What’s New In TimeTune 2.6.4

Since version 2.6.1, we’ve been progressively adapting to Google’s requirements for Android Q. That’s why we had to change our approach to backups, modify the way we access custom sounds and remove the write storage permission.

TimeTune 2.6.4 goes a step further and adapts to the requirement that an application cannot freely start an activity (open a screen) when the app is the background. This restriction has had an impact on the way we use notification categories and the way we show custom our pop-ups.

DYNAMIC NOTIFICATION CATEGORIES

(This change affects devices running Android 8.0 and above)

Up until now, TimeTune used fixed notification categories to show notifications for routines, events, reminders and timers.

This will change in TimeTune 2.6.4. Now the app will dynamically create notification categories for your notifications (see the ‘TimeTune #1’ and ‘TimeTune #2’ categories in the second screenshot):

This is a direct consequence of the restriction we mentioned at the beginning. As the app cannot freely open a screen from the background (like we did to show our pop-ups), we need to work in conjunction with notification categories to achieve a similar effect.

The problem is that notification categories must have a specific configuration when they show pop-ups and a different one when they don’t. So, in order to minimize the number of categories, we opted for a dynamic approach.

When the app needs a specific category configuration, it will create it on the fly. And if the configuration already exists, the app will reuse it. As we saw before, these dynamic categories will appear as ‘TimeTune #1’, ‘TimeTune #2’, etc.

You don’t need to maintain or modify these categories on the device settings. Just tell TimeTune what you want to do (in the app itself) and the app will take care of the dynamic categories automatically 🙌

HEADS-UP WHEN THE DEVICE IS IN USE

(This change affects devices running Android 5.0 and above)

Another consequence of this adaptation is that now pop-ups in TimeTune will appear as heads-up notifications when the device is in use:

That being said, pop-ups will appear as full-screen activities as usual when the screen is off:

Heads-up notifications have the benefit that they don’t block the user’s workflow. If you are editing a document, playing a game, watching a video, etc, nothing stops. You just dismiss the heads-up and that’s it.

And this is exactly how Google wants apps to deal with notification pop-ups.

LED COLOR

(This change affects devices running Android 8.0 and above)

In TimeTune 2.6.4 you will be able to change the LED color for your notifications again! 🎉

Since Google introduced notification categories in Android 8.0, applications can only choose the LED color for notifications when the app creates a notification category.

So previously, with our fixed categories approach, we couldn’t change the LED color once the categories were created.

But now, with categories being created dynamically, it’s possible again. If the user wants a different color, the app creates a new category with the proper configuration.

DO NOT DISTURB

(This change affects devices running Android 8.0 and above)

Notification categories include an option to override the ‘Do Not Disturb’ mode. This setting is only modifiable by the user from the system settings:

That was enough when we used fixed categories. But now, with categories being created on the fly, users don’t have a unique place to change that option from the system settings.

The solution was to add the ‘Override Do Not Disturb’ option to the TimeTune settings:

As TimeTune plays sounds ‘manually’ (like a media player) from within the app instead of using the notification category sound, we can check this setting at runtime and decide whether to play the sound or not (same thing applies to vibrations).

CONCLUSION

If there’s one conclusion we can draw from this post, it’s this:

Do not configure notification behavior from the system settings, do it in TimeTune. The app will take care of the rest.

This new approach is more flexible and adapts to Google’s requirements. We hope you find it useful.

However, if you find anything out of place, let us know and we’ll look into it 🔎

Thanks a lot for reading! 😃

(Top illustration by Freepik)