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TH55

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Nov 5, 2011
3,328
152
As an iPhone owner of 3 years now, I can honestly say I still find it incredibly useless and annoying. I constantly activate it accidentally, just like Spotlight Search and Shake to Undo.
 
If tried to use it and would love to but can't find any real instruction of how to?
 
I use it every single day. It allows me to get to the notification that is most important at that moment if I have multiple things do look at when checking my phone. It allows me to see at a glance all of my messages. I don't know how you could NOT find it useful?! Couldn't live without!

As far as spotlight search goes, I use that even more. I never go hunting for apps in folders, as I can just search for them quickly.

These features make my use of my iPhone quick, efficient, and fluid.
 
What about Reminders? Same thing, would love to use but find myself just using notes.

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I use it every single day. It allows me to get to the notification that is most important at that moment if I have multiple things do look at when checking my phone. It allows me to see at a glance all of my messages. I don't know how you could NOT find it useful?! Couldn't live without!



As far as spotlight search goes, I use that even more. I never go hunting for apps in folders, as I can just search for them quickly.



These features make my use of my iPhone quick, efficient, and fluid.


As a matter of interest, what do you have in your notification centre? As I say, I'd like to use more so a bit of guidance would be appreciated. Cheers.
 
If you have to check your phone every second of the day, Notification Center is never going to be useful. I use mine for messages, e-mail, package tracking, and forum replies. But I tend to keep my phone on my desk and don't carry it around the house the majority of the time.

There is nothing wrong with using the Notes app instead of Reminders. Some memos just work better as a note rather than on a list of todos. I don't put my homework in mine, even though it's obviously something I have to do, for example.
 
Pre iOS 8, barely ever looked at it; it was pretty much useless to me. Widgets in the NC has changed that; I use the NC on my iPad all the time. Still pretty much ignore it on the iphone 5, which is still running 7.1.2 and therefore can't use widgets.

That said--the best widgets aren't the always the ones that Apple included with stock apps. Calendar is an easy example; all day events don't even show. Calendars 5 not only shows them, but gives me a running tally of time I have left before my next calendar even each day. Way more useful. Likewise, I prefer apps like Wunderlist over Reminders, and Notebooks instead of Notes. But that's all personal preference.

(Spotlight, Shake to Undo, and Siri, on the other hand, are still completely pointless for me. All three are in the category of "Why can't I delete this crap from my iPhone?" Along, of course, with various stock apps I have to hide in a folder somewhere because I will never, ever find a use for them...)
 
What about Reminders? Same thing, would love to use but find myself just using notes.

I can see that; my main uses are for time, date, or location delimited (geofence) reminder alerts.

Remind me to email such and such presentation when I get to work

Remind me to (whatever it is) at 8pm tonight

I set reminders for various bill payments a couple days ahead, repeating monthly, just to jog my memory if I've possibly otherwise forgotten. (I don't care for autopay pulls and not every bill is predicable enough to do an autopay push from my bank)

Big use is reminding me to stop somewhere on the way home from work; I set a geofence on the reminder to pop up when I'm still a couple miles from home so I'll remember to pick up the drycleaning or something from the grocery or pharmacy, etc. (all require I overshoot my street by a half mile or so to get there; I don't actually drive by them on the way and it's easy to get on autopilot)

Notes are great for lists and so forth when I'm already thinking about it, and I've also used the notes section of a reminder for that purpose, but Reminders are great for, well, reminding me to do something. :)
 
As a matter of interest, what do you have in your notification centre? As I say, I'd like to use more so a bit of guidance would be appreciated. Cheers.

For me it's been:
quick glance at my day's calendar
what are the stocks I'm interested in doing (including my company's stock)
(as of iOS8.1) do a quick calculation using Pcalc within Notification center
quickly see a little bit of any missed texts or emails that weren't on the lock screen

The benefit of notification center is that I can do the above without switching out of the app I'm in and finding/starting multiple other apps.

It isn't going to change the world, and my life wouldn't fall apart if it quit working, but it is useful.
 
It was pretty useless to me before it had the quick reply feature. Unfortunately it's only for messages. Would like quick reply for email as well.
 
I don't use notification center either. that was the reason why Apple did not have it originally.
 
What about Reminders? Same thing, would love to use but find myself just using notes.

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As a matter of interest, what do you have in your notification centre? As I say, I'd like to use more so a bit of guidance would be appreciated. Cheers.


I actually use the reminders app quite often, but not directly. What I do is use the Drafts app to create lists of reminders and export them straight to reminders, which I view directly from the fantastical app. The reminders app has never been opened once, yet it forms the backbone of this workflow.

I use the notification bar for widgets and viewing notifications. I have the fantastical widget which I use to view my daily events, clips (for saving copied snippets of txt), pedometer (for viewing how many steps j have taken), eta (something like bookmarks for map locations). I am playing around with a few more, but find that they aren't that useful if they are buried so far down that it takes a lot of scrolling to get to them.
 
I actually wish I could default to the notifications screen on unlock. I'm sure this will come with a new jailbreak tweak.

There are numerous useful widgets that I'd rather be looking at instead of a bunch of inactive icons on unlock.
 
I use it for Yahoo Weather, date and calendar for the today side and notifications for Instagram etc. I really like it.
 

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I use it a lot. Dark Sky widget is great, very accurately determines (to the minute) when it will start to rain. Also useful for a look at my upcoming reminders and quick access to Evernote functionality.

Can only see myself using it more as other developers introduce more widgets.
 
I barely use it. That functionality is not something that seems to be in my workflow.
 
I thought 110% of people used it contently but after reading OP I guess not... :confused:

Same here. I didn't think there were people who didn't use it.

I remember prior to iOS 5 one of the biggest complaints about iOS was the notifications. I don't see any reason not to use it.
 
Where do you get the widgets?

They're included with some apps, both stock and third party. (Only for iOS 8+, even if an app provides a widget, it won't work on 7.x.x.)

On a device running iOS 8.x.x, pull down the NC and scroll to the bottom if necessary. Touch the bar that says Edit, and all available widgets from apps on that device will be available for you to choose from.

Some widgets are near useless due to poor design (eWeatherHD, at least on the iPad, is a good example). Others are well thought out & incredibly useful, enough so that I've been willing to switch apps or add a new one just for the widget.

As Abazigal mentions though, past a certain point, loading up the NC with widgets becomes less practical, as you'll have to do some scrolling to see them all.
 
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