Apple News has a notification spam problem

[egypturnash]

Is this really an app you want to leave notifications on for, period? It feels like the kind of thing where you just say "okay now is time to Read Some News" and go see what's new.

YMMV, I have generally turned off notifications for everything.

[14]

Agreed. I’ve turned off Facebook notifications years ago after they were spamming the heck out of me. A friend of a friend added a photo wow Facebook. It just became too much. Now I log onto Facebook a few times a month to usually about 30-40 notifications I often click once to clear but often don’t read through them. They are so desperate to have us engage with the screen.

[mcbutterbunz]

I agree. Up until very recent, most news was consumed later in the evening or the day after it happened. The current landscape is filled with a constant stream of events that have no immediate impact on my life other than distracting me from more important tasks.

[joelthelion]

In an ideal world, you might want to get notifications once or twice a year for major events. And daily or weekly digests for the rest.

[zelly]

WSJ gives notifications for actually important things.

[quantguy11959]

Agreed I got fed up with the notifications and turned them off after a week.

[anbop]

Apps with notification permission on my phone: Uber, Apple Pay.

[ovatsug25]

You actually can't turn off notifications for it.

I've done it—and on a day when you get something like the Mueller report or the Notre Dame fire—my phone will buzz. :/

[j-c-hewitt]

I turn it off and every so often Apple decides that no, I want their dumb news notifications again. Then it goes off again. I have never received an Apple News notification that was not dumb, stupid, and useless. It's sort of like airport CNN except in your pocket that randomly turns itself on after you have opted out of it.

[threeseed]

I would be filling a bug report over at http://bugreporter.apple.com

Definitely not normal for the OS to be ignoring notification settings.

[tomduncalf]

It’s a shame Apple have not been as strict about spammy notifications as they have about other aspects of iOS. I realised the other day that I automatically don’t allow notifications for virtually any app, primarily because I expect it’s going to spam me. Some apps would actually be enhanced by notifications but I never allow it.

The default notifications allowed for any app should be only relevant, action-based ones (“you have a new x!”, “time to practice your x!”, “user x remixed your track” etc.) with an extra opt-in for spammy attention grabbing ones of these are really needed.

[jakobegger]

Usually when an app sends a spam notification, I just delete the entire app.

For many apps getting push notifications would be the only reason that I install them. But if they then go on to send me spam instead of helpful notification, I don't see the point in using their service.

[TazeTSchnitzel]

Spam notifications are against App Store policy, and yet…

[Razengan]

I only allow lock screen notifications (that can wake the device) for communication apps or critical alerts.

Everything else is set to off or to only notify while I’m actively using the device (banners only.)

I also only enable saving in Notification Center for things that I may want to see past notifications for.

[adnanazadsg]

This is something I had noticed as well. Its really surprising that Apple would allow this, since they usually care a lot about user experience. And judging by the amount of notifications - I'd be very surprised if there's anyone left who hasn't turned on notifications for the news app.

I wonder why they wouldn't just compile a Morning and Evening digest and send notifications only then (even that would be aggressive in my opinion - but I wouldn't be overwhelmed.)

I really miss the days of RSS and Google Reader.

[hutattedonmyarm]

I still and happily get most of my news from my RSS feed

[minikites]

>Its really surprising that Apple would allow this, since they usually care a lot about user experience.

They stopped caring about that long ago. Look at the experience of the Marzipan apps they shipped. Look at the bug rates of their software lately. Look at the experience of their laptop keyboards. Look at the matrix you have to check to figure out which model of Apple Pencil works with which model of iPad. Look at the port and dongle situation with their laptops. Look at the age of the Mac Pro they're selling for full price.

[knowingathing]

I had this problem but then I spent 7 seconds turning off Notifications for News.

[SyneRyder]

There is a really, really good article from NiemanLab interviewing the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) about their use of Apple News notifications. This notification spam is exactly what they/publishers want. The Apple News notifications are used to A/B test what gets clicks against all their competitors running the same story, and they use that Apple News notification clickthru data to tweak which headlines & notifications they send via their own app and on their own website - the platforms they really want you to use.

Stat from the article: nearly 5% of the Australian population have opted in to the ABC's Apple News push notifications.

Australia’s Public Broadcaster Is Using Apple News Push Alerts To Reach New, Younger Audiences

http://www.niemanlab.org/2017/03/australias-public-broadcast...

The full article is really worth the read - especially the part about the notifications the ABC were going to send to target female runners at sunset.

[Bud]

This is an article in search of a problem.

It takes 5 seconds to disable ALL notifications from this (or any other) app.

[discordance]

The problem is that this is the default behavior of Apple News and is poor design. It doesn't even align with Apple's own Human Interface Guidelines[0], which states "If you send multiple notifications for the same thing, you fill up Notification Center, and users may turn off notifications from your app."

[0]: https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline...

[newsroll]

This is a problem even without Apple News+.

When Apple News came out I really liked the idea of having a single place to get pushed real breaking news as they happened. But sadly Apple News (and News+) is not that. Some of it is on the publishers and media (ie everything is considered "breaking" these days) but I think Apple is also part of the problem by pushing out stories on their official[1] breaking news channels that are not in fact really breaking news or news at all. I'm not talking about the biases either, but it has pushed me notifications about active shootings (good) and sports (bad) using the same breaking news headlines.

[1] one of the confusion is probably what is and isn't an official channel. If i can't figure out if the channel is a hand curated one vs one generated by a faulty AI then that's a problem.

[bradleybuda]

From just a few days ago: https://twitter.com/bradleybuda/status/1119022752092921857

[dhruvarora013]

I encountered this problem very recently as well. I like receiving notifications for Breaking News but I don't need notifications for lifestyle suggestions. Unfortunately there is no classifier for this in the News App. My workaround was to go into the settings for News and turn off notifications for every media outlet other than the New York Times. It's definitely not fool-proof but keeps more sane.

There however seems to be no way to automatically get rid of notifications on my iPad once I have read them on my phone...

[52-6F-62]

I don’t seem to be having the same problem as others.

I get the odd notification, but they’re rare. I have notifications left on for the app on my phone and work and home computers all.

Seems inconsistent somehow?

[saagarjha]

Apple's services products are noticeably spammy and it bothers me. News's alerts is one, but others in this category include Apple Music's trial offer notifications and iCloud's badges to upgrade your storage plan. Honestly, these all feel like they're in poor taste (I'd bring up the Human Interface Guidelines, but they don't really apply in this case) and I think they annoy people and might cause more harm than good.

[mark_l_watson]

I turned off notifications for the News app a long time ago, so I never noticed this problem.

The author just read ‘Digital Minimalism’ which is a good book so far (I am almost half way through reading it). Like the author, from reading this book I have been very mindful of use time on digital devices.

[nottorp]

Some people have turned off all notifications without reading any book ;)

Incidentally, I know this is iOS, but the OS X of old was very good at not letting any background stuff disturb your work. These days we have notifications even on the desktop and apps that steal the focus just because they displayed a dialog. Not even Apple is what they used to be.

[tareqak]

I wonder if there is any value for Apple to make an RSS reader comparable to what Google Reader was, and have some way for readers to pay or donate to the publications they subscribe to?

[jpz]

This is a problem - I was getting 10-30 notifications a day - I've just switched off notifications for this app.

It's a shame, as I'd like to be notified if some proper breaking news of significance actually happens. One of my notifications for instance was on Princess Eugenie's 29th birthday.

I have zero interest in lifestyle stories, let alone those of the royalty - it is utter spam.

[andersonnnunes]

Yeah, the way to go is with a feed reader, so you can set up filters. Takes a while, but nothing is better than having your own personalized news feed.

[granaldo]

I stopped looking at notifications now

[PaulHoule]

That notification screen is a sight for sore eyes.

[notimetorelax]

I like how this negative publicity reminded me of Apple News and now I’m thinking of trying it out!

[snypox]

There is no bad PR, huh