Since the introduction of iCloud and demotion of the Mac, all iPhones, iPads and Macs are supposedly equal and the transition between them seamless. This is only true if I look at my iOS devices. Thanks to iOS 5, I have alerts now in notification center, photos, books & music syncing, mail being pushed back and forth, all from iCloud.
Yet regardless of the above, the major advantage iOS has over OS X and one that makes the transition not so seamless, is the notification system. On OS X, I have an alert badge on say the Mail.app icon, the Twitter logo glowing blue in the menu bar and growl notifications popping up with other alerts. With iOS, an email comes in, an @mention on Twitter, an eBay item ending or an iMessage, iOS 5 now tidies all these away into the notification centre for me to deal with as I see fit. To make the most of this, I use a few little tweaks to manage the flow of notifications.
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Low priority – I do not include in the notifications centre; I only have the app badge icon on; e.g. I have an iPhone app called Shows, it lets me know when concert tickets are available when an artist from my iPod library is playing within a set vicinity; this is fairly low priority and I will check the app when I see the badge alert and have spare time.
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Medium priority – I have these apps in my notification centre but not on the lock screen.
These may include Mail, Twitter or other apps that I don’t want to miss the alert but they do not require an immediate action. Once checked, they will then clear from the notification centre. -
High priority – Apps/notifications that require immediate action I will have show on my Lock Screen. This way if I glance at my iPhone I can see any important alerts from due Omnifocus tasks, missed calls or messages. Another good feature to use with important tasks is to use the pre iOS 5 notification style, the full screen alert. This you have to dismiss manually unlike the bar notification that will disappear after a few seconds making sure you do not miss your alert.
By using these methods I minimise the opportunity to distract myself but ensure I don’t miss anything that could require action immediately.
The proposed notification system from “Bringing iMessages To The Desktop“ could be extended to a unified notification system what applications and web-services could tie into. By using this, notifications and their statuses could be in sync across all devices equally.
I have high hopes for a unified notification system and I’m sure OS X Lion & iCloud are a transition to this but until then I’ll be sticking with the same system as Thomas Houston.
The hardware, software, and size constraints inherent to a mobile UI have resulted in some truly innovative ways to manage a flood of information, and with app and service usage showing no sign of slowing, it’s high time we got serious about desktop notifications. Until then, my phone will remain parked on my desk doing the work of two machines.