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Tag: Notification Center

  • iOS With Widgets Could Work Like This [VIDEO]

    Two of the things Android has always done better than iOS are notifications and widgets. While iOS 5 finally introduced Android-style window-shade notifications, Apple’s mobile OS still hasn’t fully embraced widgets. In the meantime, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean has resizable widgets and Microsoft has taken the widget concept and made them the entire basis of Windows Phone 8 with Live Tiles.

    One Apple fan has taken inspiration from Android and Windows Phone 8 and created a concept video for how widgets could work on an iPhone. YouTube user maxrudberg, who also creates themes for Apple operating systems, created the video to show “how the iOS home screen could become more.” From his video description:

    In this concept, an app icon can be resized from 1×1 to 2×2 or 4×2, similarly to how you would on Windows Phone 8. The increased size can house widget like functionality and provide easy access to core features of that particular app. For example, you could expand the Settings icon into a widget with a brightness slider, and quick toggles for WiFi, Bluetooth, Personal Hotspot and Do Not Disturb.

    The newfound space could also be used to give a miniaturized window into the app, showing content already on the home screen. This could be useful for Phone, Messages or Mail. Instead of a glaring red badge, you’d be able to see the messages or calls directly on the home screen.

    To launch the app, you can press the shrunken app icon in the lower left.

    The expanded icons can be moved around like regular icons and placed in the manner you like. But for obvious reasons, you cannot place an expanded icon in the dock; it would just slide back onto the home screen.

    One could imagine that this functionality would also be available to developers, who could include it for their apps.

    This would rather nicely complement the existing feature set of iOS and make the home screen more engaging.

    The iOS homescreen certainly could use some redecorating. Though the brand recognition of the iOS homescreen is something Apple is still enjoying, looking the same as it did in 2007 might not be the best strategy when potential customers see the functionality widgets bring to other mobile OS’. Just this week a new survey showed that iPhone loyalty is on the decline.

  • Gmail For iOS Finally Gets Full Notification Center Support

    The Gmail app for iOS has finally gotten one of the most user-requested features: full Notification Center support. The app now supports banners, alerts, and lock screen options within iOS. The announcement of the new feature came in a blog post by Jason Parachoniak, a software developer at Google. Parachoniak also revealed two other features that would be coming to the iOS version of Gmail.

    The Notification Center support was sorely needed, and Parachoniak even states that the notifications in the updated app are “up to” five times faster than before. The window shade notification bar was one of the only advantages early Android had over iOS, and was something that made Gmail on an Android phone very useful. Now that Notification Center integration is complete, the Gmail app on iOS is finally up to par, and possibly better, than the Android app.

    Another feature announced is the ability to use alternate email addresses directly in the app. As long as users have alternate sender addresses configured for Gmail, the “From:” option will appear when composing emails within the iOS app.

    The updated app also now allows users to stay logged into the app indefinitely. “You can still choose to sign out of your account, but you won’t be automatically logged out after a certain period of time has elapsed,” Parachoniak said.

  • Apple Leaks iCloud Banner Notifications

    Apple Leaks iCloud Banner Notifications

    Apple is testing iOS-style banner notifications for the web version of iCloud. The tests came to light earlier this afternoon when several iCloud users reported seeing a test banner at the top of their iCloud interface.

    iCloud Notification Center Banner

    Apple first adopted this style of banner notification as part of iOS 5’s Notification Center. The next major update to OS X, version 10.8 Mountain Lion, will be bringing the Notification Center – complete with banner notifications – to the Mac. Now it seems that Apple is exploring the possibility of bringing the same kind of banners to iCloud’s web portal, too. Whether it will also be getting its own Notification Center remains to be seen.

    What do you think? Does the web version of iCloud need banner notifications? What about Notification Center? How often do you use iCloud’s web interface? Let us know in the comments.