OPINION: Pixel owners are now able to download the first Android 15 public beta. I don’t usually rush to download these pre-launch software updates, despite owning a Pixel phone, but this time is different due to its promise to get notifications under control.
In recent weeks, I’ve been getting increasingly frustrated with the number of notifications I receive. If I don’t open my phone for an hour or so, then I’ll be greeted to a long list of overwhelming notifications that clog up my phone’s newsfeed.
It can take so long to scroll through these notifications that I usually just end up clearing them all instead, despite the risk of missing a big BBC News headline or injury updates ahead of the fantasy football deadline.
Part of this is my own fault. Android offers up the option to deactivate notifications for specific apps, so I really should engage in some spring cleaning. After all, I really don’t need Domino’s reminding me about the latest pizza deal every week.
However, my biggest gripe is in regards to how many notifications I receive from each app on a single day. I don’t really want to deactivate my The Athletic notifications, just in case an important news story pops up about my favourite football team, but Android says I’m receiving about 10 notifications per day from this single app – that’s far too much.
The Athletic isn’t the only guilty party either. According to my Pixel phone, I receive around 105 notifications on an average day. It’s no wonder that my inclination is to now delete a notification rather than read it.
Fortunately, Google is promising to help reduce this avalanche of notifications with the introduction of Android 15, which offers up a new Notification Cooldown feature. This will apparently lower the quantity of successive notifications from the same app, allowing me to continue receiving notifications from my favourite apps without getting spammed.
It’s a step in the right direction, but I still feel that notifications can still be improved upon further. Now we’re entering the age of on-device artificial intelligence, I’m hoping that Google can develop a smarter filtration system for notifications.
Ideally, Android should be able to determine whether I have an interest in a notification by registering my actions, whether it’s a swift deletion or a click through to find out more information about a specific headline. It should then be able to react accordingly, and show more/less notifications according to my level of interest. Doing so would greatly improve my experience of using an Android phone.
I’m also annoyed by the number of apps, which I rarely ever use, are still able to send me notifications on a regular basis. Threads, Bing and BeReal all send notifications on a weekly basis, yet I can’t remember the last time I opened those apps. Sure, I could manually deactivate those app notifications myself, but I’d prefer it if Android automatically sorted this out for me.
When discussing AI on smartphones, we usually focus on the grandiose features such as making it easy to scrub an ex from a photo. But realistically, most people would actually benefit more from intelligent notifications, as I’m sure there are plenty more Android users experiencing the same notification nightmare as me.
