Apple iOS Notification System Redesign Idea

Apple is the company of the hour and has been for a long time. Fans tout the sleek hardware designs and the intuitive software on each of their products. The iPhone changed the smartphone landscape and iOS is regarded as one of the best, if not the best, mobile operating systems out there, save for those pesky notifications. If there is one thing fans and critics can agree on is that iOS's notification system is downright bad.

Android and WebOS have been celebrated for their notifications systems because they are unintrusive and allow the user to deal with it or just let it go away. iOS has those annoying text-message-like notifications that pause and hold you hostage until you acknowledge it. A new redesign of iOS's notification system has come up and it is one of the best redesigns we've seen for Apple's notification system. Shawn Hickman has made a notification system that could be a winner and Apple should take notice.

The design has new notifications come up through a bar on the bottom of the screen. It displays the context of the notification and the respective app (Twitter, Facebook, etc...). When you get a notification the left-most small dot on the bottom turns red and the bar comes up, if you don't take any action after five seconds the bar goes away. To see all the notifications you have, you swipe to the left-most screen where Searchlight was. Hickman has combined the notifications with Searchlight and presents your notifications in a nice orderly list categorized by app.

Shawn Hickman put a lot of thought into the design details of the new system because he felt that having notifications from the bottom is much better than pulling it from the top, like how Android does it. It just makes the gestures much easier and bottom of the screen makes notifications non-intrusive and won't interrupt what you're doing. The little red dot and the combination of the notification/Searchlight screen make it seem like something iOS should consider because it's so integrated. Hopefully Apple takes Hickman's idea and brings it to iOS so users can finally have a competent notification system.

[via TalkingPenguin]