I can count the number of times I have used cut and paste on one hand as well. That is because I am something of a mutant with far too many fingers.
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More Claims of Multitasking in iPhone OS 4.0
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I can count the number of times I have used cut and paste on one hand as well. That is because I am something of a mutant with far too many fingers.
You say that as if wanting to listen to music on a device that is touted as "the best iPod ever" is a bad thing.
It may be faster on an iPhone 3GS or an iPad, but closing one app and starting another, then getting back to a specific state is a lot slower than simply tabbing between two open apps. A switching mechanism like hold and swipe is better than button, tap, wait, tap.
One of the prevailing ideologies in web design is allowing a user to perform a task with as few clicks as possible. It's extending that to productivity on the phone.
It would be good.
What I don't get are the people who go on about how multitasking is a waste of time and why on earth would you want it. At the end of the day like most features that have come along since launch we lived without them ok. However it is nice now they are available. As long as it does not cripple the device in terms of performance and battery life it will be a great addition.
It will be interesting to see if multitasking will be enabled on all models. Apple pretty much swore blind it could not solve the battery life issue. So either they have or it will only be on the new model.
What I don't get are the people who go on about how multitasking is a waste of time and why on earth would you want it. At the end of the day like most features that have come along since launch we lived without them ok. However it is nice now they are available. As long as it does not cripple the device in terms of performance and battery life it will be a great addition.
It will be interesting to see if multitasking will be enabled on all models. Apple pretty much swore blind it could not solve the battery life issue. So either they have or it will only be on the new model.
and when you're off answering that SMS... your guy dies. how the heck does that make sense?
unless YOU'RE the one playing all the infinite "matching colored shapes" games out there, i guess.
really? and how many do you use at once?
This reaction is puzzling to me. Why is it so hard to believe that people really use this many applications at once?
Right now, I've got the following things open:
- Firefox
- Safari
- IM Client
- Eclipse Java IDE
- Xcode
- Visual Source Safe client
- iTunes
- iCal
- Skype
- MS Word
- Terminal
- Evernote
- Remote Desktop Connection
- Preview
No, they're not all commanding my attention at the very same time. But yes, I actually am using all of these at the same time, switching between them all frequently. It would be highly impractical for me to shut them down just because I haven't used one or two in the past hour. I would lose my place and focus.
You're not crazy! And you're right that we all want a better consensus about what it really means. The difference between reopening and leaving Safari running (where the OS allows multitasks) as I see it is that the former reloads the web page whereas in the later the original page is exactly where you left it and doesn't pull the data down each time you flick back to it.
More broadly, you're right in that this really is all about the process where the main goal is to speed the app-to-app workflow, by really minimising the reload of any app and/or webpage.
and when you're off answering that SMS... your guy dies. how the heck does that make sense?
unless YOU'RE the one playing all the infinite "matching colored shapes" games out there, i guess.
Well, I could pause it. Problem is now, you can't just pause it and jump out and jump back in, unless it's got a save game feature. Which is still cumbersome and requires deliberate thought.
But I admit it... I am the one playing all the shapes games
Finally.
The Touch / iPhone my be getting being close to usable, IMO.
Multi-tasking - better late than never.
Having multitasking will enable a new applications to be written - for example - those designed to run in the background - i.e., caller blacklists.
I regularly multi-task on my Nokia phone, and it works very well. I couldn't imagine owning a smartphone that doesn't have multi-tasking - I'm too used to having the ability to run many apps at once.. with very little slow down*.
I'm very sure that once iPhone users have the ability to multi-task, they'll love it. Little less need for Notifications which has its reliability issues.
*of course you have to pick and choose your apps - your not going to run several heavy applications at once - like on OSX - or any OS - it'll slow down your computer / phone.
The Touch / iPhone my be getting being close to usable, IMO.
Multi-tasking - better late than never.
Having multitasking will enable a new applications to be written - for example - those designed to run in the background - i.e., caller blacklists.
I regularly multi-task on my Nokia phone, and it works very well. I couldn't imagine owning a smartphone that doesn't have multi-tasking - I'm too used to having the ability to run many apps at once.. with very little slow down*.
I'm very sure that once iPhone users have the ability to multi-task, they'll love it. Little less need for Notifications which has its reliability issues.
*of course you have to pick and choose your apps - your not going to run several heavy applications at once - like on OSX - or any OS - it'll slow down your computer / phone.
It's Pandora, Last.fm, Slacker, all the Internet radio apps. Maybe you want to listen to Twit live with Leo Laporte.
Right. This already exists. Whether any individual app takes advantage of it is another matter. For example, I've been trying out Stanza for reading during my downtime at work lately. (I don't think I care for it, but that's neither here nor there.) I just launched it, then home-buttoned out to Mail, then home-buttoned out and back to Stanza. After a brief pause (presumably because it has to un-compress the book or whatever), it took me right back where I was. That brief pause might be unnoticeable on a 3GS, but mine's an old-school iPhone.
You guys keep saying that, but again, I'm not seeing a huge case for that. We've got the Pandora case, and then the FTP case which I totally get but we have to admit is like crazy-obscure.
You say that as if wanting to listen to music on a device that is touted as "the best iPod ever" is a bad thing.
I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I'm saying it's one thing, and I was wondering if there are others. In the few minutes since I asked, it seems like there are a couple edge cases, and some confusion about what running an app in the background really means. But again, it's only been a few minutes, and the room in which I asked the question is really, really small.
I dunno, man. Mine's an original iPhone, the now-extinct 4 GB model, and I just tried it with Mail and Safari as I described above. It was as fast as I am. If it went faster, the phone would be waiting on me.
Replacing a button press and a tap with a non-obvious gesture and a task manager app and a hell of a lot of OS infrastructure seems like a lot of work for no tangible benefit to me. But what do I know. I'm not a computer nerd, I'm just a regular person.
Features aren't added to the iPhone with the wave of a magic wand. They take time and effort, and there's an opportunity cost associated with them. People seem to act like "multitasking" (they don't actually mean multitasking in the normal sense of the term) is this huge thing that will change the world. I just don't see it.
If Apple adds an API whereby an app can spawn off a task that will continue running when the app itself is suspended, in such a way that you have to manually go into the app's settings and enable that feature, then great. That'll solve the Pandora problem, and that one guy's FTP thing. But it sounds like there are at least a few people who won't be satisfied with that, because they want Safari to continue, like, running as a separate process on their phones or whatever, even though it's not on the screen and thus should not actually be running. If Apple bows to those guys' complaining and spends a hell of a lot of time and effort adding a whole new set of frameworks to the phone that the overwhelming majority of people won't notice, won't use or won't like (because it'll reduce battery life), I'd say that's a net loss.
If you , or anyone else, has never had the ability to multi-task on a phone, then you won't know just how convenient it is.
99% of what people want could be done with a suspend to RAM function in the OS. If RAM gets filled up, dump some of the RAM to flash.
My mind is blown how you took that leap. I was demonstrating that some people really do run a lot of apps at once. I didn't say that I was planning on running those particular apps on my iPhone.
Yes, this is possible. Some applications trap the Home button event and serialize state data and save it to the flash. On start they check for this data and use it to pick up where it left off.
This is the kind of behavior you want the OS handling, however. Most apps don't do this, and it provides inconsistent experience. You're relying on the developer to implement this behavior.
You're describing task switching, which the OS already does natively. We're just being artificially restricted from using the feature in third party apps.
Hey, cool! I'm finally a 6502! That reminds me - you can even task switch on a 6502 powered Apple II with the Contiki OS.
So... I get to choose whether or not an application decides on its own to keep running in the background when I exit it? I get to decide whether an app decides to start background processes at boot?
How, precisely? Do I have to make these decisions every time I install an app, every time I exit an app, every time I boot... ?
The point being (obviously) that your "it's a choice, mindless drones!" argument crosses the line from just "simplistic" to "totally inaccurate".
So let me get this straight... the iPhone doesn't have enough battery power for Flash, but it does for multitasking?
If there's anyone left who truly believes the Flash controversy isn't a blatant war between Apple and Adobe, WAKE UP.
-Clive
If there's anyone left who truly believes the Flash controversy isn't a blatant war between Apple and Adobe, WAKE UP.
-Clive
Multitasking would be great on the iPhone, I'm looking forward to it.
Obviously the big issue has been Apple coming up with a) ways of limiting multitasking of 3rd party apps in an acceptable way and b) coming up with an intuitive interface.
My guess is that we'll see an Expose-like interface and/or an iPhone version of the Mac OS dock. By aggressively paging applications (removing from memory and putting in flash temporarily) instead of closing them, you could easily improve application switching response times. You pull up "iPhone Expose" and it shows you a screenshot of all the frozen apps.
Apple might add an API to the SDK to allow their app to be freezable or "unfreezable". Apple will probably also allow you to "pin" certain background apps to stay running in some throttled mode, without being frozen. So, regardless of whether the app is pinned or frozen, the switching interface will look the same. Another API that would be helpful would be some type of connection persistence API so that when your app is frozen, your connection to some other server is not disconnected.
My guess is that they will provide some different categories of background apps, so that the OS can properly limit them:
- Push Only. These apps can obviously be frozen because they really don't run in the background. Mail apps will be fine in this mode. No limit.
- Push + Frozen. These apps are also frozen, but the app is unfrozen when a push notification comes in. Pretty much any IM or Twitter App will work fine here. No limit.
- Timer. The app is frozen until some specified time period is over, and then the app is "pulsed" and the app is briefly brought alive. Will probably be where all of the alarm clock and location pinger type apps will fall. No limit.
- Sync. The app is frozen but can accept an incoming data queue. The queue can be processed when the app is unfrozen. This would work well for any type of download or sync app, such as iTunes movie downloads. No limit, but bandwidth might be restricted / shared amongst all.
- Audio/iPod. The app runs throttled in the background to be on par with the iPod app. The default audio controls now control this app instead of the iPod. Maximum one of these apps can be running at a time.
- Full Background. This app would run at full speed in the background. I'm not sure exactly what type of app falls in this category, that isn't served fine with one of the above. Maybe the navigation apps fall under this category. My guess is that if this were allowed, it would be severely limited or would be hard to get past Apple's approval process.
Anyway, just my prediction.
Obviously the big issue has been Apple coming up with a) ways of limiting multitasking of 3rd party apps in an acceptable way and b) coming up with an intuitive interface.
My guess is that we'll see an Expose-like interface and/or an iPhone version of the Mac OS dock. By aggressively paging applications (removing from memory and putting in flash temporarily) instead of closing them, you could easily improve application switching response times. You pull up "iPhone Expose" and it shows you a screenshot of all the frozen apps.
Apple might add an API to the SDK to allow their app to be freezable or "unfreezable". Apple will probably also allow you to "pin" certain background apps to stay running in some throttled mode, without being frozen. So, regardless of whether the app is pinned or frozen, the switching interface will look the same. Another API that would be helpful would be some type of connection persistence API so that when your app is frozen, your connection to some other server is not disconnected.
My guess is that they will provide some different categories of background apps, so that the OS can properly limit them:
- Push Only. These apps can obviously be frozen because they really don't run in the background. Mail apps will be fine in this mode. No limit.
- Push + Frozen. These apps are also frozen, but the app is unfrozen when a push notification comes in. Pretty much any IM or Twitter App will work fine here. No limit.
- Timer. The app is frozen until some specified time period is over, and then the app is "pulsed" and the app is briefly brought alive. Will probably be where all of the alarm clock and location pinger type apps will fall. No limit.
- Sync. The app is frozen but can accept an incoming data queue. The queue can be processed when the app is unfrozen. This would work well for any type of download or sync app, such as iTunes movie downloads. No limit, but bandwidth might be restricted / shared amongst all.
- Audio/iPod. The app runs throttled in the background to be on par with the iPod app. The default audio controls now control this app instead of the iPod. Maximum one of these apps can be running at a time.
- Full Background. This app would run at full speed in the background. I'm not sure exactly what type of app falls in this category, that isn't served fine with one of the above. Maybe the navigation apps fall under this category. My guess is that if this were allowed, it would be severely limited or would be hard to get past Apple's approval process.
Anyway, just my prediction.
On my Mac, Flash eats 4-5 times the CPU as any non-craptastic application, so yeah. If I have to choose between 2 ways to achieve 3 hour battery life, and one of them is watching a flash movie, and the other is multitasking 10 applications, I think i'll take multitasking.