Oh... I didn't literally forget about Android tablets... it just that for the last hour this topic is all about Windows 8.
Tomorrow it will be some other topic... people bitching about a plastic iPhone or a trashcan Mac Pro.
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Microsoft Releases Fourth Anti-iPad Ad Highlighting Windows 8 Multitasking Capabilities
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Oh... I didn't literally forget about Android tablets... it just that for the last hour this topic is all about Windows 8.
Tomorrow it will be some other topic... people bitching about a plastic iPhone or a trashcan Mac Pro.
That's how it works
Unfortunately, background / invisible (the one you descrive) multitasking is severely limited in iOS too (in addition to multi-windowing being completely absent). For example, I'm the dev of a UbiPix client for iOS / Android / WP8. (Basically, a video recorder with continuous location / compass recording.) Under iOS, you can't run location / compass recording in the background with the stock Camera app (or, for that matter, any 3rd party app) in front - the background task will soon be shut down. This makes it impossible to record location / compass for more than 10-15 minutes - which would be welcome when recording long-time videos.
The situation is completely different on Android, where multitasking is much better implemented and background tasks aren't (necessarily) shut down. Also, there are a lot of advanced additional API features there.
The point is that the iPad can multitask. There's no hardware limitation that prevents it, and the software is designed to limit it, with user experience and battery life being the main concerns. Apple is fully capable of developing a multitasking OS, just like Microsoft and the developers of the plethora of varieties of Linux etc..
With iOS7 it seems as though Apple is confident at least in the development of CPU and battery tech that the kind of background multitasking you're describing will be allowed. But, like I said before, just because you can't do side-by-side with the apps doesn't mean it can't multitask at all. Similarly, just because certain functions are not allowed to background multitask for more than X minutes, doesn't mean it can't multitask at all.
Asclepio made the assertion that simply due to the fact that only one app was visible on screen at a time, that absolutely no multitasking was taking place, when he was, in fact, wrong on very many levels.
Unfortunately, background state refresh (via the Internet) still doesn't allow for continuously recording (for even hours) location data without being shut down after X minutes. This is a major problem if you don't necessarily want to rewrite the entire camcorder functionality in cases like the above (implementing location / compass data recording while recording video).
Other things like video playback in the background over wired connections isn't supported by iOS7 either. (I've tested this too on my iOS7 iPhone 5.)
Yup, a distinction must be made between multiwindow multitasking and non-visible (truly background) one. Unfortunately, in neither does iOS (not even iOS7!) excel. In windowed multitasking, it's certainly worse than WinRT and may become worse than Android if the latter indeed gets OS-level (as opposed to Samsung's non-OS-level windowing extensions) windowing support in a few months, with ver. 5.0. And, in invisible backgrounding, it's certainly much worse (much less powerful) than Android now. It's great for casual users ("mums and dads") not being able / wanting to manually shut down background apps / processes but not for power users like me.
First of all, it's a Dell, not a Surface. Next: Skype and FaceTime both stop video when they switch apps.
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People are hating on Windows 8 a lot I feel.
To each his own of course, but I can't help feeling some of this hate is out of proportion. I've used it on a desktop, a laptop, a tablet, and a convertible and I still don't see the problem.
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People are hating on Windows 8 a lot I feel.
To each his own of course, but I can't help feeling some of this hate is out of proportion. I've used it on a desktop, a laptop, a tablet, and a convertible and I still don't see the problem.
Has anyone tried the split screen mode in Windows 8? I had a go on a few tablets and touch screen (and non-touchscreen) laptops in PC World the other day and it's dreadful.
I thought that feature looked pretty cool and was one thing I thought another OS might have over iOS (that I would like, I admit they have advantages that just aren't for me) but it's so clunky and hard to get right, and totally unintuitive. I spent a few minutes on it and had no idea at any point which app would be where when I dragged stuff in from the sides, and when trying to re-arrange apps ended up closing some and moving others on instead. Awful. OK, maybe you get used to some of it and it becomes intuitive (do I want another word there?), but actually getting to to work will still be clunky. Yuck.
I thought that feature looked pretty cool and was one thing I thought another OS might have over iOS (that I would like, I admit they have advantages that just aren't for me) but it's so clunky and hard to get right, and totally unintuitive. I spent a few minutes on it and had no idea at any point which app would be where when I dragged stuff in from the sides, and when trying to re-arrange apps ended up closing some and moving others on instead. Awful. OK, maybe you get used to some of it and it becomes intuitive (do I want another word there?), but actually getting to to work will still be clunky. Yuck.
I'm slightly insulted by Microsoft with this Ad.
They're pointing the finger at multi-tasking, but actually the iPad in this video is multi-tasking. It's holding the call while the user does other stuff. The only difference is the video doesn't stay on screen.
It's such a weak point that if you think of their ad as a real world scenario, this wouldn't ever stop you doing anything, or slow you down, just because you couldn't see the skype call while you worked in other apps.
Bit stupid if you ask me.
They're pointing the finger at multi-tasking, but actually the iPad in this video is multi-tasking. It's holding the call while the user does other stuff. The only difference is the video doesn't stay on screen.
It's such a weak point that if you think of their ad as a real world scenario, this wouldn't ever stop you doing anything, or slow you down, just because you couldn't see the skype call while you worked in other apps.
Bit stupid if you ask me.
I'd say using the "lots of apps" excuse for the shortcomings of iOS compared to an iOS that's a fully touch capable version of Mac OS X which Windows 8 can boast it is once you ignore the fact Windows 8 is nothing to boast over doesn't work.
It's like saying the amount of cheap PCs or Windows 8 tablets available compared with the Apple branded systems only nature of Mac OS X/iOS means the PC is better because more people use it.
Lack of proper multitasking with layed windows or panes in iOS does make it the younger sibling of Mac OS X and the fact you can run several Apps side by side by any means under the current iOS is just going make iOS7 even more of either a breakthrough for iOS users or utter disappointment depending on how it handles multitasking.
Actually that works quite fine via airplay, depending on the app. I can use the local tv's online archive app and even lock the phone while watching the programme on the big screen.
Where did my othe post go? That where I made that hilarious quip about microsofts ad agency obviously not being able to come up with any real use case where multiwindowing would actually be urgently needed over window transitioning. And how they instead showed that messenger bag are called messenger bags because they are needed to carry around Messenger.
All lost in the macrumors board system. Pity. Pity.
All lost in the macrumors board system. Pity. Pity.
Apple makes ads about how good they are, Samsung and Microsoft make ads about how bad Apple is.
It's all about Apple
You seem to have forgotten that Apple spread quite a bit of false propaganda about Android too at WWDC... and the "I'm a Mac" TV ads shouldn't be forgotten, either.
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That's AirPlay only. There are cases when you would like to output some video to an external display while doing something on the iPad. For example, while playing back a video for he kids in the car where an Apple TV as an AirPlay receiver obviously can't be used. Or, when playing back non-AirPlay-compliant videos, which either require mirroring (doesn't work in the background, obviously) or native TV output with software decoding (doesn't work with AirPlay either).
Finally somebody else spotted this
I am pretty sure it's a Dell XPS 10, and I believe there is an LTE version available.
Is he trolling when stating, for example, "I'm also waiting to see if there is any news on that Thermonuclear War that Jobs wanted. Doesn't appear to be going too well considering the wave of modern mobile and desktop OS's that are currently available to choose from."?
He's certainly right. Apple's iOS7 is definitely behind the current version of Android. The latter is way more flexible. And that's the beginning - Android 5 is rumoured to have full windowing on the user level, among other things. What does iOS7 have as "new" features? 60 fps video recording, anti-aliased iPhone 2x mode? They've both been removed from earlier versions (iOS6 and 5, respectively) of iOS - the latter for business reasons (to boost the iPad 3 sales by intentionally making the 2x iPhone mode on then-current iPads as ugly as possible). Or, the "revolutionary" multitasking? Hahaha, you can't be serious.
It's by making the OS better than Android that Jobs' famous "Thermonuclear War" should have been fought (and not, for example, in the court room or badmouthing Android in the WWDC keynote). Unfortunately, Apple hasn't succeeded in that.
And you can't even say they did it in the name of "keep it simple, stupid". Apple would only have needed to add a single "Advanced" switch to Settings, opening the OS to, say, support windows. As did Samsung in the S4, in the opposite direction. That is, to dumb down the S4's user interface to be no more than just an app launcher.
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You aren't supposed to, of course. However, what about just moving your eye from one window to another to check whether, say, there's anything new in there? Can be done much faster than with a complete task switch required by iOS.
Just an example: a realtime chat app in one window and a web browser / game / anything in another. Like as is shown under iOS5, with the, unfortunately, iOS5-only Quasar, in the following screenshot:
(original Retina-sized one here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/81986513/092012/ASFWMVPlayer/IMG_1720.jpg . The chat window is in the lover left corner.)
It's MUCH-MUCH easier to see what happens in the chat channel while doing something else. And you don't need to do the app switch every 5-8 minutes to avoid the system shut down the chatter app either. Which is a big problem with iOS.
Android bought their market share, not sure how long they can keep it up. Selling products below cost is bad business.
M
Mr.damien
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ahaha. Microsoft Microsoft Microsoft. It's like a kid.
No word about the fact that half of your Surface storage is not usable ? no but there is no extension port on iPad.
A hint, because you don't need it as you can use almost all the storage the iPad was marketed for.
" its lack of built-in productivity apps"
Yeah, until iOS7 and free iWork ahaha. Now we know why Apple will provide everything "for free" (which is not really as you buy their hardware).
No word about the fact that half of your Surface storage is not usable ? no but there is no extension port on iPad.
A hint, because you don't need it as you can use almost all the storage the iPad was marketed for.
" its lack of built-in productivity apps"
Yeah, until iOS7 and free iWork ahaha. Now we know why Apple will provide everything "for free" (which is not really as you buy their hardware).
LOL.
They can promote the multi-tasking all they like, I've been evaluating various windows 8 tablets/hybrids since the start of the year, and the UI is inherently brain damaged when trying to run touch only with existing software. For any number of concurrent tasks. The fact that I CAN NOT ZOOM to tap on small classic windows widgets when I need to run a Win32 app is a joke.
And given the choice a developer has:
- write for metro and the app is Windows 8 only, which has been less popular than vista
OR
- write for win32 and run on WinXP, 7 AND 8
I don't see there being many significant Metro apps any time soon.
They can promote the multi-tasking all they like, I've been evaluating various windows 8 tablets/hybrids since the start of the year, and the UI is inherently brain damaged when trying to run touch only with existing software. For any number of concurrent tasks. The fact that I CAN NOT ZOOM to tap on small classic windows widgets when I need to run a Win32 app is a joke.
And given the choice a developer has:
- write for metro and the app is Windows 8 only, which has been less popular than vista
OR
- write for win32 and run on WinXP, 7 AND 8
I don't see there being many significant Metro apps any time soon.
Only the Nexus 7 is sold below costs - not even the 4 / 10. Samsung has a nice profit - and even noname Chinese manufacturers.