Some of the things I’m sure Mudita are considering, perhaps more in the longer term roadmap of their products are minimalist approaches to notifications and web access.
We all seem to have a slightly different stance on this in the community here. Personally I don’t want to go down the browser route. I have been trialling using an app which is an AI assistant called ‘Perplexity’. It works well for text based queries on the Kompakt, not so much for voice ones. Basically occasionally I find the need to get information from the web summarised to me: I use it as a way of looking up information mostly.
I don’t really trust this app, what it does with my data, nor am I convinced the AI models are aligned with my ethical principles regarding use of other people’s data / content, so it is not ideal. But I can see there is a benefit of a simple assistant that can look up information for you.
Additionally I am finding that I am open to the idea of some sort of notifications mechanism, but I would like it to be more of a ‘mailbox’ type of approach: I only really want to know about notifications when I check for them. I could maybe countenance the idea of a simple dot that tells you there are notifications waiting. It would also be essential to be able to control what you receive in there. I feel that then the ‘offline switch’ becomes even more useful - when you are offline you should receive no notifications as well as naturally no calls / texts / messages.
Moreover I am not sure when you come back online you should receive notifications that occurred during your time offline, unless you specifically request to view them. That way you don’t get a deluge of notifications when you cone back online.
What do you think about these things? Is it too much of a slippery slope to allow anything like this or do you have any ideas for this kind of functionality?
This is exactly how i felt when I was trying to make my launcher that supports notifications. I first was trying to replicate the Android notification tray and that felt so wrong because I remembered that’s one of the things that I hate from Android.
So I have made my own interpretation of notifications:
On the left you can see label notifications that appear under the app name.
You can disable the label entirely, or only the name, the message.
You can just keep the asterisk with no notification message at all
There’s an allow list in settings where u can select which apps you want to allow to send you notifications (for me it’s signal, whats-app, messages, podcasts, music).
You can turn these off and just use the notifications window on the right
Then on the right there’s “Letters” notification window:
You can use it in combination with the label notification or turn it of entirely.
Even this has it’s own separate allow-list of apps (for which i personally only allow messaging apps).
You can only see a notification at a time, by swiping up and down
You have to dismiss the notification or open it to hide it
There’s no “remove all” button which forces you to carefully think which apps you allow to have notifications
I don’t know if you like Text launchers like this but you can find the thread here in the forums “inkOS: Text based launcher”.
For me, having a browser installed gives me peace of mind and hasn’t been slippery at all - I think the slow-ish screen etc. give enough friction that I do a quick lookup few days (after a bout of tinkering, of course). More often I find myself taking a note to research something that came to mind later.
Regarding notifications, what @gezimos came up with the notification window in inkOS is just perfect. I do have a use-case with an an app I’m working on where I want notifications, but not instantly. With inkOS, I check those once or twice a day - on my own terms. Same with messaging.
I have just one app that I need Lock Screen and sound notifications from: my persistent and stubborn medication reminder. I really like the appearance of text launcher @gezimos showed.
As for the rest: i wouldn’t mind curbing the notifications even more. I could very well live without the digit on the calls and texts icons on Home Screen. I have some super simple browser for emergency situations, so far I think I used it once only. Other sideloads are useles until the Bluetooth bug is fixed, but I don’t anticipate any notifications from music or podcast apps.
