Notifications are where computing grabs your attention.

· Bits and Bobs 4/20/26
  • Notifications are where computing grabs your attention.
    • These should be perfectly tuned to what you care about at that moment.
    • Instead, they've gotten less powerful over time.
    • One-size-fits-none notifications.
    • It's extremely hard for me to distinguish via vibration for a text from my husband by vibration from the WhatsApp group chat that I glance at that has 100 messages an hour.
      • iMessage allows setting up vibration patterns for specific contacts, but other apps rarely choose to allow that level of customizability.
    • The system UI for advanced users was either never added, or was removed over time to simplify.