Five ways Google can fix Android notifications
When Android 8.0 lands this fall, two things will be certain: It’ll have a sweets-inspired name beginning with the letter O, and the notification system will get another series of changes. The steady stream of beeps and buzzes that we get on our phones is a never-ending work in progress, and Google is constantly trying to walk the line between indispensable and irritating as it works to refine its system of alerts.
Nougat brought some much-needed features to Android’s notifications, adding extremely useful changes to the way we view and interact with them. But while many apps have taken full advantage of the latest features, navigating the notification shade on a Nougat phone can still be a hit-or-miss affair. With a few tweaks, however, Google can truly revolutionize notifications in Android 8, bringing the same level of control we enjoy with the interface to the alerts we receive throughout the day.
Clean up the status bar
The tiny notification icons in the status bar are one of the things that makes Android unique, and they can be tremendously useful as visual reminders of things that need immediate action. But they can also be a terrible nuisance, cluttering the tiny space above our home screens and apps, and commanding equal attention for urgent and unimportant matters alike.
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The System UI Tuner already allows you to turn off the icons on the right side of the status bar (Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, etc.), but the left side can be far more distracting. While Google is unlikely to ever eliminate them completely (and there’s no reason it should), status bar notifications needn’t be such an all-or-nothing affair. Just like it does with the lock screen, Google could provide an option for notifications to appear in the status bar, so you could designate only the most important ones to occupy such prime real estate.
But even if Google never lets us turn them off, there should never be duplicate icons in the status bar. Whether it’s a bug or a feature, they’re pointless and distracting, and if nothing else, Google should make it a point in Android O to make sure only one icon per app appears, no matter how many notifications pile up.
How it could work: When you tap on an app in the Notifications settings, add a new tab: In the status bar. Then you can choose from the same three options: Show all notification content, hide sensitive notification content, and don’t show notifications at all.
Allow alerts to self-destruct
The thing about notifications is that their value begins fading almost immediately. If they sit for more than a few hours, they can most likely be dismissed and ignored, yet there’s no way to get rid of them unless you recognize their existence in some way.
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It’s in these instances when automatic expirations would be useful. For example, you could set calendar entries to disappear a few hours after the event has ended, or sports scores to clear after a day. It would keep the status bar and shade neat and tidy, while allowing timely and pertinent notifications to rise to prominence.
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