What Apple and Google are doing to your push notifications

Apple and Google have increasingly intervened in push notifications over the past 15 years, transforming from simple delivery pipes into active intermediaries that filter, reorder, and summarize messages before they reach users. Starting with battery concerns in 2009, both platforms have progressively shifted control away from marketers through features like notification channels, focus modes, and runtime permissions that limit which notifications users see. This mirrors their earlier intervention in email, where the companies now parse and rank messages rather than simply delivering them.