User profile for user: msstatedawg
msstatedawg Author
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Phantom app notifications on iPhone: Is anyone else experiencing this?

I wanted to ask in the community if anyone else is experiencing this before I raised a formal complaint to Apple support.


I frequently receive phantom notifications from various apps on my iPhone in the form of badges on the app icon. When opening the app there is nothing associated with the notification. It’s been happening for a long time and I guess I finally just became irritated enough to ask about it. The greatest offenders tend to be Facebook and LinkedIn, but there are others that do it as well. My belief is that they are generating phantom notifications to drive traffic to their app.


Is anyone else experiencing this or have the same perception as this?


[Re-Titled by Moderator]

iPhone 16 Pro, iOS 18

Posted on May 2, 2025 11:12 AM

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User profile for user: Mac Jim ID
Mac Jim ID
Community+ 2026
User level: Level 9
65,516 points

Posted on May 2, 2025 11:43 AM

I have seen that in the Alaska Airlines app. You have a couple of options:

  • Turn off badges for that app
  • Contact the developer of the app
  • Go to reportaproblem.apple.com and choose Report Quality Issue
  • Write a review in the App Store for the app and explain your experience. Not only will that let other users know, but will get the attention of the developer.


Developer do choose to add the badge to the app and a properly coded app will direct you to a relevant page when launched to highlight the new content. What I have found with the Alaska app is there will be new promotions, but when I launch the app, it does not take you to those new promotions and you have to find those yourself. That is basically poor coding on their part which can only be fixed by them with an update to their app.


Some apps allow you to choose what you want to be notified for, but you do not have that granular option in Settings and you can only choose to see the badge or not. If you find an app that makes poor use of the badge count, my suggestion would be to turn it off.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply
User profile for user: Mac Jim ID
Mac Jim ID
Community+ 2026
User level: Level 9
65,516 points

May 2, 2025 11:43 AM in response to msstatedawg

I have seen that in the Alaska Airlines app. You have a couple of options:

  • Turn off badges for that app
  • Contact the developer of the app
  • Go to reportaproblem.apple.com and choose Report Quality Issue
  • Write a review in the App Store for the app and explain your experience. Not only will that let other users know, but will get the attention of the developer.


Developer do choose to add the badge to the app and a properly coded app will direct you to a relevant page when launched to highlight the new content. What I have found with the Alaska app is there will be new promotions, but when I launch the app, it does not take you to those new promotions and you have to find those yourself. That is basically poor coding on their part which can only be fixed by them with an update to their app.


Some apps allow you to choose what you want to be notified for, but you do not have that granular option in Settings and you can only choose to see the badge or not. If you find an app that makes poor use of the badge count, my suggestion would be to turn it off.

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Phantom app notifications on iPhone: Is anyone else experiencing this?

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