The lack of change in notifications is the biggest red flag in this review — rather than showing that it has even heard the chorus of hate for BS-style notification buttons, Apple has (so far) continued on its merry way without even a nod toward better usability. This makes me wonder what else they're ignoring from users, and what bothersome changes they will impose on us next.
I wonder how many users even turn on notifications. After all, they are opt-in. I have them enabled for Mail and nothing else. I wonder to what degree notifications are the new desktop widgets: someone's idea of a novel way to interact with computers, but one that will fall by the wayside because the program-window model suffices for most needs.
You may well be right about that. I've used them since Growl (RIP), and have found them useful, so long as they did what they were supposed to do (notify me of something) and otherwise stayed out of the way. They don't do that anymore.
