How can we improve our mobile app notifications?

Daniel Di Bartolo said:

Good morning, everybody. 

Our Mobile team at Faithlife is starting to investigate ways to improve notifications on iOS and Android. I know many of you use our iOS and Android apps, and I'd love to get any specific feedback you have on how we can make notifications better. 

We'd be so grateful if you could help answer these questions:

• What kind of notifications would you like to receive? Examples could include prayer reminders, reading plan reminders, or notifications about new features within the app.
• How can we improve the current notification experience?
• Do you have any apps where you love the notification experience? Which apps? What sets the experience apart?

Of course, you'll be able to decide which notifications that you'd like to receive when we do ship improvements. 

Thanks!

"What is new about this update?" is always a relevant question. Make the answer obviously available. Pursuant to that:

1. Notifications of new features, definitely.

2. Changelog on updates. Even if it is just a link to the changelog here, though a local copy on the mobile device would be better.

The only notification I would be interested in would be a "verse of the day". 

Bruce Dunning said:

More and more I'm opting out of notifications for all of my apps but it would be nice to have the option to opt in to only new features and major changes. I just find when I chose notifications for most apps that I'm inundated with them.

Ditto. I get enough notifications during the day from a few apps that are important enough to enable. Most notifications tend to be disruptive; I don't need more interruptions to unnecessarily look at my phone.

For an app like Logos, I'd rather find out about something when I open the app, rather than during the day while I'm working on other things.

As a rule I don't use notifications; maybe in only a couple of apps.  I don't like to have things pushed to me. Maybe it is me, but I check for things probably more so than others, so I don't see a huge need to have items pushed to me.  It is more of a bother.

I'd enjoy a notification like "new books ready for download". Sometimes resources don't become available on mobile apps instantly, and it would be good just to know once they arrive. That'd spare me from checking multiple times.

Kevin Byford (Faithlife) said:

There is an existing suggestion for this here; please vote.

Kevin, thank you (and Faithlife) for giving users a voice in the development of the software. Many developers do not do this, and you certainly are not obligated to do so, either. I understand that this is still not a democracy and Faithlife has its own needs that have to be met in the interest of the company (and in turn the users). Perhaps this is one of those times, and perhaps Faithlife has something really awesome up their sleeve. That said, if this is not one of those times, please consider what users have voted for and reconsider your prioritization of resources. I just searched the mobile apps User Voice page for "notification" and got two results.

1. "Use notifications to help remind user of devotions or readings they have going on through the app. Have it set up so the user can have the app send notifications to the locked screen." This currently has 9 votes and a response with the status of "started" from July 15, 2015. https://logosmobile.uservoice.com/forums/190765-logos-mobile-apps/suggestions/7169485-reading-plan

2. "Push notifications for community notes on iOS." This suggestion was made August 4, 2015 and currently only has one vote. https://logosmobile.uservoice.com/forums/190765-logos-mobile-apps/suggestions/9165760-push-notifications-for-community-notes-on-ios

By way of contrast, the idea of "simple offline guides and lookups" currently has 521 votes. https://logosmobile.uservoice.com/forums/190765-logos-mobile-apps/suggestions/3613782-simple-offline-guides-and-lookups

EDIT: Thank you for the consideration, and thank you for Faithlife's continued commitment to developing these apps at no direct cost of users.

Mark Barnes said:

I don't want notifications of new features. That's what release notes are for — or if the feature is important, a message can be shown when you open the app.

Personally, I would like the Reading Plan reminders to be more intelligent. Rather than just having a generic "Don't forget your reading" at a fixed time, I would like the notifications to be tied to a particular Reading Plan, to do three things:

1. Only notify me on days when I'm supposed to be reading from that plan.
2. Remind me what the reading is for that day, and whether I'm on schedule.
3. Allow me to be notified about different reading plans at different times of the day.

Amen to those three. The other thing I'd want is to make it possible to open the relevant reading from the notification.

Beyond that, I think it would be nice to set reminders for each prayer-list. I doubt I'd have them turned on while I have reading plans on the go but it'd be nice to know it's there as an option, and if my routines change I probably would use it.

While I'd never have it turned on, I think adding a verse of the day would be popular.

Beyond those, I can't think of any that I'd want that wouldn't be better suited to settings for behaviour on opening the app or menu choices - update notes in help/at startup.

But as everyone else has said, notifications are a low priority compared to the more urgent long-standing requests.

It sounds to me like more people with mobile devices would prefer FL supporting personal books on mobile than adding notifications. I would vote for that, I don't have any interest in notifications - it's not that kind of app for me. I realize we have been told that would never be implemented though.

I only use notifications on news-type apps and text messages. There is nothing that timely in the FL apps that I need a notification for.

Kevin Byford (Faithlife) said:

Don Awalt said:

It sounds to me like more people with mobile devices would prefer FL supporting personal books on mobile than adding notifications. I would vote for that, I don't have any interest in notifications - it's not that kind of app for me. I realize we have been told that would never be implemented though.

Please try to keep this thread on topic. Syncing of personal books to mobile is not planned.

Sorry - my feedback - 

What kind of notifications would you like to receive? NONE
Do you have any apps where you love the notification experience? Which apps? What sets the experience apart? theScore, Weather, CNN, Fox News, my credit card apps - what sets them apart is that it they provide timely notifications that are rather important for me to know right away. I don't view any of the FL mobile apps in this way, I think it would be a waste of resource to implement this.

Ok one thing I'd like to see is the ability to copy and paste from within footbotes. 

Secondly, I find it difficult in Android to make proper selections. The whole experience still needs vast improvement. I find it very difficult to grab text. Also if the text goes beyond the limits of the screen, there is no way to continue to grab additional text without losing what has already been selected.

Thirdly, synchronization is terrible. If I stop in a place in a selected resource, often when I return, the resource opens to a preceding place I read many days bacc repeatedly. I'm forever forced to each time find my current position manually.