What’s new in IOS 10 Rich Notification?

Apple has been running and upgrading their OS to make notifications more dynamic and actionable. In iOS 9, you could mark reminders as done and reply to a text message directly inside the notification. With iOS 10, notifications are even more interactive and rich.

A lot third-party developers are experimenting with rich notification interactions now, and saw a hint of what’s to come during Apple’s WWDC 2016 keynote several month ago with a sample Uber notification, that shows you the map of your driver’s route and allows you to call your driver or cancel the request without ever jumping into the Uber app.

Apple WWDC 2016 HIghlight

Now, iPhone users can view photos, watch videos, and listen to audio right from inside a notification. The notification can also display a live data and information, so they can see a location point moving in a real time while friend typing a response to a text. Third-party developers can use all of these capabilities to create rich, interactive, and powerful notification experiences for their own apps.

Push Notification on Apple Website

But there’s more!

Apple is refurbished their notification system on multiple sides, from the way these notifications are presented to the way their users respond. To get a jump on the iOS 10 launch, mobile marketers, and app development agencies need to align engineers, creatives, and analysts. There are two main breakdowns of the new powerful features and recommendations for adoption.

• Let’s get rich!

Message Push Notification from Wired.com

There are two new types of content in iOS 10: rich media and custom app interfaces. Rich media means mobile marketers can now add images, GIFs, and audio and video files to push notifications (look here for the detail). These push notifications will appear with a thumbnail preview — a visual divergence from iOS 9, which was index-oriented. An added feature is that push notifications can now be edited, deleted, or collapsed via message retraction, which will probably be the savior of multiple mobile marketers this year.

Cat GIF

I was also expecting there will be a lot of cat and dog GIFs when marketers implemented this push notification, we know that smart brands will be testing a wide range of rich media types like GIF, tone, and targeting. Marketers especially retailer should consider about pushing products personalized to individual customers and using this feature to show their product. A publisher like media and news might also use rich notification to give a short summary of Breaking News. Whatever the industry, I think the C-level people need to hold a meeting with their engineering team now to make sure that every cute cat GIF finds a mobile home.

• Popping and Locking

Push notifications in iOS 10 can appear in three states on a mobile device: in the notification center, on the lock screen, and at the top of active screens. New changes for end-users are clever and they have the potential to deliver powerful increases in engagement for mobile marketers.

For instance, the unlocking procedure for iPhone 6s and 6s in iOS 9 Plus was so fast that users would often bypass the lock screen and go directly to their Home screen. Now in iOS 10, users have to press the Home button and authenticate via Touch ID (or a manual code), which adds a additional extra pause and puts the lock screen into view, giving lock screen notifications a fighting chance for engagement. Apple will also announce a feature in new device models that wakes the phone the moment it is raised, making lock screen notifications more prominent. Additionally, widgets are now removed from the notification center (but can be accessed with a swipe), which means less noise and more emphasis on notifications.

These updates give marketers just a few precious milliseconds in the spotlight. Rather than being bold with colors and branding on every push, it makes sense to test, measure and optimize a visual language that your mobile customers can recognize. Retailers and publisher also might use a specific color and consistent headline for sales, discounts, and promotional messages.

Source: developer.apple.com