iosipadnotifications
I have an iPad 2 and I've noticed every time I receive a Banner style notification (the temporary pop in bar at the top of the screen) inside of a game app the game visibly stutters for half a second.
Is this just how banners always affect performance? If I disable banners for an app will that eliminate the speed hiccup or is this a problem with the behind-the-scenes notifications too?
There is no way to disable push notifications. They are handled by Apple's servers and will be sent to your device even if you uninstall the program.
Disabling all the app's respective settings under the Notification Center will only hide them. Refer to Apple's developer Push documentation for more details.
Specifically, look at the Apple Push Notification (APN) Service, which "transports and routes a notification from a given provider to a given device." Apple says the following about the APN:
Sometimes APNs might attempt to deliver notifications for an application on a device, but the device may repeatedly refuse delivery because there is no target application. This often happens when the user has uninstalled the application. In these cases, APNs informs the provider through a feedback service that the provider connects with. The feedback service maintains a list of devices per application for which there were recent, repeated failed attempts to deliver notifications. The provider should obtain this list of devices and stop sending notifications to them.
In short, Push notifications are handled outside of the device. To stop them, once a program has been installed, means the developer of the program must remove your device from the list (or the notification must fail enough for the APN to stop sending them entirely). As a user, there is not way to "stop" them, just hide them from within iOS.
That login banner is a provided aspect of the Game Center API in the iOS SDKs, as far as I'm aware there is no way as a developer to disable it from opening when the Game Center login completes. As a user, there is certainly no way to disable it, because it is part of the application's compiled source code.
However, note that it's not the banner that is causing the delays and skips. It is actually the entire login process to Game Center. My only advice is when you open a game that has Game Center logins, open it up to the first functional screen, and just wait the ~5-10 seconds it takes to reveal the Game Center banner. After the banner has displayed and disappeared, proceed normally and you should not be affected any further.
Best Answer
This is the current state of iOS. You'll notice that incoming calls and pop ups (the old style notification) also negatively affect the performance of current app.