It's demo time! The biggest players in tech hold their developer conferences where they show off new hardware and software that you will be using later this year.
Google I/O
Google started off its annual developer conference at the Shoreline Amphitheater this year, returning to a limited in-person format, with a two-hour long keynote from Sundar Pichai. They announced the release of new Pixels models, Pixel 6a and Pixel Buds Pro, planned to be released this month, and Pixel 7, Pixel 7 Pro and Pixel Watch which will be coming this fall. There was also time to tease us with the Pixel Tablet and AR glasses scheduled for the coming year.
But most importantly they announced Android 13 beta 2, which continues to redefining the user's experience through Material You, something they released last year with Android 12. The new version of Material You introduces more theming options.
There are also note-worthy improvements to the lock screen clock, better QR scanning support and Smart Home controls.
But for us at Notificare and consequently for you and your apps using our SDK, the biggest change will be coming to notifications.
Notifications
Just like the latest stable versions of Android, where you need to give apps permission to access certain features, such as location, camera, and microphone, in Android 13 you will also need to ask permission for notifications:
This new Android 13 runtime permission, which is very similar to iOS, is declared in your app's manifest as follows:
<manifest ...>
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.POST_NOTIFICATIONS"/>
<application ...>
...
</application>
</manifest>And will require a similar implementation as other permissions, as described here. This will, of course, be partially integrated in our SDK for your convenience.
Users will then be presented with 3 options:
- Allow
- Don't Allow
- Swipe away
If they click Allow, your app will be granted the ability to send notifications to any registered channel. If, on the other hand, they click Don't Allow, any notification sent to the user will be blocked, very similar to what happens when the user manually turns off all notifications for your app in system settings. Finally, if the user, swipes away, the state of the notification permission will remain unchanged.
You should however consider to target Android 13 as soon as possible. This will give your app greater control and flexibility when handling this new permission.
In newly-installs apps running on Android 13, your app will have notifications OFF by default. If your app targets Android 13, it will have complete control over when the permission dialog is displayed. This will allow you to customize your onboarding screens in order to explain the benefits of remote notifications in your app, before requesting this permission.
If your app targets Android 12 or lower, the system will automatically show the permission dialog on the first activity after you create a notification channel, or when your app starts an activity and then creates its first notification channel. You should however take into account that users that click Don't Allow in apps targeting Android 12, will not be prompted again until they re-install the app or the app updates its target to Android 13.
For existing users that already have your app installed and upgrade to Android 13, the system automatically pre-grants the new notification permission. This includes users that restore a backup from an older model into a new Android 13 powered device.
WWDC
Apple's developer conference also unleashed a bunch of updates, in its now common, Hollywoodesque fashion. As a matter of fact, WWDC it's still going on (ends today), and you might still catch some sessions here. From a brand new chip (M2) to a new line up of Macbook Air models, they did also announced iOS/tvOS/iPadOS 16, watchOS 9 and macOS Ventura.
There are plenty of new changes coming to your Apple devices. Apple continues committed to improve the user experience and this year they've unveiled great new features across multiple platforms. Here's the ones we would like to highlight, which impact how your apps work and ultimately will require minor changes in our SDKs.
Lock Screen
This is the biggest change coming to your iPhone. The lock screen has been redesigned and is now fully customizable. Users can create multiple lock screens linked to Focus modes. This will give users greater control over lock screen real estate and ultimately how notifications are displayed.
Focus Modes
New improvements are also coming to Focus modes, something Apple introduced last year with iOS 15. Focus modes are now easier to setup and thanks to Focus Filters, apps can now customize their experience and react to system changes.
With this new feature, notifications can be filtered based on a certain criteria. Basically, when a Focus filter is active, your app may have additional context to determine if a particular notification should not interrupt the user. Notificare will support these new changes, just like with last year's Relevance Score and Interruption Level properties, which were added to our message composers.
Notification Center
Notifications will also get a major overhaul. In iOS 16, they will now appear from the bottom of the screen and out of the way. Just like with Notification Summary in iOS 15, these new changes have the potential to disrupt how users interact with an app's notifications.
Finally, a cool new feature, called Live Activities, was announced. It will let you make use of the new App Context API to display live notifications that behave just like widgets.
With these new changes, Apple is finally catching up to Android by offering more versatile ways of managing notifications.
Web Push
Yes, you read it right, it finally happened! Starting with macOS Ventura and Safari 16, Apple is now supporting the Web Push standard.
Our Web SDK will now work in macOS Ventura and Safari 16, pretty much the same way as it does with Chrome, Edge, Opera and Firefox. No more Safari Website Push certificates needed (unless you still want to support older versions).
Apple will not support silent notifications tho, but it is the news we all been waiting for. Plus, Apple is also introducing Web Push in iOS in 2023, which will make of Web Push, a channel that you can no longer ignore.
Conclusion
Although we are still months away from official releases, it is important that your development team starts planning how to address these new updates. Very soon our first SDK beta releases, with support Android 13 and iOS 16 will also be publicly available. Adopting these news changes will always give early adopters an edge and most importantly, provide your users with the very best these platforms can offer.
As always, you can find us available for any question you might have via our Support Channel.