Notifications in iOS 9

I’m expecting some magic in notifications for iOS 9 at WWDC in a few weeks.

UPDATE: My predictions turned out wrong, unfortunately. I’ll post this again for iOS 10!

Interactive notifications came with iOS 8. The ability to add functions to a notification itself, via buttons, was one of those hidden gems in the OS that has still yet to really surface in many apps. It’s extremely powerful, yet severely underutilized. For one, the API is extremely verbose, and difficult to grasp.

The major holdup, however, is in Apple’s design. Accessing these additional buttons is, understandably, but regrettably, hidden behind gestures.

On Apple Watch, these interactions are not hidden by a gesture. On the contrary, they are placed front and center.

Even better with the Watch is support for rich notifications, meaning notifications that come with media attached. Developers are able to add images, gifs, maps, and other items to the notification itself.

We’ve actually always had one type of rich notification on the iPhone, but developers have never been given access to it. Next time you receive a video or photo on iMessage, take a second look at the notification that pops up. Apple has some special hooks into that notification, allowing an image to be attached.

I’m hoping they open that ability up to all developers at WWDC. It just makes sense, with more and more messaging apps popping up.

Coupled with interactive notifications, and perhaps a more obvious way to access them, this could be very powerful and useful. Not just for Apple Watch owners, but for everyone with an iPhone.