Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Mobile
  3. News

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Apple rumored to redesign notifications in iOS 16

By
Promotional logo for WWDC 2023.
This story is part of our complete Apple WWDC coverage

Apple is set to unveil iOS 16 in a few months at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2022, and according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, the company may be tackling one of the major issues of iOS: Its awkward notification center. The company is not expected to make any sweeping changes in the vein of Android 12, however.

Man looking at notifications on his iPhone 12.
Dan Baker/Digital Trends

Apple’s handling of notifications in iOS has been criticized as being ill-thought-out for a few years now, especially in contrast to Android’s. “Android has evolved to make the notification tray, and notifications in general, as useful as possible, but trying to be productive in an iOS notification tray — although possible — is much more difficult,” Digital Trends’ Michael Heller noted in 2021, adding: “Conversely, iOS displays the illusion of simplicity while hoping you don’t notice the redundancies all around.”

Recommended Videos

The company had changed how notifications work by merging them with the lock screen in iOS 7, adding in bundled notifications, as well as a new notification summary with iOS 15, but it still hasn’t caught up to the immensely flexible and functional Android notification center.

Related

Where Android works better is the snoozing, as well as more actionable notifications and more ways to see where an app has notified you or not, as well as a less messy interface in general. In other words, you have a lot of ways to see and manage your notifications. If Apple can implement a few things to bridge the gap between iOS and Android, or even create something that is better, it may be enough to lure some Android holdouts over to iOS.

It is not yet clear if Apple may debut any other sweeping interface changes to the operating system. Gurman says Apple is also expected to add in new health-tracking features and other unspecified but significant improvements.

Apple is expected to unveil iOS 16, MacOS 16, tvOS, and perhaps even a new operating system for its rumored headset in June.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Michael Allison
Michael Allison
Mobile News Writer
A UK-based tech journalist for Digital Trends, helping keep track and make sense of the fast-paced world of tech with a…
Here’s how Apple could change your iPhone forever
An iPhone 15 Pro Max laying on its back, showing its home screen.

Over the past few months, Apple has released a steady stream of research papers detailing its work with generative AI. So far, Apple has been tight-lipped about what exactly is cooking in its research labs, while rumors circulate that Apple is in talks with Google to license its Gemini AI for iPhones.

But there have been a couple of teasers of what we can expect. In February, an Apple research paper detailed an open-source model called MLLM-Guided Image Editing (MGIE) that is capable of media editing using natural language instructions from users. Now, another research paper on Ferret UI has sent the AI community into a frenzy.

Read more
There’s a big problem with the iPhone’s Photos app
The Apple iPhone 15 Plus's gallery app.

While my primary device these days continues to be my iPhone 15 Pro, I’ve dabbled with plenty of Android phones since I’ve been here at Digital Trends. One of my favorite brands of phone has been the Google Pixel because of its strong suite of photo-editing tools and good camera hardware.

Google first added the Magic Eraser capability with the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro, which is a tool I love using. Then, with the Pixel 8 series, Google added the Magic Editor, which uses generative AI to make edits that wouldn’t be possible otherwise. There are also tools like Photo Unblur, which is great for old photographs and enhancing images that were captured with low-quality sensors.

Read more
This one thing could make iOS 18 the best iPhone update in years
The Home Screen on the iPhone 15 Pro Max.

Apple’s WWDC 2024 is just a couple of months away. As with every WWDC, we’ll see what Apple has in store for the next generation of software across its hardware portfolio, including the iPhone with iOS 18.

Rumors have been swirling about iOS 18 and how it will be “one of the biggest updates yet.” We know some features like RCS support in Messages are definitely coming, with other whispers of big home screen customization changes and more.

Read more