Please Don't Push Me

First run experiences are important. They set the tone for your customer’s experience with your app. I know lots of developers who spend days and weeks carefully crafting every detail of the first time you open their app. It should invite you in and make you feel at home.

The opposite of a great first run experience is a trend I’ve started seeing more and more within the App Store. Upon first run of the app I’m immediately greeted with one of these:

I have just sorted through the App Store and settled on trying out your app. I open it up and you immediately ask if you can send me Push Notifications? I have no context about what these are going to be used for or why they might be useful to me.

I haven’t even seen your app yet!

Throwing up a modal blocker that prevents me from doing anything else (including closing your app) until I respond is not a great experience. If Push Notifications are an important part of your application, explain why. Or even better, request this permission when I proactively enable Push within the app.

Otherwise I’ll assume you are asking for this so that you can send me spam.

David Smith