Link tags: notifications

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Web Push on iOS - 1 year anniversary - Webventures

Web Push on iOS is nearing its one year anniversary. It’s still mostly useless.

Sad, but true. And here’s why:

On iOS, for a website to be able to ask the user to grant the push notification permission, it needs to be installed to the home screen.

No other browser on any of the other platforms requires you to install a website for it to be able to send push notifications.

Apple is within their rights to withhold Web Push to installed apps. One could argue it’s not even an unreasonable policy - if Apple made installing a web app at least moderately straightforward. As it is, they have buried it and hidden important functionality behind it.

I really, really hope that the Safari team are reading this.

A pretty sweet push notification solution for mobile Safari

An entire generation of apps-that-should-have-been web pages has sprung up, often shoehorned into supposedly cross-platform frameworks that create a subpar user experience sludge. Nowhere is this more true than for media — how many apps from newspapers or magazines have you installed, solely for a very specific purpose like receiving breaking news alerts? How many of those apps are just wrappers around web views? How many of those apps should have been web pages?

Web Push on iOS requires installing the web app - Webventures

Instead of doing what the competing browsers are doing (and learning from years of experience of handling Web Push), Apple decided to reinvent a wheel here. What they’ve turned up with looks a lot more like a square.

The Biggest Thing from WWDC 2022 - Webventures

Web Push on iOS will change the “we need to build a native app” decision.

I agree.

Push notifications are definitely not the sole reason to go native, but in my experience, it’s one of the first things clients ask for. They may very well be the thing that pushes your client over the edge and forces them, you and the entire project to accept the logic of the app store model.

News from WWDC22: WebKit Features in Safari 16 Beta | WebKit

Good news and bad news…

The good news is that web notifications are coming to iOS—my number one wish!

The bad news is that it won’t happen until next year sometime.

Computers should expose their internal workings as a 6th sense (Interconnected)

What about a scarf or collar so the back of your neck prickles when somebody is talking about you on Twitter.

Or a ghost detector for homes, restaurants, etc that glows when someone is “visiting” in Google Maps/Facebook Pages or looking through a webcam? Maybe it would be better to control the air conditioning to produce a chill, or play barely audible infrasound, indications that there is a haunting in progress and the veil here is thin.

Robin Rendle › Newsletters

A rant from Robin. I share his frustration and agree with his observations.

I wonder how we can get the best of both worlds here: the ease of publishing newsletters, with all the beauty and archivability of websites.

PushAPI without Notifications | Seblog

Remember when I wrote about using push without notifications? Sebastiaan has written up the details of the experiment he conducted at Indie Web Camp Berlin.

Push and ye shall receive | CSS-Tricks

Imagine a PWA podcast app that works offline and silently receives and caches new podcasts. Sweet. Now we need a permissions model that allows for silent notifications.

Modalz Modalz Modalz

We use too many damn modals.

Amen! This site offers some alternatives, or—if you really must use a modal dialogue—some dos and dont’s.

And remember to always ask, kids: “Why does this have to be a modal?”

Thinking about permissions on the web | Sally Lait

Sally takes a long hard look at permissions on the web. It’s a fascinating topic because of all the parties involved—browsers, developers, and users.

In order to do permissions well, I think there are two key areas to think about - what’s actually being requested, and how it’s being requested.

Is a site being intrusive with what they can potentially learn about me (say, wanting my precise location when it’s unnecessary)? Or is it being intrusive in terms of how they interact with me (popping up a lot of notifications and preventing me from quickly completing my intended task)? If one of those angles doesn’t work well, then regardless of whether the other is acceptable to someone, they’re likely to start opting out and harbouring negative feelings.

Web Push Notifications Demo | Microsoft Edge Demos

Push notifications explained using astrology. But don’t worry, there’s also some code, just in case you prefer your explanations to also include models that actually work.

How to display a “new version available” of your Progressive Web App

This is a good walkthrough of the flow you’d need to implement if you want to notify users of an updated service worker.

Notifications

Heydon keeps on delivering the goods. This time, he looks at making on-screen notification messages accessible using ARIA’s live regions.

As ever, structuring content is paramount, even where it pertains to dynamic events inside realtime web applications.

UI Sounds: From Zero To Hero | Icons8 Blog

Following on from Ruth’s piece, here are some more thoughts on sound in UI from Roman Zimarev, the creator of icon sounds.

He makes a distinction between notification sounds and interaction sounds, as well as talking about sound identity in branding.

Yes, That Web Project Should Be a PWA · An A List Apart Article

A fantastic piece by Aaron who—once again—articulates what I’ve been thinking:

Your site—every site—should be a PWA.

He clearly explains the building blocks of progressive web apps—HTTPS, a manifest file, and a service worker—before describing different scenarios for different kinds of sites:

  • Informational
  • Periodical
  • Transactional
  • Social
  • Software
  • Institutional

Progressive Web Apps may seem overly technical or beyond the needs of your project, but they’re really not. They’re just a shorthand for quality web experiences—experiences that can absolutely make a difference in our users’ lives.

Highly recommended!

A Progressive Roadmap for your Progressive Web App - Cloud Four

Jason lists the stages of gradually turning the Cloud Four site into a progressive web app:

And you can just keep incrementally adding and tweaking:

You don’t have to wait to bundle up a binary, submit it to an app store, and wait for approval before your customers benefit.

PushCrew Push Notifications for HTTP websites

A nasty service that Harry noticed in his role as chronicler of dark patterns—this exploits the way that browser permissions are presented below the line of death.

Hey, Hey, Cloud Four is a PWA! - Cloud Four

Jason talks through the service worker strategy for his company website.

The Business Case for Progressive Web Apps - Cloud Four

Jason looks at the business reasons for and against building progressive web apps. In short, there’s everything to gain and nothing to lose.

Seriously, why would you not add a Service Worker and a manifest file to your site? (assuming you’re already on HTTPS)