More New iPhone OS 4 Features: File Sharing, App Closing

[el3ktro]

But won't people end up with all their apps running at the same time eventually? Of course there will only be a couple of services per app that actually "run", but still, that takes up battery life.

Good questions. I've coded a small GPS tracker app which registers with the OS to be able to run in the background, and indeed if I hit the home button and/or lock the iPhone, the app keeps tracking GPS data - forever. This basically means that if a developer adds backgrounding functionality to his app, he has to add a button or switch which will allow the user to choose if he wants the app to run in the background. Skype already has a switch which allows you to "stay online" when the device is locked. A similar switch would be needed for all apps that do something in the background.

When a GPS app is running in the background, the iPhone actually displays a little compass needle in the status bar, so you know that it's still tracking your position. When audio is playing in the background, it's obvious what's going on and for all other cases you could either display an alert to the user after say 15 minutes or as I said you need a switch.

 

[Small White Car]

But won't people end up with all their apps running at the same time eventually? Of course there will only be a couple of services per app that actually "run", but still, that takes up battery life.

What if you launch a GPS navigation app, that drains a hell of a lot of battery life, and you only want to use it for like 15 minutes and shut it down afterwards, I'm sure Apple doesn't want people to just "forget about it" and leave it running forever, overnight, and for weeks to come. You'll have to shut it down eventually.

Then what if you're running Skype in the background, and you're tired of receiving chats and calls and you just want to turn Skype off, you do have to quit it then don't you?

So I'm not sure what Apple meant by "you don't have to worry about it", but you do have to THINK about it and not forget about it, or else your phone's battery can die within minutes.

How do you use your iPod now?

Let's say you're listening to music and surfing the web. Now you're done listening to music. Do you force-quit the entire iPod app? Or do you just go into the iPod and stop playing the song?

That's how all these things will work. In your map example you'd open the program and hit the 'stop tracking me' button. Or you'd open Skype and turn on some kind of 'quiet mode' (which if they don't have now, I'm sure they'll have to add).

The point is, you'd go and stop the thing you want to stop...you wouldn't have to quit the whole program any more than you have to force quit the iPod to stop playing music. It has a 'stop' button. Just use that.

Sidenote, I'm also in the D.C. area...good to see another Macrumors guy close by, especially another Delorean fan!

Heh heh...thanks. And in case you think I'm confused, I know Deloreans aren't white. The name 'Small White Car' came from my 1989 Mazda 323 I had in High School. The Delorean icon came later.

 

[iZac]

I wonder if there is a kind of drop-off once a certain number of apps are added to this 'task manager'? Or for instance if the app hasn't been used in 24 hours, it shuts down? My iPhone gets a restart about once a ... month? I can imagine not wanting the hassle to use the 'task manger' to kill apps. I mean the last thing you want to have to do every single day is tidy up whatever you've opened and no longer need. So thats going to be a LOT of open apps!

 

[acslater017]

Is there a way to close an app without it going to the multitask pane? I have over a hundred apps and don't want them all on my multitask pane. This will kill the usefulness of the multitask pane if I have to scroll through a bunch of apps in order to get to the one I want to switch to. I might as well have to find it on the home page.

The multitask pane is only for multiple RUNNING/background-ing apps. So, even if you have 100 apps installed on your phone, only the 5 or 10 you have currently open will appear on the multitasking pane. Quitting the currently running app is still the same - push the Home button and go back to the Home screen.

 

[Small White Car]

Syncing in the background is one.

I'm not programmer, but we know apps can upload data in the background (they gave the example of the Flickr app continuing to upload after closing the app) so it seems reasonable that downloading may be possible.

Add in the push noticification service and it may be possible to notify a 'closed' app to check a server and download a file.

I really don't know...anyone here with knowledge that can help? It just seems to me like all the pieces are there...is it possible?

 

[baryon]

Is this kind of excessive hyperbole necessary for your argument?

I'm no developer and I have never seen iPhone OS 4, but wouldn't a GPS application that gives driving directions drain the battery very fast if your iPhone wasn't plugged into your car charger? Because I know it was mentioned by Apple at their keynote that GPS drains the battery a lot, but it's not a problem since your phone would be plugged into your car charger anyway. So if you unplug it, wouldn't you have to Quit that GPS application, in order to prevent it from draining your battery? I don't know, doesn't this make sense? Or is there some magical thing in the iPhone that prevents this problem from happening that I don't know of?

 

[el3ktro]

Yes. Ones that aren't re-written won't run in the background. That's pretty much all there is to it.

You should add though, that even if an app has not been re-written to support multitasking, when you close it, it still does show up in this new multitasking dock. When you tap it, it's just being restarted from scratch.

 

[el3ktro]

I may be misunderstanding your question, but the multi task pane will only show what apps are currently running... are you going to be running all 100 apps at a time?

Well actually when you have 100 apps and you open them all one after another, then you have all 100 apps in the multitasking dock. But they aren't running, they are suspended. When you open them again, either from the home screen or from the multitasking dock, they are woken up and continue to run from where you left them.

 

[Small White Car]

You should add though, that even if an app has not been re-written to support multitasking, when you close it, it still does show up in this new multitasking dock. When you tap it, it's just being restarted from scratch.

Quite right. 'Saved-states' and 'Background Processes' are 2 different things that Apple is adding together to call "Multitasking."

So all apps will benefit from SS but only updated ones can use BPs.

 

[el3ktro]

So, is there a way to distiguish between if you want to "close" an app, or to leave it "open" but for it to reside on the multitask pane.

Short answer: No.

Long answer: When you're in an app and you hit the home button, an icon for that app appears in the multitasking dock. If the app you just closed was multitasking-capable, it will be suspended and kept in RAM. When you open it again, either from the home screen or the multitasking dock, it is resumed. When the app you just closed is not multitasking-capable, it is closed as usual, but it still has an icon in the multitasking dock. When you open it again, it is started from scratch as it is today on OS 3.0.

So essentially the multitasking dock is more like a "recent apps list".

 

[el3ktro]

I don't understand the point of having a task bar for multitasking... why not just use the home screen and have a badge to identify which programs are running?

Seems just as much work to go to the home screen and scroll to a program as it is to go to the multitask bar and scroll to the program... at least on the home screen I know exactly where it is!

The multitasking dock sorts app based on the time they were last used. So for example if you open Safari, then close it, then open Mail and then double-click the home button, you have Safari to the very left of the multitasking dock. When you switch to Safari, you have Mail on the very left of the multitasking dock. So it's great when you're switching between two or three apps several times, where you otherwise probably had to scroll between several home screens to reach them.

 

[tdmac]

I agree... much of the sync process in iTunes which IS about file management is counterintuitive when normally it would be handled (faster) through Finder.

I agree as well. Am also a Mac guy/windows convert but with the i-devices you have to think out of the Apple box. How would this work under Windows? The reason iTunes is used is that apple has to only worry about one piece of software that is programmed for two platforms that has qual functionality. Then you start getting into having to address programming access in windows (Multiple versions) under explorer etc.

You could just do cool outside itunes stuff on a MAC hoping to then get Windows users to convert to take advantage of all the great things you can do under the MAC with the phone. Of course you will alienate Win users and may push them to anothr platform since they are not receiving similar benefits. Its cone thing to be a closed platform on an total Apple ecosystem, which these devices are not.

 

[sharp65]

The multitask pane is only for multiple RUNNING/background-ing apps. So, even if you have 100 apps installed on your phone, only the 5 or 10 you have currently open will appear on the multitasking pane. Quitting the currently running app is still the same - push the Home button and go back to the Home screen.

This is not true, it is primarily a fast-app switching UI. It will display recently used apps even if they are not currently running.

 

[tdmac]

I'd like to be able to remove Apple's default apps as well. For instance, I don't use the default weather widget, nor the stocks widget nor the iTunes widget. I have them relegated to their own screen. Why not just make them vanish like third party apps? If I ever want them back I can always just restore my iPhone. Or they could be included in the app list in iTunes. Just because Apple made them doesn't mean I want them.

I am curious though if you could just create a folder in iphone os4 and stick all of these apps into that one folder. Then at least you are only taking up the room of one icon to hid all of the Apple default apps you do not use. This is what I used to do on my old blackberry curve with all the apps at&t added to the damn phone that I figured I would never use. Then you can move them to the last page and not really see them.

 

[oneteam]

Am I the only one who doesn’t really like the way Apple implemented the app switcher/multitasking tray? I’m happy the way multitasking is handled, but I dislike very much the application switcher; it’s very clunky and not very clean. To switch applications, I would’ve liked to see something like the way Safari (mobile) switches web pages, which is very similar to the way webOS switches applications (in my opinion is the best option out there). I hope Apple would consider a better way to switch applications.

 

[ohio.emt]

Some people are completely misunderstanding this multitasking.

First off the dock at the bottom is no more a task manager than the OS X dock or windows task bar. They all show running applications and all have the ability to close applications.

The dock is a 'fast app switcher' not a multi tasking dock. ALL applications show there weather or not they multi task or not.

'Multi tasking applications' do not stay running in the background. They are paused when they are closed and restored when opened. Developers can have certain services running in the background for example an audio stream but they do not have the complete app running.

Right you are there only seems to be around 5 people on this thread that understand how it works. Even tech blogs seem to be getting what the dock is for with all the talk about how hard it is to close the apps on it. There is no need to close all the apps on the as only ones that allow location awareness, or background audio will be using any resources in the background.

 

[el3ktro]

I wonder if there is a kind of drop-off once a certain number of apps are added to this 'task manager'? Or for instance if the app hasn't been used in 24 hours, it shuts down? My iPhone gets a restart about once a ... month? I can imagine not wanting the hassle to use the 'task manger' to kill apps. I mean the last thing you want to have to do every single day is tidy up whatever you've opened and no longer need. So thats going to be a LOT of open apps!

You don't have to care about all this at all. Just use your apps as you do today and let the iPhone do the magic.

 

[Becordial]

I am curious though if you could just create a folder in iphone os4 and stick all of these apps into that one folder. Then at least you are only taking up the room of one icon to hid all of the Apple default apps you do not use. This is what I used to do on my old blackberry curve with all the apps at&t added to the damn phone that I figured I would never use. Then you can move them to the last page and not really see them.

That's a really good idea. Bye bye stock weather app!

 

[el3ktro]

Am I the only one who doesn’t really like the way Apple implemented the app switcher/multitasking tray? I’m happy the way multitasking is handled, but I dislike very much the application switcher; it’s very clunky and not very clean. To switch applications, I would’ve liked to see something like the way Safari (mobile) switches web pages, which is very similar to the way webOS switches applications (in my opinion is the best option out there). I hope Apple would consider a better way to switch applications.

I don't see your point. IfI want to regularly switch between Safari, Mail and Calendar for example, I'm in Safari, double-click the home button, tap Mail. If I want to switch back to Safari: double-click home button, tap Safari. If I want to switch to Calendar: double-click home button, tap Calendar. Switch back to Mail: Double-click home button, tap Mail. Couldn't be easier.

 

[el3ktro]

Right you are there only seems to be around 5 people on this thread that understand how it works.

I guess exactly the five people who actually have OS 4.0 running and have seen it working. I'm running OS 4.0, and multitasking is implemented really well. It works flawlessly and is easy to use. You're right, everybody's going about this app closing thing, not realizing that you'll most likely never use this function.

 

[poleary2000]

Right you are there only seems to be around 5 people on this thread that understand how it works. Even tech blogs seem to be getting what the dock is for with all the talk about how hard it is to close the apps on it. There is no need to close all the apps on the as only ones that allow location awareness, or background audio will be using any resources in the background.

Ah...I get it now. You don't have to use the new dock for anything if you don't want to. You could continue to use the home screen to launch apps, restore apps, as you always have. Except that now, developers have the option of adding multi-task services that can run in the background.

The dock is to allow you to 'fast switch' between your last few opened apps. Thus if I was in a game and a text message popped up, if I hit reply, my game is suspended state, the Messages app opens, I reply and then instead of hitting close and finding my game app folder on a certain page, I use the 'fast switch' dock to find the recently used items and go back to my game. Or I could just hit home and open something else if I wanted.

The only time you would really want to close and app from the 'fast switch' dock is because there is a background service that you don't want to run anymore. Like Pandora for instance. It is backgrounding the music play, but I'm done listening. The only way to close that app is to open the dock and use the delete off the dock function. Right?

For something like Pandora, do you think developers will add something into the code that asks "Would you like to keep Pandora running in the background?" when you switch out of the app after first launching it?

Right?

 

[tonyshucraft]

Have it installed and for some reason, Stanza is showing up in the file sharing area in iTunes. Anybody know why this would be?

 

[Rhalliwell1]

All the new dock is is a fast app switcher. If you can't grasp that concept then you don't have the intelligence to turn on an iPhone so it doesn't matter anyway.

I feel some people are imagining it to be something it isn't.

 

[oneteam]

I don't see your point. IfI want to regularly switch between Safari, Mail and Calendar for example, I'm in Safari, double-click the home button, tap Mail. If I want to switch back to Safari: double-click home button, tap Safari. If I want to switch to Calendar: double-click home button, tap Calendar. Switch back to Mail: Double-click home button, tap Mail. Couldn't be easier.

I am not saying that the current way is difficult or confusing. I just think it’s not very clean. If I wanted to switch apps, I would’ve liked to see the current app to be resized, then I'd be able to scroll left or right to select the next app without the need for another bar or tray.

 

[baryon]

Good questions. I've coded a small GPS tracker app which registers with the OS to be able to run in the background, and indeed if I hit the home button and/or lock the iPhone, the app keeps tracking GPS data - forever. This basically means that if a developer adds backgrounding functionality to his app, he has to add a button or switch which will allow the user to choose if he wants the app to run in the background. Skype already has a switch which allows you to "stay online" when the device is locked. A similar switch would be needed for all apps that do something in the background.

When a GPS app is running in the background, the iPhone actually displays a little compass needle in the status bar, so you know that it's still tracking your position. When audio is playing in the background, it's obvious what's going on and for all other cases you could either display an alert to the user after say 15 minutes or as I said you need a switch.

That makes sense, thanks!