More Rumors of Limited Third-Party Background Apps Coming to the iPhone?

[TuffLuffJimmy]

I'm not sure I understand your point here. They are localized web apps that utilize HTML5's database feature. These can run over the internet or on the device without access to the internet.

True to an extent. Only apps that the user has installed has access to special libraries and such, the apps you access on the web, just like the web apps on safari can only live in Safari.

Palm's SDK for the Pre is really just a specialized way to make apps using HTML, CSS and JS. These apps will be very limited in comparison to what the iPhone and other smartphones are capable of

Examples?

The only thing I can think of that iPhone OS can do that the Web OS can't is 3D games. Palm has already said they're looking into a way to fix this and I'm sure there will be a way in under a year.[/QUOTE]

 

[kdarling]

First let me say that background apps do use battery power in most cases. There is no way around that. The os is going to give the app it's time slice and the app is going to figure out if it needs to do anything every single time it gets that time slice if it isn't already doing something. The exception here is if the OS permits an apps request to be put to sleep or that app is in some otherway blocked from running. Think about it folks an app can't determine if it has something to do unless it is running. It is a given that background apps will load the system.

In modern OS's apps don't have to be sliced in to find out if they have to do something.

I'd say that the majority of the time, background apps are asleep, awaiting either user input, incoming data, a wakeup timer, or some other system-initiated event. In other words, they take up nothing but memory until a desired event occurs.

Obviously active apps, such as music players, are a different case. But even the iPhone has a background music player, active fetch/push email app, etc, and Apple hypocritically doesn't talk about how they use up battery.

 

[question fear]

In modern OS's apps don't have to be sliced in to find out if they have to do something.

I'd say that the majority of the time, background apps are asleep, awaiting either user input, incoming data, a wakeup timer, or some other system-initiated event. In other words, they take up nothing but memory until a desired event occurs.

Obviously active apps, such as music players, are a different case. But even the iPhone has a background music player, active fetch/push email app, etc, and Apple hypocritically doesn't talk about how they use up battery.

Agreed. I've noticed that many apps on my Epix use a nominal amount of memory. The only ones that turn into pigs are web browsers and email.

 

[billandy]

I don't get apple's theories. They say they won't due to battery-life drain. Well make it so we can enable if we so choose to let an app run in the background.

Of course a game app I wouldn't want to risk running in the background, but if we as the consumer are willing to accept the batterydrain so we can run apps like Aim or Pandora in the background, we so should be allowed to!!

I hate listening to Pandora and having to quit to answer a text msg, argh.

well, i believe at this point what you need to do is to buy yourself a nokia n95 like i did when it first came out. i was just like you and did all these things simultaneously. result? battery flat in 60 minutes. is this what you want? i don't think anyone wants such a solution, if you can call it a solution.

after all, two problems apple needs to address: a. limited processing power limits "backgroundability"; b. the battery technology.

apple is good at inventing something, but they're unfortunately not at the stage of solving potential noble-prize winning physics solution all their own. there're thousands and thousands of physicist and material scientists working in finding a better way to store electric energy.

i admit it's a dilemma, but i thought most of us iphone users are already using it in a highly battery draining way everyday. i absolutely think apart from blackberry users, iphone users are the ones who take out their mobile for the longest time in a day.

also, speaking of apps like pandora, it's another matter whether apple's carrier partners will agree on such extra network burden. and let's be honest, apple itself won't be a big fan. if everyone's listening to free stream music, how can it keep its itunes business growing?

 

[SpitzerCR]

in for da nudez???

How bout increasing the efficiency so this is a little more useful

 

[iMaggot]

Hopefully.


But not going to happen

I agree, Apple is not going to do it.

 

[shakenmartini]

MotoQ has a tiny, tiny battery. For reference, you can get a 1640mAH extended battery for the Q...but my Samsung Epix came standard with an 1800mAH battery.

With google sync, flexmail running IMAP IDLE, Opera Mobile, and connecting to a Celio Redfly via bluetooth, I end up at around 30% at the end of the day. That's with it off the charger at 6am, on the charger at around 10pm.

Now, I don't do much internet radio streaming or IM, and both of those WILL kill your battery faster. But that's common sense, not a flaw in the entire multitasking process.

That is exactly my point. 30% left is not that great of battery life with all that stuff running in the background. Your numbers are pretty consistent with my findings with the Q with a smaller battery. If you start listening to more music/podcasts on that phone, you wouldn't even make it to 5 pm. When I had a Q with the larger battery, I got to the point where it really wasn't possible to listen to significant amounts of music on the phone and ended up with a separate music player with better battery life.

For reference, I listen to my iPhone much of the day, in addition to email and internet and usually have 50-75% or more depending on signal quality. This is with push enabled and a lot of network activity. For the moment I am happy without background apps, mainly because if they are going to do it, I want it to be done right. Background notifications will take care of a good portion of what needs to be done in the background. However, things like pandora and a few other apps would be nice to run in the background, but only if done properly.

 

[Eso]

result? battery flat in 60 minutes.

That makes very little sense considering Apple's minimum claim for battery life is 5 hours for the most intensive tasks (call or web browsing). That means the phone will last you about 5 hours of continuous use, multitasking or not.

That is exactly my point. 30% left is not that great of battery life with all that stuff running in the background.

Actually, it seems like his point is just the opposite - that performance while multitasking is just fine. After a full day of use, the battery is still at 30% and ready to be charged for tomorrow. What would be "not that great of battery life" is if it were at 0% midway through the day.

 

[sychee]

You will be using Apple's Push Notification Server to push messages down to your iPhone. Do you think it will come FREE at all? Apple need $$$$ to maintain these servers and these $$$$ have to come from somewhere, right? Most likely, we might need a mobileMe account to use this service? What do you think?

 

[question fear]

That is exactly my point. 30% left is not that great of battery life with all that stuff running in the background. Your numbers are pretty consistent with my findings with the Q with a smaller battery. If you start listening to more music/podcasts on that phone, you wouldn't even make it to 5 pm. When I had a Q with the larger battery, I got to the point where it really wasn't possible to listen to significant amounts of music on the phone and ended up with a separate music player with better battery life.

For reference, I listen to my iPhone much of the day, in addition to email and internet and usually have 50-75% or more depending on signal quality. This is with push enabled and a lot of network activity. For the moment I am happy without background apps, mainly because if they are going to do it, I want it to be done right. Background notifications will take care of a good portion of what needs to be done in the background. However, things like pandora and a few other apps would be nice to run in the background, but only if done properly.

Well you and I have had very different experiences...on my first-gen iPhone I couldn't go more than a day without charging. Even if it looked like it was at 50% by the time I went to bed, in the morning it would be at 20%. So for me, the Epix is doing more intensive stuff than the iPhone and getting the same battery life, which in my view is pretty damn good.

But I guess it all depends on your expectations and needs.

And if Apple would just allow real, true PIM with ALARMS ON TASKS I'd probably still be using the iPhone...but it came down to forcing myself to change my habits around or changing the phone. I couldn't change, so the phone got demoted to being an iPod touch-ish device, and I bought the Epix, which kindly bugs the hell out of me until I complete whatever reminder I had. For example, I set a reminder, "Pay credit card bill" on my pay date. The alarm goes off for that at 11am. I snooze it for an hour because I am tied up at work. It goes off at noon, I snooze it again. Finally the third time I find 5 minutes and take care of the payment. On the iPhone, it was up to me to find the information and keep checking on outstanding tasks. Nothing was coming to me and saying "don't forget, don't forget". If I knew to check an app every few hours, I wouldn't need the reminder at all!

 

[Stella]

The battery problems on the N95 have been largely resolved via firmware updates.

Other Nokia phones are fine with running background apps.. without running down the battery in 60 minutes.

The Mobile OSX is too immature at the moment to properly handle background apps - without encountering issues such as running down the batteries... its something that Apple will address in the future. This was the same for apple not allowing 3rd party applications on a so called 'smartphone'.

well, i believe at this point what you need to do is to buy yourself a nokia n95 like i did when it first came out. i was just like you and did all these things simultaneously. result? battery flat in 60 minutes. is this what you want? i don't think anyone wants such a solution, if you can call it a solution.

after all, two problems apple needs to address: a. limited processing power limits "backgroundability"; b. the battery technology.

apple is good at inventing something, but they're unfortunately not at the stage of solving potential noble-prize winning physics solution all their own. there're thousands and thousands of physicist and material scientists working in finding a better way to store electric energy.

i admit it's a dilemma, but i thought most of us iphone users are already using it in a highly battery draining way everyday. i absolutely think apart from blackberry users, iphone users are the ones who take out their mobile for the longest time in a day.

also, speaking of apps like pandora, it's another matter whether apple's carrier partners will agree on such extra network burden. and let's be honest, apple itself won't be a big fan. if everyone's listening to free stream music, how can it keep its itunes business growing?

 

[clevin]

The battery problems on the N95 have been largely resolved via firmware updates.

Other Nokia phones are fine with running background apps.. without running down the battery in 60 minutes.

The Mobile OSX is too immature at the moment to properly handle background apps - without encountering issues such as running down the batteries... its something that Apple will address in the future. This was the same for apple not allowing 3rd party applications on a so called 'smartphone'.

agreed, to blame apple's incompetent on outside issues, totally ignoring the facts that most other modern phones are doing it just fine, and even forgetting that a desktop level multi-tasking OS is around the corner.

Is just too soaked in apple RDF and losing the ability to make proper judgment. Its not good for anyone, individually, and collectively.

 

[metroid87706]

You will be using Apple's Push Notification Server to push messages down to your iPhone. Do you think it will come FREE at all? Apple need $$$$ to maintain these servers and these $$$$ have to come from somewhere, right? Most likely, we might need a mobileMe account to use this service? What do you think?

I wouldn't be surprised.

 

[blewyn]

GPS Tracking

KILLER App - GPS tracking - in background, with reduced battery draw, while I'm out hiking, then seamless sync to mapping software on the PC or mac....one less gadget I gotta carry.

 

[snoma01]

More Rumors of Limited Third-Party Background Apps Coming to the iPhone?

I am all for it.

Alllow it and let the individual users decide whether they want background apps to run or not, if battery consumption is they key reason by Apple.

 

[str1f3]

You will be using Apple's Push Notification Server to push messages down to your iPhone. Do you think it will come FREE at all? Apple need $$$$ to maintain these servers and these $$$$ have to come from somewhere, right? Most likely, we might need a mobileMe account to use this service? What do you think?

I doubt it. If that was the case they would circumvent it by using MobileMe push mail (some are already using this). I'm guessing that the developers will have to pay a monthly fee for it. That raises another issue if startup development costs for PNS apps.

I am all for it.

Alllow it and let the individual users decide whether they want background apps to run or not, if battery consumption is they key reason by Apple.

I agree to an extent. If battery life gets murdered by background apps,  will have to put up with customers who will complain incessantly. For now I would prefer two background apps of my choosing that aren't games.

 

[BongoBanger]

I think some people are missing a key point here: 'new' does not always mean 'better'. Mobile OS X and Android are still at an early point in their lifespans and simply do not have the development time that S60 and WinMo have had.

Bluntly, Apple have been lazy here.

 

[t0mat0]

I think some people are missing a key point here: 'new' does not always mean 'better'. Mobile OS X and Android are still at an early point in their lifespans and simply do not have the development time that S60 and WinMo have had.

Bluntly, Apple have been lazy here.

Didn't Loke Uei Tan, senior product manager on the Windows Mobile Team recently confess 6.5 was shoddy/feature-poor, because they simply did not have the development time and thus it was a rush job?

“The reason why we couldn’t complete the interface on Windows Mobile 6.5 is because of time”

Would it be fair to say Apple's gone from 0 to fairly decent, but poor at multi-tasking over a much shorter time than WinMo or S60 has had?


Microsoft:
We only spend what, x months to build 6.5 from the ground up ...But, in order to do that, we had to do some prioritization and we had to cut certain features. Eventually, we will make sure that the UI capabilities are carried out throughout the whole platform.

Apple:
We only spent what, x months to build OS X iPhone from the ground up ...But, in order to do that, we had to do some prioritization and we had to cut certain features. Eventually, we will make sure that the UI capabilities are carried out throughout the whole platform.


Microsoft:
We have a significant release coming this year...Not the full release we wanted to have this year but we have a significant release coming this year with WM6.5 We still don’t get some of the things that people want on the highest-end phones. Those will come on WM7 next year. There are opportunities for us to accelerate our execution in this area, and we’ve done a lot of work to really make sure we have a team that’s going to be able to accelerate.

Apple:
We have a significant release coming this year...We still don’t get some of the things that people want on the highest-end phones. Those will come next year. There are opportunities for us to accelerate our execution in this area, and we’ve done a lot of work to really make sure we have a team that’s going to be able to accelerate.

If multicore is by WWDC 2010, surely it'll be a case of "Multitasking? there's a core/external battery pack for that"

 

[str1f3]

I think some people are missing a key point here: 'new' does not always mean 'better'. Mobile OS X and Android are still at an early point in their lifespans and simply do not have the development time that S60 and WinMo have had.

Bluntly, Apple have been lazy here.

I respectfully disagree. The Symbian and WM platforms were essentially developed for 5 year old hardware. It wasn't even until the iPhone came out that everybody started to talk about specs for phones. The chips that will start to come out later this year from the likes of ARM and Nvidia are really the first results of the iPhone influence. Essentially since the iPhone introduction at Macworld, Apple has had to live off the same chip for the past three years with only deifference being processor speed.

I can't speak for Symbian from experience but I can with WM. While it may have multi-tasking, the OS at it's core is extremely buggy creating constant issues of stability. This is not even counting poorly written 3rd party apps (some malicious) and skinning the interface. It's the reason why Microsoft has taken forever to re-write the entire OS for WM7.

I've heard both positive and negative things about Symbian. Open Source gives it an advantage but it can also be crash prone. But I was just reading yesterday that Nokia was pushing another OS for certain phones as well while continuing with Symbian. It makes absolutely no sense. Symbian may be open but how will it last against Android? Open Source mobile developers are going more to Android. I wonder how long it Symbian is going to be around.

As it is there are six platforms. It is too many. With the ever emerging intergration of the phone, the desktop, the cloud, and the apps they use I wonder which platforms will be around in five years.

 

[brockm]

In modern OS's apps don't have to be sliced in to find out if they have to do something.

I'd say that the majority of the time, background apps are asleep, awaiting either user input, incoming data, a wakeup timer, or some other system-initiated event. In other words, they take up nothing but memory until a desired event occurs.

Obviously active apps, such as music players, are a different case. But even the iPhone has a background music player, active fetch/push email app, etc, and Apple hypocritically doesn't talk about how they use up battery.

This is very true. When Apple was talking about background apps killing off battery life on the iPhone and on competing phones, they were looking at instant messaging applications.

I believe Apple said they allowed the AOL Instant Messenger to run in the background to test it's impact on battery life.

The fact is, that plenty of background processes run on the iPhone. And it is not the act of running in the background alone that kills the battery for IM applications, it's the fact they have a TCP port open, which leads to near continuous use of the radio transmitter -- it is this that is killing the battery life.

Blackberrys have a bit of an advantage over the iPhone with the proprietary Blackberry Internet Service, which allows detached and idle ports, which are handled by the BIS gateway at the provider. So if you have Yahoo messenger running on a Blackberry, it does not need to constantly maintain the port connection... but rather the port connection is handled by a proxy in the BIS gateway, and information is forwarded back to the Blackberry on a push-like basis.

The iPhone on the other hand, manages a very real TCP/IP stack over the HSDPA network. Which is cool. But it means that an iPhone or other similar offerings like Android or the Pre must maintain port connections from the handset itself. This results in much higher RF activity, which really kills the battery.

RIM sort of anticipated this problem years ago with their BIS gateway technology, which significantly reduces the amount of RF traffic a background IM client on a BB will use (by about 90%+ actually).

This is why I could have both Yahoo! Messenger and GTalk open on my old CDMA blackberry 100% of the time, and only charge the battery every two days.

If I did the same on the iPhone, WinMobile, PalmOS, or Android.. the battery would be dead in two hours.

It has nothing to do with processing power being used. It's all about the RF traffic. And RIM has a proprietary solution between it's handsets and the providers to abate the problem. All the other platforms use in-the-clear networking--which people brag is superior and more of a true internet connection--which comes at the cost of battery life.

With something like the iPhone, the problem is... power usage is not directly proportional to the amount of data transferred; sending a byte of data after second is probably going to use as much RF power as receiving a constant stream of data, because of the TCP/IP management overhead... the transmitter needs to send/receive a lot of boilerplate network traffic.

As far as I know, the Blackberry platform is the only one which has a solution for this problem. But as I said... it's proprietary and requires that the mobile provider have a BIS gateway configured on their network, specifically for Blackberry users.

 

[str1f3]

This is very true. When Apple was talking about background apps killing off battery life on the iPhone and on competing phones, they were looking at instant messaging applications.

I believe Apple said they allowed the AOL Instant Messenger to run in the background to test it's impact on battery life.

The fact is, that plenty of background processes run on the iPhone. And it is not the act of running in the background alone that kills the battery for IM applications, it's the fact they have a TCP port open, which leads to near continuous use of the radio transmitter -- it is this that is killing the battery life.

Blackberrys have a bit of an advantage over the iPhone with the proprietary Blackberry Internet Service, which allows detached and idle ports, which are handled by the BIS gateway at the provider. So if you have Yahoo messenger running on a Blackberry, it does not need to constantly maintain the port connection... but rather the port connection is handled by a proxy in the BIS gateway, and information is forwarded back to the Blackberry on a push-like basis.

The iPhone on the other hand, manages a very real TCP/IP stack over the HSDPA network. Which is cool. But it means that an iPhone or other similar offerings like Android or the Pre must maintain port connections from the handset itself. This results in much higher RF activity, which really kills the battery.

RIM sort of anticipated this problem years ago with their BIS gateway technology, which significantly reduces the amount of RF traffic a background IM client on a BB will use (by about 90%+ actually).

This is why I could have both Yahoo! Messenger and GTalk open on my old CDMA blackberry 100% of the time, and only charge the battery every two days.

If I did the same on the iPhone, WinMobile, PalmOS, or Android.. the battery would be dead in two hours.

It has nothing to do with processing power being used. It's all about the RF traffic. And RIM has a proprietary solution between it's handsets and the providers to abate the problem. All the other platforms use in-the-clear networking--which people brag is superior and more of a true internet connection--which comes at the cost of battery life.

With something like the iPhone, the problem is... power usage is not directly proportional to the amount of data transferred; sending a byte of data after second is probably going to use as much RF power as receiving a constant stream of data, because of the TCP/IP management overhead... the transmitter needs to send/receive a lot of boilerplate network traffic.

As far as I know, the Blackberry platform is the only one which has a solution for this problem. But as I said... it's proprietary and requires that the mobile provider have a BIS gateway configured on their network, specifically for Blackberry users.

But isn't that the point of the PNS? To have a notification system instead of having these apps constantly running in the background using the radio?

I personally believe that these three modern OS's (Palm, Apple, Android) take up a significant amount of processing power and memory. I think it's part of the reason why the G1 suffers so much with battery life and multi-tasking. Palm may have an advantage with the Pre in that it's apps are really lightweight (HTML & Javascript) but limited in it's feature set. It still remains to be seen though. I think that the multi-core processors that are coming out which essentially use the same amount of power, coupled with more memory will alleviate those concerns.

Sidenote: Any news on the day when we will see those long-lasting silver/zinc batteries in laptops & phones? That would surely end the talk of battery life when that happens.

 

[brockm]

But isn't that the point of the PNS? To have a notification system instead of having these apps constantly running in the background using the radio?

I personally believe that these three modern OS's (Palm, Apple, Android) take up a significant amount of processing power and memory.

You personally believe? Heh.

The truth of the matter is that the single, largest drain on the battery in a phone is it's radio equipment. The case-and-point on this matter, is the relative battery life of say... the iPod Touch.. which has a much smaller battery than the iPhone, yet lasts significantly longer.

I had my iPhone 3G in airplane mode for like 3 days... and it only got down to like 25% power, playing various games and several hours of continuous usage.

You're correct in suggesting that's the EXACT point of the Apple Push Notification service... is to reduce the chattiness of background network apps. But what I'm saying is that Blackberry has a low-level solution that solves the problem in much the same way, but as part of it's networking stack. The BIS system doesn't require special notification servers [EDIT: yes it does, but they're deployed at every mobile carrier, already] as does Apple's. But it does require that mobile providers have these BIS gateway servers installed on their network.

The push data mechanism for creating detached idle ports is a transparent mechanism in the Blackberry OS. Where-as for the iPhone it's a high-level mechanism which developers must specifically leverage.

RIM's solution to the problem is better than Apple's. But Apple couldn't imitate it if they wanted to. Even if they could overcome the patent issues, then they'd have to convince carriers to make the investment in the infrastructure, specifically for iPhone users--which I'm not sure they'd be willing to.

Carriers were willing to make the investment in a special infrastructure, because they knew the primary customers--big corporations--could be reamed up the *** in terms of monthly bills to recover the investment costs.

Mobile data costs have sufficiently depreciated that Apple will now be stuck trying to implement a bottom-up solution. That means better battery life, and tricky work-arounds like Push Notifications.

 

[sychee]

I doubt it. If that was the case they would circumvent it by using MobileMe push mail (some are already using this). I'm guessing that the developers will have to pay a monthly fee for it. That raises another issue if startup development costs for PNS apps.

Very unlikely. Think about this. The developer has written an app that requires push notification. He will need to pay Apple, probably a monthly fee. He then charge this cost to the buyers at a one-time charge (when he/she purchases the app). There will come a day in which the app has already been purchased by all intended buyers and no new buyers are coming in (or much lesser buyers). Now, the developer still has to pay a monthly subscription to support the existing users but there is no more/lesser buyers (no more/lesser income to pay the subscription). In this situation, the developer will eat into his previous income (after selling the app to the buyers) to pay future subscription fees.

As such, I believe, end-users who require Push Notification Service will have to subscribe to some 'secret' plan - most likely Apple's mobileMe. This plan will be announced during the keynote presentation.

 

[str1f3]

You personally believe? Heh.

The truth of the matter is that the single, largest drain on the battery in a phone is it's radio equipment. The case-and-point on this matter, is the relative battery life of say... the iPod Touch.. which has a much smaller battery than the iPhone, yet lasts significantly longer.

I had my iPhone 3G in airplane mode for like 3 days... and it only got down to like 25% power, playing various games and several hours of continuous usage.

You're correct in suggesting that's the EXACT point of the Apple Push Notification service... is to reduce the chattiness of background network apps. But what I'm saying is that Blackberry has a low-level solution that solves the problem in much the same way, but as part of it's networking stack. The BIS system doesn't require special notification servers [EDIT: yes it does, but they're deployed at every mobile carrier, already] as does Apple's. But it does require that mobile providers have these BIS gateway servers installed on their network.

The push data mechanism for creating detached idle ports is a transparent mechanism in the Blackberry OS. Where-as for the iPhone it's a high-level mechanism which developers must specifically leverage.

RIM's solution to the problem is better than Apple's. But Apple couldn't imitate it if they wanted to. Even if they could overcome the patent issues, then they'd have to convince carriers to make the investment in the infrastructure, specifically for iPhone users--which I'm not sure they'd be willing to.

Carriers were willing to make the investment in a special infrastructure, because they knew the primary customers--big corporations--could be reamed up the *** in terms of monthly bills to recover the investment costs.

Mobile data costs have sufficiently depreciated that Apple will now be stuck trying to implement a bottom-up solution. That means better battery life, and tricky work-arounds like Push Notifications.

It may be true but we don't know what the performance hit of the PNS is compared to the BB will be because it hasn't been released yet. As you have said while BB may be at an advantage in terms of some battery life, it is also at a disadvantage on what it can do.

I personally believe (there I said it again, so what) that when running backgrounder on both an iPhone and iPod touch 2G is that battery life, while draining a lot faster, is not the main problem. There seems to be a lot of usage of CPU and RAM. Pandora seems to shut down even when there only a couple of web pages open. Animations also seem to be slower. While other older platforms may be able to handle this on a similar spec'd harware, it seems as though OS X Touch uses more RAM and CPU. I would guarantee if Apple were to allow background apps, it would only be with the iPhone that is about to come out. Apple is rumored to be doubling the amount of RAM and using a new ARM processor (still single core) which would go a long way in helping performance and stability of background tasks until they introduce multi-core processors next year. It is then that we will see true multi-tasking on the iPhone.

 

[imcquill]

What types of apps would we actually want to run in the background?

-there is the IM type app, whereby push notifications will work fine.

-for apps like Pandora, perhaps they could be allowed to use the built-in streaming audio API, which could then run in the background. The iTunes store already does this if you listen to audio podcasts by streaming instead of downloading. It will keep streaming in the background if you quit the app. It might be good enough if an app like Pandora could use that.

-there are timer-type alerts, and as someone pointed out above, this could be rolled into an API as well, whereby the app would get notified under some condition.

-for location based notifications, I sent this idea in to Apple feedback a year ago or so, but the iPhone is roughly keeping track of your location anyways through changing wifi signals or cell towers. It might be possible to have an app receive a notification when the phone is within a (large) radius of some place.

I'm not even sure what other types of apps I'd want to run in the background. I think the idea of Apple writing lightweight processes that others can opt into should solve almost all of the problems with background processing.