Apple Considering 'At a Glance' Notification Screen for iPhone

[MacRumors]

A recent patent application from Apple reveals that the company is considering adding a proper "At a Glance" notification screen for the iPhone. The proposed screen would allow users to quickly jump to the desired notification simply by pressing on the corresponding notification.

At present, the iPhone's notification lists is a list that disappears when the phone is unlocked. This sort of notification system may become more important once 3rd party "push" notifications are activated, as the number and variety of these notifications will likely increase significantly.

Apple originally had an early version of "push" notifications built into developer builds of iPhone 2.1. This feature, however, was later removed and the final version of 2.1 was released earlier this month without this feature. Apple has not made any announcements if their targeted release date has been changed.

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[vilasgn]

Very cool!

Also,

"Apple has not made any announcements if their targeted release date has been changed." ....

That means the targeted release date is still valid.

[atiffarooq]

This would definitely make an improvement to the current set up, which in my opinion is quite lame.

[srl7741]

Originally Posted by atiffarooq

This would definitely make an improvement to the current set up, which in my opinion is quite lame.

+1 x 2

[plumbingandtech]

Ever hear of Konfabulator?

Ever hear of Desk Accessories from Mac OS System 1.0 circa 1984?

[Sratner]

Additionally i was hoping that they would have added a notification light so that i don't have to turn on the phone to see if there is anything new waiting for me, also in lieu of that I would like the option to turn on "bug" and have the phone either vibrate or make a sound every few minutes to let me know stuff is waiting my attention.

Scott

[musicaleuphoria]

Most Excellent.

Can't wait for Push!

[The General]

Blech.

Better give me an on/off feature or I'm switching back to my Nokia 3390.

[bmb012]

Originally Posted by The General

Blech.

Better give me an on/off feature or I'm switching back to my Nokia 3390.

You tell 'em, General!!!

I kinda wonder why they didn't go with the idea in the first place, and how the heck could you possibly patent such a general feature

[yetanotherdave]

Cool, I submitted a feature request for exactly this a few months back.

[WiseWeasel]

They need to not reveal the identities of the people calling or SMSing you until you unlock, or at least give the user the option of not displaying that info. I don't really want to feature the identities of the people contacting me to anyone that sees the locked screen. All I want is Voicemail - # (if not equal to zero), SMS - #, email - #, and maybe the current weather in your first Weather.app location. I also don't like how the popup window when you receive an SMS actually contains the text of the incoming SMS, instead of just the identity of the sender, or even just the fact that you received an SMS without revealing the sender, to the preference of the user.

[ShaunC]

haha finally, it drives me insaine

[CWallace]

I like it.

[Bernie-Mac]

Intelliscreen by Apple? Interesting...

[Mykbibby]

I've wanted this extremely badly. Mainly for switching 3G on and off for battery, but to quickly switch brightness, wifi, gps, etc. would be sick!

[KTrinh93]

Originally Posted by Bernie-Mac

Intelliscreen by Apple? Interesting...

hah yeah i was just going to say this sure seems very much like Intelliscreen...but of course Apple will just charge for the app and not need a license. and of course this would be much more stable than Intelliscreen, which i have tried and there are a few bugs in it but hopefully if Apple makes something like this that they will iron out those bugs.

[apixel]

Originally Posted by Bernie-Mac

Intelliscreen by Apple? Interesting...

They should just buy it from Intelliscreen's developer. It's already quite robust and customizable and looks good.

[kockgunner]

Originally Posted by Bernie-Mac

Intelliscreen by Apple? Interesting...

yeah lol. take an idea from jailbreakers who can't speak for fear of getting sued.

and yeah, i downloaded intelliscreen when jailbreaking was still popular for the calendar on the home screen. it's so useful. then, you could swipe the event and a button would appear that would take you to the calendar.app.

[gwilli]

Hmmmm... apple are starting to annoy me with the whole "there's this new amazing feature (that's also secretly been on phones since 1999)". Having an iPhone 3G since it's launch simple things like not being able to send numbers (business cards), editing numbers after you've dialed them (people on o2 in the UK trying to call freephone numbers will feel my pain!). 2.1 really wasn't worthy of the revision number, stupid things like genius should have been pushed back in favor of things the ****ing consumer have been asking for since the original iPhone! 2.1 should have been 2.0.6 or something!

It's even more annoying when people look at stuff like this in posts and say "wow this is amazing" when **** like this SHOULD have been in the original 2.0 firmware.

I love my iPhone, don't get me wrong, but there are little things that Apple have clearly overlooked during development and IA.

[Apple Corps]

Originally Posted by gwilli

Hmmmm... apple are starting to annoy me with the whole "there's this new amazing feature (that's also secretly been on phones since 1999)". Having an iPhone 3G since it's launch simple things like not being able to send numbers (business cards), editing numbers after you've dialed them (people on o2 in the UK trying to call freephone numbers will feel my pain!). 2.1 really wasn't worthy of the revision number, stupid things like genius should have been pushed back in favor of things the ****ing consumer have been asking for since the original iPhone! 2.1 should have been 2.0.6 or something!

It's even more annoying when people look at stuff like this in posts and say "wow this is amazing" when **** like this SHOULD have been in the original 2.0 firmware.

I love my iPhone, don't get me wrong, but there are little things that Apple have clearly overlooked during development and IA.

Yea - you are right - look how many competitors have blown them out of the water with better functionality. Apple has really overlooked a lot of things on the iPhone.

[extraextra]

We're not going to get push before the end of Sept, are we? I wish Apple would just start saying vague "dates" like 'Fall 2008' instead of giving a specific month, since it seems they can't make their projected release dates as of late.

Also this would be a nice feature! One of the things I hate about the iPhone is when the text message shows up onscreen no matter what you're doing - lots of potential for a bad situation if someone else is using your phone or something.

[DreamPod]

Originally Posted by extraextra

Also this would be a nice feature! One of the things I hate about the iPhone is when the text message shows up onscreen no matter what you're doing - lots of potential for a bad situation if someone else is using your phone or something.

Eh? This feature would be worse than that. It not only prints the message on the screen, but lets you click that message to be taken straight there, without having to unlock the iPhone! Terrible, terrible idea!

[Cyroceon]

Originally Posted by DreamPod

Eh? This feature would be worse than that. It not only prints the message on the screen, but lets you click that message to be taken straight there, without having to unlock the iPhone! Terrible, terrible idea!

No, I think it would take you there only AFTER unlocking the phone. Meaning, you click it and it highlights, then you slide to unlock and boom.

[Kilamite]

Originally Posted by DreamPod

Eh? This feature would be worse than that. It not only prints the message on the screen, but lets you click that message to be taken straight there, without having to unlock the iPhone! Terrible, terrible idea!

I assume when you click on the message link, it'll ask for your passcode if you have one, so you'd have to unlock it, but it is taking you directly to that message/notification when you click it.

I doubt it will display the message when the screen is locked. It'll just say who it's from. Most phones do that - press a button and it'll still be locked but let you look at a glance and see if there is any notifications. I do that all the time, check if I've missed a call or a text message. Takes a second, as opposed to unlocking, checking it, then relocking.

[TitoC]

Originally Posted by DreamPod

Eh? This feature would be worse than that. It not only prints the message on the screen, but lets you click that message to be taken straight there, without having to unlock the iPhone! Terrible, terrible idea!

Actually, I think it would be pretty easy to do it this way:

Click on the desired notification (SMS, Voicemail, etc.) THEN the "Slide to Unlock" feature appears. After unlocking, then you would be taken directly to that feature. Pretty simple.