[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] tsunami1609:
Evostance I really like your concept and it was a well made video, but here's a couple things to think about with your designs.

1. The problem is having a larger notification when it pops up is that it covers more of the screen, and in ICS more of the navigation buttons (menu sometimes and the back icon) are at the top of the screen. It's not hard to imagine it getting annoying as you're in an app (say browser) trying to get to settings and instead you end up reply to a notification.

2. Is there a size limit to the bigger notification. In the notif pulldown that's fine, but it wouldn't work in the popup, because like above, that just means even more of the screen is being covered.

Honestly, I think you should get rid of the popup altogether. It's stylish, there's no denying that, but it can become very intrusive, especially in ICS. In addition, when receiving a text right now, it already shows the name of the sender and the message text without being intrusive, since it only expands the length of the notif bar. The performance can still remain though. Here's what I'd suggest:

All of your functions, such as quick reply, swipe left to dismiss and right to mark as read are great, just put them in the notification pulldown, not in a popup. So the bar still looks the same when up, but when you pull it down, then you see the contact picture and the regular message (as it is now). THEN, you could enable a swipe down to expand feature (simple enough gesture, and makes sense (to me) as you're expanding the notification window with your finger). This would give you the full message, as well as a quick reply button. Press that button and you get the stylish quick reply that you displayed. I'd suggest making a reply button though, because we don't want to remove any function. Tapping on the notification would still bring you to the messaging app, as it should.

Through all of that, the average Android user would still use it the same way. They'd get a notification, pulldown the bar, tap it and respond in the messaging app. But for the people who are used to changes/improvements (us) then we'd be able to use these quick gestures to respond faster and even cleaner.

Man I really need to find a way to streamline my messages

---------- Post added at 03:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:40 PM ----------

I also think tapping the settings icon in the notification bar should cause a toggles pulldown like this: http://attachments.xda-developers.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=814369&d=1323730485

instead of going into the settings app. This way they're not always there and taking up a chunk of the screen. Honeycomb did it (kind of, though tapping the clock). Tapping the settings icon again would slide the quick toggles settings back up.

Aesthetics wise, I say slide meaning I want it to perform in a similar manner to the iphone's (I know, i said it) folders. You know, how tapping a folder will push down the rest of the icons below it like this: http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/1826/img0027o.png

this time it'd just be pushing the rest of the notifications down.

Or not. You can ignore the style in which it works (if you truly hate any mention of the iphone and/or its style), just include the functions.