Push Notification Alert opens app when unlocking an iPhone

Question

I see a very weird behavior and I am trying to understand if it is designed that way or simply not handled correctly from my app.

My app sends push notifications in the form of UIAlertViews. When the device is not locked the UIAlertViews appear with two buttons and if the user taps on the right button my app is launched.

What I have noticed is that if the device is black screened to save power and the user taps on the home button and there is a push notification alert from my app with only the OK button waiting for him there, if he slides to unlock the device he automatically enters my app.

Is that a normal behavior or a bug of some sorts? I thought that only UIAlertViews with two buttons allow the user to launch the app.

Answer 1

If a push-notification-message gets sent to a locked phone, it stays there for about five minutes. When the user slides to unlock, the app that sent the notification is opened.

This is default behavior, look at how the SMS-app and Calendar-app does the same.

Answer 2

For me (OS 4.1), normal behaviour is for a push notification to unblank the screen and show an alert with no buttons; the slider says "slide to VERB". If the phone goes back to sleep and is woken again (either by waiting or by hitting the sleep switch), it then says "slide to unlock" and unlocking doesn't launch the app.

I don't see an "OK" button (perhaps it's an OS 4.2 feature; if so, don't discuss it here).

Either way, the user only has three choices:

• Don't unlock the phone
• Unlock the phone and ignore the notification
• Unlock the phone and launch the app

Making the user unlock before choosing what to do about the notification adds an unnecessary step, and letting the user tap the VERB button without unlocking the phone is a bit silly. The common case is that the user will want to immediately view the notification (and reply to the text or whatever). The uncommon case is that the user will want to ignore the notification (so press OK and then unlock, or sleep/wake and then unlock, or unlock and immediately close the app). If the notifications are a nuisance, then the user will simply disable them for the particular app.