Hello everyone, I recently moved from iPhone to a Samsung Z Fold phone and I have some questions about notifications.
How notifications work^(as most of you know)^ on iPhone is almost the same as Android where both get a swipe down notification menu. Apple calls it a notification centre, while Android has it mixed with quick settings.
When it comes to badge notifications, the small bubble above an App icon with a number. These types of notifications are easily dismissed on iPhone by opening up the app and just looking at what that notification is, whether it was a message on Discord or a YouTube push notification.
This doesn’t seem to work on my Android phone, and I can’t emulate this behaviour either by going through system settings. These badge notifications do not go away even after opening the app and even when the app itself recognizes it has no more notifications to offer, yet still the phone itself refuses to dismiss the badge notification unless I clear that notification in the swipe down notification centre/menu.
Is this the intended behaviour and is it possible to change it? I’ve heard there is a degree of freedom on Android, especially on Samsung. So I’m keeping up my hopes.
EDIT: I FIXED IT
This was the problem child–just had to “Clear data” and badge notifications now clear when App is opened!
It’s not an Android issue. I suspect it’s the launcher you’re using.
Here’s an example on my Galaxy Fold 4, using AIO Launcher:
As you can see, there’s a notification from Discord. So I click on the app, and not only is the badge cleared, the notification is also gone from the notification center. So it’s all working as intended.
If this isn’t the behavior you’re experiencing, I’d suggest switching to an alternate launcher. Niagara Launcher is a great option - pretty simple, clean and relatively bug-free, and integrates notifications right into the launcher so you can actually read the notification, instead of just a red dot. (The launcher I use, AIO Launcher, also does that - but it’s information-heavyness and unusual layout may put off people, especially ex-iPhone users, so I don’t normally recommend it to others).
Launcher? I think the one I am using is called One UI version: 5.1.1
What you’re describing is the behaviour I had expected to be universal across Android, but is launcher specific? I assume I would be losing functionality and optimisations on my Z Fold if I were to stray away from the stock launcher
edit: I solved the issue, it was an App called BadgeProvider that I needed to clear data from, dunno why I had to do that when this is a new device. But it did throw me for a loop for a few days.
A launcher is just your home screen, it’s not a big deal switching to a different one, that’s one of the cool things about Android. I’m on a Z Fold as well btw. You can have multiple launchers installed at one time - you just change your default from the settings, so if you don’t like your new launcher you can always switch back.
Samsung’s software used to be very buggy from the start to about OneUI 3, which is where my parents’ phones stopped getting updates so I don’t know about the newer stuff. But they didn’t get their shit together from 2008 to 2021, so I’ll make an educated guess and say that they probably didn’t do it in the last 2 years either.