With the spillage of OS X Mountain Lion in 2012 , Apple bring iOS ’s Notification Center feature of speech to the Mac . As with its iOS counterpart , OS X ’s Notification Center alerts you when something is happen ( or has happened ) on your machine . On iOS it ’s blemished but indispensable ; in Mountain Lion I ’ve detect it to be eminently dispensable .
In recent years , Apple has show up a predilection for improving operating - organization features in their second iteration — think Time Machine and FileVault , to name just two . With OS X Mavericks , Apple is doing the same for Notification Center . But while the result is more useful , it still does n’t sense as organized as it should be .
Interactive bubbles
Notification Center get in two descriptor : Floating notification bubbles that appear on your screen when you call for to know something , and a notifications list that slides out from the correct side of your silver screen when you click the Notifications ikon at the far right side of the menu Browning automatic rifle . ( The bubbles come in two forms : Banners and Alerts . Banners finally fade out if you push aside them , while warning signal stay on projection screen until you act on them . ) In a year of using Mountain Lion , I have come to appreciate the floating house of cards , but I ’ve seldom , if ever , used the sidebar leaning .
In Mavericks , those bubble have become much more useful , principally because they ’re now more interactive . When you get a content in Messages , for example , you could answer directly from the bubble : get through on the Reply button , and the bubble expands to let on a school text country . Type a response and press Return to charge it .
There ’s similar functionality when it come to Mail alerts : you could reply directly from the notification house of cards , or opt to delete the message you ’ve just received . delete message from a notice house of cards might seem a moment uttermost , but if you ’ve set Mail to alarm you every time you get an electronic mail , there will probably be some junk e-mail you want to get free of in there . It would be nice if you could sag or archive message from the bubble , too , but Mavericks does n’t offer those options .
Incoming FaceTime calls are besides heralded by a notification bubble . you’re able to answer or worsen from the bubble , or even reply with an iMessage explain why you do n’t want to take the call right now .
Since Mavericks include the option to automatically refresh your Mac App Store apps , Notification Center also now alerts you about apps that have been updated , and warns you if an update requires you to discontinue an app or re-start your scheme . There ’s also a late button that allows you to set when Notification Center will badger you again about instal that update .
Some other system alerts have moved into Notification Center , too : Warnings about a cash in one’s chips battery , a betray Time Machine championship , and ejected disk that would previously have spawned a big word of advice dialogue box instead create a Notification Center bubble .
Oversharing?
I set my Mac to automatically interlace when I put it to sleep or after a sure amount of inactivity . When I wake the Mac up but before I lumber in , Notification Center will exhibit some basic entropy about thing that have happened since I exit away , including any email alert I ’ve received .
This might be handy , but it also seems like a security defect , since someone could view potentially sensitive selective information without entering a password on my Mac . Fortunately , background in the Notifications system of rules preference pane of glass in Mavericks can address this : App by app , you could decide which apprisal display when your Mac is locked . For Mail and Messages , you may separately opt to show or not to show the content of the message you ’re being notified about . It ’s great that these feature exist , though I ’d prefer an option that would globally forestall such notifications so I did n’t have to go through a list of all my apps and uncheck the box one by one .
One interesting novel feature film that I have n’t been able to test lets internet site transport push notifications to my Mac even when Safari ’s not running . internet site will involve to habituate Apple ’s existing push - notification infrastructure to hold this — it ’s not just a matter of few line of merchandise of JavaScript to a webpage . But the vista of my favourite web site pinging me on my Mac when something big happen is exciting . The question will be just how many sites will implement this , and when .
The semi - secret Do Not Disturb feature article present in Mountain Lion ( if you scroll all the elbow room up in the Notification Center sidebar , you come up an option to silence admonition until the next day ) has been flesh out in Mavericks . A newfangled Do Not Disturb setting in the Notifications preference pane in System Preferences lets you tone down notifications at finicky metre , as well as when your display is sleep or when your computer is attached to an extraneous display . you could also squelch FaceTime alerts using this orientation .
As I say , I do n’t rule myself using the Notification Center sidebar very often ; it ’s usually full of lots of old rubble and give me no way to filter or quickly net it . I wish it was comfortably organized and accept a broader overview of what was going on ( a lathe forthcoming Today scene in iOS 7 ) . It provides too much selective information , and I find myself incidentally triggering it via an inadvertent trackpad swipe more often than purposefully open up it .
Those complaints aside , one matter I do like in the new Notification Center is the power to send instant substance from within it ( not just Twitter and Facebook posts , which you could do in Mountain Lion ) . Just as you’re able to reply to a message you incur directly from within the telling house of cards , you’re able to start a conversation with a Quaker by clicking on the Messages icon at the top of Notification Center . This seems like a great theme , especially for people who do n’t keep Messages open all the prison term .
