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Why did it take Appleso long to add multitasking to the iPad?

S

Stirolak123

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 12, 2010
447
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Anyone else think this should have been a feature from day one and probably turned off a lot of potential customers from the get go due to the fact like bloggers or business ppl? I mean now I can exit atomic web browser and all my tabs including what I was writing in this forum remains open the same. This is a necessity for many people.

Also, I noticed some emial programs not the main email but like craigslist programs still haven't got multitasking down and u have to fettle everything u wrote if u exit in the middle of an email.
 
Stirolak123 said:
Anyone else think this should have been a feature from day one and probably turned off a lot of potential customers from the get go due to the fact like bloggers or business ppl? I mean now I can exit atomic web browser and all my tabs including what I was writing in this forum remains open the same. This is a necessity for many people.

Also, I noticed some emial programs not the main email but like craigslist programs still haven't got multitasking down and u have to fettle everything u wrote if u exit in the middle of an email.
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Dude. This has been discussed until the cows come home. Your time would be better served if you did a search of all the topics on this.
 
If you were being cynical, you could say it was to give the iPad a mid-life boost: Steve Jobs said it was like having a new iPad...
The real reason, though, is that they decided to unify the iOS devices at 4.2, and it took this long to get 4.2 complete and out of the door
 
Ok I get it guys, I just think it is a lot more important of a feature on the ipad than iPhone and apple should have got it on the iPad first if not equally at the same time. Anyway, here is another question. When I use the atomic web browser and I multitask and don't touch it for a while everything has to be reloaded and all the tabs web pages reload and the multitask breaks. Is this common in all apps or only certain ones? And why?
 
When you close an app its contents are saved in memory. If another app comes along and needs more memory, it'll kill the oldest-closed apps to get some memory back. You won't notice any result in the primary app you're using but when you come back to the app you closed, it'll have to re-make the state of the app.

Part of the reason the iPad could do with more RAM.
 
Stirolak123 said:
Ok I get it guys, I just think it is a lot more important of a feature on the ipad than iPhone and apple should have got it on the iPad first if not equally at the same time. Anyway, here is another question. When I use the atomic web browser and I multitask and don't touch it for a while everything has to be reloaded and all the tabs web pages reload and the multitask breaks. Is this common in all apps or only certain ones? And why?
Click to expand...

Atomic's tabs take up valuable RAM. If you run other apps afterwards, they may need the RAM that Atomic was saving those tabs in. Thus reopening Atomic will cause those tabs to have to reload.

* Zcott got there first!
 
Ok thanks, but what if I start using a bunch of different apps. Will all of them start saving to memory and if a new one that needs lots of ram comes along does it take away the multitask in all the previous ones or one by one starting from the first one I exited?
 
For god's sake.

When we didn't have 4.2/multitasking yet people complained that we didn't have it.

Now we have it, people - void of things to complain about - need to complain that we used to not have it.

Get in the present, and get your multitasking on man!
 
Zcott said:
When you close an app its contents are saved in memory. If another app comes along and needs more memory, it'll kill the oldest-closed apps to get some memory back. You won't notice any result in the primary app you're using but when you come back to the app you closed, it'll have to re-make the state of the app.

Part of the reason the iPad could do with more RAM.
Click to expand...

colmaclean said:
Atomic's tabs take up valuable RAM. If you run other apps afterwards, they may need the RAM that Atomic was saving those tabs in. Thus reopening Atomic will cause those tabs to have to reload.

* Zcott got there first!
Click to expand...

Both wrong, not very wrong though.

It was stated in Apple's 'pillars' of iOS multitasking: backgrounded tasks only have 10 minutes to complete whatever they want or the process will be suspended. In most apps that aren't multitasking ready, or don't implement some state saving on close (which was the faux-multitasking solution pre-iOS4), they will start afresh as if they were closed.
 
Stirolak123 said:
Ok thanks, but what if I start using a bunch of different apps. Will all of them start saving to memory and if a new one that needs lots of ram comes along does it take away the multitask in all the previous ones or one by one starting from the first one I exited?
Click to expand...

They only ’shut down' when a memory-intensive app like Safari or PvZ needs the memory. And they're not completely shut down - the app saves the exact state of the app so you can resume it but it'll have to re-make the session. And I think it starts by closing your oldest-used app, the one that has been closed the longest.
 
The simple thing is iOS 4.2 wasn't ready even for iPhone yet alone iPad, they'd have had to wait until now before releasing the iPad.
 
the thing is, it takes Apple 3 years to allow users to change their wallpaper. You should be grateful uncle Steve added multi-tasking after only 10 months.
 
sammich said:
Both wrong, not very wrong though.

It was stated in Apple's 'pillars' of iOS multitasking: backgrounded tasks only have 10 minutes to complete whatever they want or the process will be suspended. In most apps that aren't multitasking ready, or don't implement some state saving on close (which was the faux-multitasking solution pre-iOS4), they will start afresh as if they were closed.
Click to expand...

Actually, you're wrong and the people you were quoted were right.

90% of "background" apps get suspended and stored in RAM, and are awoken again when the app is brought back to the front. It works the same as your Mac going to sleep, only on a per-app basis. In this state, apps consume RAM but can't actually do anything. However, because they're in RAM they can be awoken again instantly and carry on from where they were.

If an app wants to actually *do* something in the background, it can request so when it's about to be put to sleep. In this case, the app gets a certain amount of time to perform its operation as you said.

See the developer documentation here for more information on the subject. Pertinent quote:

Most applications that enter the background state are moved to the suspended state shortly thereafter. While in this state, the application does not execute any code and may be removed from memory at any time. Applications that provide specific services to the user can request background execution time in order to provide those services.
Click to expand...
 
awesome

AAPLaday said:
They were too busy playing Angry Birds
Click to expand...
That reply in the context I read it as in my head totally would have made my day if my day was not already made by sledding with my nieces.. Angry Birds and don't you all know people only search if they are on the university of google webpage, not actually with in a forum board.
 
Zcott said:
When you close an app its contents are saved in memory. If another app comes along and needs more memory, it'll kill the oldest-closed apps to get some memory back. You won't notice any result in the primary app you're using but when you come back to the app you closed, it'll have to re-make the state of the app.

Part of the reason the iPad could do with more RAM.
Click to expand...

I don't understand why iOS doesn't reserve some flash memory (say 1Gb) and then move the apps from memory into flash memory instead of killing them completely when it's running short: That would allow apps to be retained for longer and come back as they were suspended, albeit a bit slower.

Maybe it's due to the characteristics of the flash memory (i.e. not suitable for repeated writes / rewrites) but it would be a way of somewhat overcoming the RAM problem.
 
The applications are already stored on flash memory to start with. Storing another copy of them on there doesn't seem smart.
 
And how come there's no camera? And what's with the orientation switch? Why can't this play Flash? It's too heavy! And why can't we read in bright sunlight? And why no Android? And what, we have to use iTunes????
 
Kenndac said:
The applications are already stored on flash memory to start with. Storing another copy of them on there doesn't seem smart.
Click to expand...

You wouldn't be storing another copy of them per se - it would be the current state of the registers, memory, stack, etc to allow them to be restarted from where they left off.
 
The real answer is that 4.2.1 was installed from day 1 but Jobs waited until 10 million were sold before he secretly enabled it.
 
Generally, Apple wants users to have a fantastic experience using its products. They didn't feel that multitasking 10 months ago with the current OS was that 'fantastic experience'. Plain and simple.

Very, very, VERY rarely will it be that Apple releases something that's just not there yet. They want all the kinks worked out before the public gets the product or software, as opposed to other companies that tend to rush products to market and end up fixing and correcting for years to get it right.

Other recent examples would be the lack of 3G on the original iPhones which could have easily been accomplished...and I believe it's also the current reason why AppleTV doesn't display 1080p natively: the rest of the infrastructure is just not there to support it as a viable (read: problem-free and 'fantastic') rental/sales option right now.
 
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