Opinion: It's time to put an end to pushy push notifications

Do you remember when push notifications used to be useful?

They used to let you know when an airbus landed in Pocket Planes, or when it was your turn in Words With Friends.

These days, however, most of the alerts I receive are simply meaningless reminders that a game exists.

They range from the pushy (Death Dome's "Scavenge for additional skulls!" and "Start searching now!") to the plaintive (R.I.P. Rally's "Don't you enjoy slaying zombies any more?" and "We miss you.").

A particular favourite is also from Death Dome, the maker of which sends you system-level alerts to inform you just how many people have died since you took a break from beating up mutants.

This isn't a mechanic in the game, mind you. There's no in-game counter keeping track of many people have been killed. Oh, and you'll never even see another human while you play.

It's just some made-up number, designed to tug on your emotions and make you feel guilty for neglecting the game.

These notifications don't work on me, though. And every time my iPhone vibrates like a pre-teen at a Bieber gig to nag me into playing on, I'll either silence the game's notifications in the settings or - more likely - just delete the game.

Now, it's true that every iOS game 'asks' for your permission before it bombards you with pop-ups, badges, sounds, and alerts. But the 'don't allow' button doesn't always do what it says it will do.

In a number of games we tested out, we still received notifications even after saying a resolute 'no' to them.

In games like Clash of Clans, Snoopy Coaster, Angry Birds Friends, and Temple Run 2, my request to not be spammed was ignored, and I got spammed anyway.

It's obvious that iOS game developers have found some loophole to get around this permissions screen and render the whole thing pointless.

So, Apple, it's down to you now. In iOS 7, you must make sure that 'no' means no for push notifications.

Until then, you can read our guide to disabling push notifications here. And feel free to share your thoughts on these pushy push notifications (and the most annoying notifications you've received) in the comments section below.