ergonomics. Want to check your notifications while using the phone? Fine, this would be an awkward thumb movement towards the top or top left of the screen, which could be a nightmare if you’re right-handed like 90% of the world’s population.

Considering that large iPhones of 6.7 inches and above account for half of all new iPhones recently, this lack of ergonomics is likely an issue for many people. I have pretty big hands and I used iPhone 13 Pro Max Since its release, even I agree that accessing your notifications is extremely painful. Even on a smaller regular or Pro iPhone, swiping down to see your notifications is an annoying task.

Let’s face it, Apple might not have a lot of leeway here: swiping down from the top right of the screen closes the basic Control Center, so there’s no need for it.

We’ve seen Android manufacturers struggle with this issue in the past, and they’ve overcome these two separate screens by allowing users to swipe left and right between quick toggles and notification panels. Android as a whole went in a completely new direction with the unified notifications/quick panel, and I thought it was a genius move.

Slide to close, aka hit or miss

I don’t know about you, but I tend to dismiss notifications I don’t care about by swiping left directly from the lock screen. Usually this shortcut works pretty well. But when it doesn’t open, my iPhone opens – you guessed it – the camera app. In most cases, this happens when I’m in a hurry and swipe a notification in the wrong direction; This is usually the worst time for the camera app to open on you.

As far as I know, there’s still no way to disable swiping left to access the camera from the lock screen. This is one of the oldest ways to access your camera; If you use one device, there are now at least four. iPhone 16 family: using the default shortcut on the lock screen, swipe left on the lock screen using the new Camera Control button or optionally the Action Button.

It seems that Apple, in its quest to offer as many ways as possible to help us access the camera, has forgotten that customization goes both ways: not only enabling features, but also allowing users to disable the default options. A simple toggle to disable this would be welcome.

Persistence is lacking

One of the quirks of iOS notifications is that they “disappear” even when you interact with a single notification.

Picture this scenario: You’re away from your phone and you’ve received a dozen notifications. You scroll through the list, interact with the most important notification, and tap it to open the corresponding app. You spend about a minute in the app as you normally would, then lock your phone again.

Guess how many of the notifications you saw before will pop up when you pick up your phone for the second time? None. If you trust your muscle memory and swipe up your lock screen, you can rest assured that the rest of your notifications will indeed be stored there.

However, I have lost count of the number of times I have been called inattentive because I forgot about a pending notification. This problem is compounded by the fact that iOS’ status bar lacks persistent notification indicators that can serve as a helpful reminder like Android does.

Someone might argue that if you haven’t interacted with a notification but read it, it probably isn’t that important to begin with, but I think it’s the OS’s job to remind you of the notifications you’ve received. . Android gives you a little icon in the status bar to remind you that there are more notifications you’re not interacting with, but iOS leaves that to our own forgetful and distracted selves.

Lack of notification categories

See, this is why Android is still the king of notifications; It lets you specify what type of notifications you get from most important apps. Thanks to Android’s more granular notification customization, you can tell an app that it’s okay to send notifications for some events, but not for others.

For example, you can prevent a trendy new messaging app from sending you notifications about promotions and alerts, but still allow it to send you notifications of incoming messages. This is great from a user experience perspective.

Some apps on iOS also let you do this from their own in-app settings (Google News has very customizable notification settings, for example), but this isn’t a native function of Apple’s operating system; This means customizability of these notification categories. It entirely falls on the application developer.

On Android, developers must implement these different categories of notifications on an app-by-app basis, but at least the functionality is built at the system level.

This “all or nothing” The notification scenario that iOS has adopted allows dishonest app developers to inundate you with a constant barrage of ads masquerading as notifications.

Shady mobile games, I’m looking at you.

Swiping up a notification does not clear the red dot badge

It’s pretty simple: If you don’t interact with a notification and swipe it off the lock screen, the corresponding app won’t clear the little red dot on the home screen. To get rid of the red badge, you need to explicitly open the app and interact with what is notified to you.

This may be useful for some applications, but it quickly becomes an annoyance, at least for me.

Lack of notification history

It’s a simple but cool Android feature that many people probably don’t know about. Many custom Android skins include a hidden but extremely useful history log containing all the notifications you’ve received recently and in the last 24 hours. This log is usually found in the Settings menu and is a great place to see notifications you accidentally scrolled through.

On iOS, you’re mostly alone. There’s no history log, so once swiped the notification disappears.

It’s not that bad though

Despite the criticism they receive, iOS notifications aren’t that bad. There are many things I like about them.

I love new Apple Intelligence The notification summary feature has worked great for me so far.

Latest iOS 18.1 finally introduced notification badges to lock screen notifications; so you can see at a glance how many notifications an app is sending you; This is great for usability.

If you count these as notifications, Live Events are a pretty useful feature that helps you stay in touch with important events like the arrival of your Uber or the status of your DoorDash order. These are critical notifications, and for the most part Apple has had a hit, not a miss, here.

Solution

As iOS improves with each iteration, Apple continues to improve the user experience, but notifications certainly remain an area ripe for improvement.

While features like Live Events and notification summaries are promising, issues like limited customization, poor ergonomics, and lack of notification history still hold iOS back compared to Android, which is definitely ahead in this race.

With iOS 19 on the horizon, I hope Apple will address these long-standing shortcomings and strike a better balance between innovation and user functionality.