poddie
New member
It still sounds like something that doesn't require an actual notification center. I guess since I don't use every social network on the planet, I don't know to what extent which application use toast notifications (I also think that term is kind of dumb, but that's irrelevant). To me, when I think of potentially-missed notification, I think of:
1. Text messages
2. Instant Messages
3. Game messages (such as alerts to your turn, game invites, and friend requests)
I think all of these can be handled easily without a notification center that will just add a bit of weight to the OS that I don't really want. For the first, we already have it covered. If you miss a message, it will be on your lock screen. For the second, I have IM+ pinned to my start screen, so the live tile (usually) updates that. As I said, USUALLY, so they need to perfect the live tile updating on that app. For the third, there are two possible solutions. The first option is to give the Games hub a notification center. You can go in, and one of the tabs would be "notifications," where it will list which games have notifications and how many. The alternative (or, perhaps, an extension of this) would be the same as how live tiles currently operate. You give it a number in a bubble on the live tile to let you know that you have notifications within your games. Ideally, this is a Games hub notification center extension. Otherwise, you would either have the Games hub highlight titles with notifications, or you'd do the same number-in-a-bubble notification manner for each game. The highlighting would be more obvious and less clutter-filled, in my opinion.
My whole thing, though, is just that I don't see myself needing a notification center. I don't see any examples where one is REALLY necessary, even. I mean, we have live tiles to cover this for a reason, and if you don't want to use the live tiles for that purpose, I'm a little bit confused as to why you're on this platform in the first place, because that's kind of their staple feature.
I guess I'm not so much AGAINST a notification center as confused as to why people react like Windows Phone is crippled by its non-existence on the platform. It could provide a small level of convenience, but I'm not the least bit concerned with it. I think it's something outside of the top-10 of needed improvements to the OS.
Trust me, there are MANY apps out there that issue toast notifications for all sorts of things. For example, the eBay app can notify you of messages, auctions ending soon, etc. You'll just have to trust me that yes, people do use this app and do assign some value to its notifications. Likewise for Facebook, LinkedIn, and thousands upon thousands of other apps that people use on a daily basis.
Now, a frequent occurrence once someone has installed 8 or 10 apps (and yes, many of us have that many or more) is that you will be on the computer or watching tv and you will hear a toast notification. I know you don't personally like this name and think it's stupid, but that's what it's called. Now most of us don't want to jump up and go check the phone every time this happens. We get up in an hour or twenty minutes and wonder what that particular chime was for. Right now, there is NO WAY to find out. NONE. You (and many others who refuse to listen to this very simple argument) are now shouting "I HAVE LIVE TILES WHICH WILL TELL ME!!!". Well, maybe, maybe not... you see, there are many reasons this is not quite the solution to this issue:
(1) We don't all have every app we use pinned to the Start Screen. If not, you don't get a Live Tile for it.
(2) Many toasts are additional information that is not reflected on the Live Tile in the number count.
(3) The toast notification actually includes much more information than can be reflected in the simple counter anyway.
(4) Many apps that issue toasts don't even have a Live Tile counter.
There is one additional major reason you should care about this. Go and read any review of a Windows Phone from a non-Windows Phone site. I'll wait.
OK, now what were the main complaints they made in the article about Windows Phone? That's right, (1) Many of the major apps like Pandora and Instagram are not on WP and (2) There is no Notification Center. See? This is dragging the platform down because it is a feature that many people find very valuable, is mature and full featured on the other competing platforms, and is completely and utterly missing on ours. If you want WP to succeed, as I do, you shouldn't even care so much if this is a feature you personally have a use for. You should want it so that we are on a more competitive system and it will remove one of the major blocks people have against using it. (Same reason we should all want that useless Instagram app released for WP... many potential WP users will not buy in without it, which limits our user base.)
The other misunderstanding you seem to have is that this will in some way affect your usage of WP. It won't You just won't open the notification center. Bang. Done. No impact. You already have control over which apps can issue toasts on WP. There is no need to build any of that functionality into NC. It's literally just something that will sit behind the scenes on your phone that you can leave alone and never open. Doesn't that sound pretty reasonable? Shouldn't that make everyone happy on this issue? Why do people need to campaign against NC? Why do they insist that it is not the WP way? It could be done in a way that completely adheres to the metro standard and integrates absolutely seamlessly.