A monthly slide that says “engagement 12%” is almost always a blend. Someone has taken whatever the send panel labelled as success and divided it by whatever it labelled as sent. The phones underneath that panel do not share a dictionary.
What iOS is usually willing to say
On many programmes, an iOS “open” is a tap that brings the app forward, or a clear interaction the system is prepared to report. A notification that was shown and then swiped away may never enter that column. Quiet delivery and interruption levels further split the story: an alert that never made a sound can still have been delivered. If your slide treats that delivery as attention, the slide is writing fiction.
What Android is usually willing to say
Android is often more talkative and more confusing. Channels, importance, and whether the shade was expanded can produce counts that look richer than the user’s patience. A high “displayed” number next to a rising opt-out is not a paradox. It is a lock screen that was busy.
A working rule from the Kuala Lumpur desk
Keep the operating systems in two columns until you have a reason to join them. The reason is never “the chart looks cleaner.” A grocery app we read in Petaling Jaya had a cheerful blended rate and a quietly furious Android permission line. The blend was doing PR for the worse list.
What to bring to a review
Not a theory of attention. A week of raw columns, labelled as the vendor labelled them, plus one screenshot of the alert as sent. We will argue about names after we have seen the rows.
If you want that argument written down for a specific programme, that is the engagement audit.