Multitasking---wish there was a way to disable

[elistan]

I've had cache dumps since the original iPhone. This isn't something new. While anything can be improved, to call the current iteration of MT bad is just plain wrong. I've read plenty of posts and not one person can give me a valid reason why it has an issue. 99% of the complaints I have read here all come from a lack of understanding or willingness to adjust to a new philosophy.

What about apps that perform certain updates only upon first loading? If you want a refresh, you have to go through a somewhat annoying process to remove the app's saved state in order to launch it anew.

It can be accomplished with a programming change - apps are notified when they're suspended, and again when they come out of suspension. Or a dev can put in a button to manually refresh. But not every dev (and not even Apple sometimes, according to some but I haven't tested that myself) has updated their app appropriately.

 

[dialed1]

Just "trust" it like the keyboard

 

[owmygulay]

On the same note, someone needs to introduce an app or add-on that disables Spotlight. I absolutely hate when that screen comes up. Never used it and never will.

I hate spotlight too. Haven't used it once.

 

[TheAppleGeek]

Anyone else find it amusing that this forum spent the last 6 months complaining about lack of multitasking and now its here and people want to turn it off?

It really is amusing. It's quite annoying at the same time, though.

 

[OneHit89]

I have absolutely no problem with multitasking, and would never disable it, but apple could maybe give us an option to when closing an app, holding the home button for a second instead of tapping it would keep the app from going into the multitasking bar (also allow us to flip holding/none holding in settings?), just an idea.

 

[baller1308]

They need a close all button.

 

[Eso]

Some apps don't necessarily need to load every time you open them - they just need to start from the same screen every time and load content if applicable.

I've always held that the Settings app should start from the main menu because you often open it for a different reason. With iOS 4, Settings uses fast app switching and will open to the same point you left it. However, I have noticed that if will open from the main menu after a certain amount of time (10 minutes?) even if you don't use the phone for anything else.

I think Apple has the perfect solution here. The app still benefits from fast app switching if you switch in and out of the app relatively quickly. If you haven't opened it for a few minutes, it will start from the main menu.

This would be perfect for news apps. If you are just switching out of an article to search something in Safari, it'll keep your place for a few minutes. But, if you are opening in the first thing in the morning, it will open to the main page and load all the articles.

 

[macduke]

I have absolutely no problem with multitasking, and would never disable it, but apple could maybe give us an option to when closing an app, holding the home button for a second instead of tapping it would keep the app from going into the multitasking bar (also allow us to flip holding/none holding in settings?), just an idea.

That's how multitasking works on my JB iPad. Hold it down to disable / enable it. Only problem is this is how voice command is activated on iPhones. They would have to be careful how they implemented it.

Overall though, this thread makes me LOL. We finally get multitasking and now this. Haha. Gotta love it.

My only beef is I hate scrolling through several "docks" or whatever at the bottom to get back to an app I used several apps ago. Is there a better way?

 

[Eso]

My only beef is I hate scrolling through several "docks" or whatever at the bottom to get back to an app I used several apps ago. Is there a better way?

The home screens? If it's that many apps back, you probably haven't used it in awhile.

I think that apps should automatically be cleared from the multitasking bar if they have been idle for a certain period of time (not necessarily cleared from memory). It would keep it a bit more tidy.

 

[insidmal]

Read my posts? I stated very clearly that, in most cases, it's Apple's apps that interact with multi-tasking in a sub-par manner. So by complaining to Apple about the poorly designed multi-tasking, I am in fact complaining to the developer. They're one in the same.

You're not understanding the full rammifications of this issue. Even when an app is just suspended in memory, the fact that it's using memory often shoves something else out of memory. Like Safari.

Instead of opening Safari and seeing the page I last had open still in front of me, Safari has to re-download the whole page because some other more-recently minimized app, probably a game, forced Safari to give up its RAM. That means using my 3G connection, and that eats up a lot of battery (relatively speaking). And now Safari's RAM needs will probably push that game out of RAM, so it's not going to quick launch anyway. Net effect is that nothing quick launches, and I waste battery and bandwidth re-downloading stuff I already had downloaded. All because I couldn't just close the game I knew I was done playing.

It's using that ram weather it saves state or not

 

[insidmal]

I think the real key here is not not allow multitasking on programs that are not yet designed for multitasking. This is where confusion and doubt comes in.

I have yet to find something on my iphone 4 (new to iphones) that can actually use it. All the games and programs so far have no benefit to the multitasking. If Im playing a game, it will switch applications (say a text comes in) but when I go back to it using the double tap, the program starts over from the beginning.

If the phone only allowed programs that had the true multitasking ability to be used for the multitasking, I think less people would dislike or be confused by it.

that's actually how it works. they stated that only a few apps will be actually using multi tasking, most of that bar is 'recently used' - they actually call it recently used apps, not your multi tasking task bar or anything like that

 

[scottuf]

I would simply like the ability to close an app vs. minimizing an app at the time that I'm leaving the app. Ideally, pressing the Home button would close the app I'm in, like it always did before. But I could double-tap Home to switch to another "running" app (or just click the home screen area), to leave my app without shutting it down. I cannot stand that the only way to truly close an app now involves so many clicks. It's tedious having to manage my phone like a poorly designed computer.

And to people saying I should contact the app makers.. most of the apps I want to close, not minimize, are Apple apps.. the ones built-in to my phone. I hate that the stock-ticker is slower to refresh now compared to when it always rerfeshed the instant it launched. I hate that settings don't start out at the root level every time I open them now, making it take more steps to navigate to where I wanted. I hate that the email app runs in the background, checking for messages, wasting my battery, cpu, and bandwidth, unless I manually kill it. I hate that the texting app restores exactly where I was, with the stupid keyboard still blocking my entire screen; because there is no button to collapse the keyboard, I used to exit/re-enter the app to hide it, but that workflow is broken now.

I don't think that people who wanted multi-tasking are whining now that it's here. Not just because it's here. We're whining because of how poorly it was implemented. Seriously, Microsoft did a better job in regards to multi-tasking and window-management with Windows 3.11 over 15 years ago. This is the worst UI design I've seen from Apple. Ever. It's pitiful.

A) At the time of wanting to leave an app, I should be able to easily close it or minimize it using a similar number of keystrokes. I should not have to (1) tap Home to minimize, (2) double-tap Home to bring up my task bar, (3) scroll to its icon, (4) hold down the icon to make it wiggle, (5) tap its X to close it for real, and (6) tap out to leave the task bar.

B) Apps which don't really run in the background or support any kind of quick re-launch should not stay in my task bar, even if I "minimize" them. An icon's presence in the taskbar should be indicative that it's still running, or cached, or otherwise in a state which is meaningfully different than "not running." An app with no multi-tasking support should never be in the taskbar. Period. Duh.

C) I would like a per-icon indicator on the taskbar which tells me how much of my resources a "minimized" app is using so that I know when it continues to use my bandwidth, cpu, ram, or battery in the background. I have no obvious way of identifying which apps are engineered well, and to make sure a rogue isn't churning my resources when I'm not using it, I end up closing all my apps all the time just to be safe. That defeats the entire point of multi-tasking.

my only real complaints about the way apple implemented multitasking. But as far as how background works is fine for me (so far).

 

[gazzrenn]

I would simply like the ability to close an app vs. minimizing an app at the time that I'm leaving the app. Ideally, pressing the Home button would close the app I'm in, like it always did before. But I could double-tap Home to switch to another "running" app (or just click the home screen area), to leave my app without shutting it down. I cannot stand that the only way to truly close an app now involves so many clicks. It's tedious having to manage my phone like a poorly designed computer.

And to people saying I should contact the app makers.. most of the apps I want to close, not minimize, are Apple apps.. the ones built-in to my phone. I hate that the stock-ticker is slower to refresh now compared to when it always rerfeshed the instant it launched. I hate that settings don't start out at the root level every time I open them now, making it take more steps to navigate to where I wanted. I hate that the email app runs in the background, checking for messages, wasting my battery, cpu, and bandwidth, unless I manually kill it. I hate that the texting app restores exactly where I was, with the stupid keyboard still blocking my entire screen; because there is no button to collapse the keyboard, I used to exit/re-enter the app to hide it, but that workflow is broken now.

I don't think that people who wanted multi-tasking are whining now that it's here. Not just because it's here. We're whining because of how poorly it was implemented. Seriously, Microsoft did a better job in regards to multi-tasking and window-management with Windows 3.11 over 15 years ago. This is the worst UI design I've seen from Apple. Ever. It's pitiful.

A) At the time of wanting to leave an app, I should be able to easily close it or minimize it using a similar number of keystrokes. I should not have to (1) tap Home to minimize, (2) double-tap Home to bring up my task bar, (3) scroll to its icon, (4) hold down the icon to make it wiggle, (5) tap its X to close it for real, and (6) tap out to leave the task bar.

B) Apps which don't really run in the background or support any kind of quick re-launch should not stay in my task bar, even if I "minimize" them. An icon's presence in the taskbar should be indicative that it's still running, or cached, or otherwise in a state which is meaningfully different than "not running." An app with no multi-tasking support should never be in the taskbar. Period. Duh.

C) I would like a per-icon indicator on the taskbar which tells me how much of my resources a "minimized" app is using so that I know when it continues to use my bandwidth, cpu, ram, or battery in the background. I have no obvious way of identifying which apps are engineered well, and to make sure a rogue isn't churning my resources when I'm not using it, I end up closing all my apps all the time just to be safe. That defeats the entire point of multi-tasking.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/08/jobs-if-you-see-a-stylus-or-a-task-manager-they-blew-it/

 

[ntrigue]

They need a close all button.

+1000

 

[COSWORTH]

I would love to see a toggle just like the push notifications on/off

 

[paulisme]

Anyone else find it amusing that this forum spent the last 6 months complaining about lack of multitasking and now its here and people want to turn it off?

Not really. It's probably different people saying these two things.

 

[redscull]

It's using that ram weather it saves state or not

I was trying to keep my example from being overly complex. But yes, you're right. When considering minimizing safari to launch one other app, that app is going to need ram, and that might push safari out of suspension. A genuine example of my scenario would require a couple apps in addition to safari. Neither alone would push safari out, but if I ever run one and then the other without fully closing the first before opening the second, the combined ram usage would be enough to bump safari out. And I can avoid that now by diligently closing apps, but it's annoying. It's a lot of clicks. I'd be so much nicer if I could just close an app when I was done with it. Or, if I could just specify that I want safari to always be the last to be purged...