Apple’s notification system over the past few years has been lambasted for being clumsy and downright antiquated. Today, Apple Senior VP of iOS software Scott Forstall unveiled iOS 5 and as was predicted, the update includes a significant and welcome change to the way iOS handles notifications.
Gone are the obtrusive popups and in its place are noticeable notification banners that appear at the top of the screen and quickly disappear. Short and sweet, and most important of all, effective.
Taking things further, and borrowing a little from Android, Apple also has implemented a brand new notification center in iOS 5 accessed whenever a user swipes from the top of the screen downwards. Upon doing so, a panel comes down housing every single app notification in one convenient place. And for good measure, Apple added stock and weather information to the notification center as well.
But wait, there’s more!
Apple also added significant improvements to the iOS lockscreen as it as well contains notification information. Each notification has the corresponding app icon located to the left, and upon swiping to the right, a user is immediately transported to that app. In a “wow, that’s cool” enhancement, users can swipe to listen to voicemail messages directly from the lockscreen.
All in all, the revamped notification scheme in iOS 5 is exactly what everybody was hoping for.
Mon, Jun 6, 2011
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