macOS push notifications give us an update about new messages across multiple apps and services. Now an iOS engineer has added a notifications UI that lets you play “Flappy Bird” within a notification!
Engineer Neil Sardesai has put up a short video showing a macOS notification with a fully playable version of Flappy Bird. The short video shows a small window on the top right corner playing Flappy Bird. The caption reads, “It’s game time baby!”
Did you know you can put a whole game inside of a push notification pic.twitter.com/LlMx2AjvHH
— Neil Sardesai (@neilsardesai) April 9, 2021
In a Twitter thread, Sardesai says, “The UserNotificationsUI framework was added to macOS in Big Sur.” He also adds, “But for some reason there’s no Xcode template for Notification Content Extensions on macOS. So you have to make one for iOS and then change all your UI’s to NS’s.”
— Neil Sardesai (@neilsardesai) April 8, 2021
A quick look at Sardesai’s Twitter account had us amused. He has posted a series of Tweets showcasing all the creative stuff one can do on macOS. One of the Tweets shows off hexagonal macOS windows. Yet another video shows the Google Chrome Dinosaur game being played in the macOS menu bar. Another creative tweak shows a Snake game made out of iOS toggles in AppKit.
Our Take
Flappy Bird was made by Vietnam-based developer Dong Nguyen. It was released in 2013 and quickly made it to the top-grossing apps on iOS, raking in millions of dollars in revenue. Soon enough, Nguyen removed the game from the app store as he felt guilty when people started getting addicted. I recall Flappy Bird as the most frustrating yet addictive game ever to play on a smartphone. Lastly, the Flappy Bird notification is proof that developers can get creative with macOS, just like Windows.
