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Building a simple plant reminder app exposed Android's broken notification system

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A developer building GrowBook, a plant-watering reminder app, discovered that scheduling a basic Android notification involves at least three separate permission hurdles rather than a single straightforward call. Android 13 and above requires explicit runtime permission to post notifications at all, while Android 12 introduced a distinct permission for exact alarm scheduling, without which the OS can delay alerts by hours. A third issue emerged when scheduled alarms were wiped on device reboot, requiring a BootReceiver and additional broadcast registrations to handle app updates and custom manufacturer boot events. On budget Android phones with aggressive battery optimisation, even a correctly wired BootReceiver could be silently blocked, forcing yet another prompt asking users to exempt the app from battery management. The developer concluded that what appears to be a trivial five-line feature can consume a full week once every silent failure mode is accounted for and handled gracefully.

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Building a simple plant reminder app exposed Android's broken notification system · ShortSingh