iOS 5 vs Android

iOS 5 launches this Fall and one especially contemptible deficiency we’re eager to see addressed by the new software is notifications. Since the iPhone’s debut, we’ve lamented the disruptive-when-received, unretrievable-when-dismissed nature of notifications, which only felt more archaic when Android arrived sporting a smart, cohesive notifications system.

This isn’t the first time Apple’s implemented features Android had earlier — see Copy & Paste support — but Apple has also made a habit of observing its competition and one-upping them with better implementation — see again Copy & Paste: Where Android’s C&P interface differs from app to app, Apple’s is consistent and arguably easier to enact.

Can the same be said for notifications?

The Android Approach

Android set the bar for smartphone notifications. Though BlackBerry had them before either iOS or Android existed, Android took them far beyond either RIM’s flashing red LED or Apple’s simple badges and pop-ups. 

Exhibit A: The Notifications Bar. Using the screen real estate smartphones typically devote to non-interactive information — current time, signal strength, remaining battery life, etc. — Google’s Android Team presented an innovative, unobtrusive, live-updateable UI. 

Receive an SMS or AIM message while playing Words With Friends? A Twitter direct message, a reminder that the newest episode of Tech Fetish has been downloaded? Android’s notification bar slickly transitions from the general phone info we mentioned above to a compact preview, showing (in the case of SMS) the sender’s name, the app’s icon, and a one-line snippet of the message. 

Android’s notifications bar alone put the iPhone to shame and that was in 2008! But Google’s Android Team had more up its sleeve, or rather, in its drawer.

At any point and from any app, tapping and pulling down on an Android phone’s notifications bar reveals the notifications drawer, a list of all recent notifications. No looking through screens of apps to check number badges or accidentally dismissing a notification to never be found again. What’s more, tapping any notification in the list will launch its associated app instantly. 

The iOS 5 Approach

It’s hard to believe but despite major additions to iOS and new devices throughout the past four years — Copy & Paste, 3G networking, MMS, the opening of a little thing called the App Store, Multitasking, the list goes on — that the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad today use the same basic notifications ‘system.’ This uncomfortable truth will thankfully soon be a memory when iOS 5 hits later this year. 

Apple’s take on notifications should feel very familiar to Android users, which should be perceived as a good thing. 

Like Android, iOS 5 keeps a record of your most recent notifications in a drawer, Notification Center, which is accessed by sliding your finger downward from the top of the display -- as opposed to pulling the menu bar itself, which is admittedly a bit too thin for accurate touching. Tapping any notification will send you to the app, and even place the cursor in the text field, assuming its a text-oriented app. 

Yet iOS’s drawer and alerts offer functionality Android’s design doesn’t. 

Live weather and stock widgets in the drawer itself, for one. Whether widgets will be opened up to third party app makers, as is the case on Android, is unknown but any widgets — especially the current weather — are better than none. 

More interesting is how all these notifications are displayed for apps. 

iOS 5’s new notification alerts are presented at the top of the screen, albeit by ‘stealing’ some of the topmost row of app’s pixels in the process. These alerts require no action by the user and disappear after a few seconds, though you can tap them to jump to the notifying app. Meanwhile, if your iOS device is locked, notifications appear on the lock screen itself but unlike in the past, these items are interactive: sliding the notification’s icon takes you straight from the lock screen to the app. 

iOS 5’s new notifications clearly owe their overarching look and feel to Android’s, especially the ‘drawer’ concept. But with tweaks, like an always accessible weather widget, and new inclusions, like actionable lock screen notifications, Apple seems to be pushing the notifications bar Android set, higher. 

Let us know where Android and iOS 5 stand on notifications, in our notifications poll to the death below.