wow. This makes pandora soo much cooler. It worked right off the bat. When you hold the button down it will say enabled and look like the app quit but it's really still running. Jailbreaking turns the iPhone into what Apple should have released in the first place.
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Run App Store Apps in Background (Jailbreak Required)
- Thread starter svtguy08
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Also that this does not work with Air Sharing.
EDIT: Works with WeatherBug but it always shows a red "0" badge indicating there are no active alerts for my area. Even if I disable background for that app the "0" icon stays. You are warned.
That's awesome! I can't wait to have a need for it! LOL It's really great to see Pandora keep playing when I get out!
I guess I'm going to have to ante up for BeeJiveIM now. I tried the IM+ and it does stay connected, but doesn't show any indication of incoming messages when you are out of the app.
Don't believe everything Apple tells you!!!!
Personally I believe that at least a good 90% of the reason for no background apps has to do with the quality of the SDK and OS. They simply were not ready of that sort of usage. Besides if Apple ever gets on the ball we will have a new iPhone soon that doubles performance.
The funny thing About iPhone is that frankly it should be an idea platform to run background apps. You don't have to be worried about the over head of Java like other phones. Plus the OS is fairly robust and I would hope evolves to be even more stable. It is a shame that Apple has taken the current course of action in slighting the use of background apps. Maybe they will see the light soon.
Dave
How an app running in background will affect the speed of the phone is dependent on many things. The complexity of the app, the quality of the multitasking in the OS and a number of other things.
Personally I believe that at least a good 90% of the reason for no background apps has to do with the quality of the SDK and OS. They simply were not ready of that sort of usage. Besides if Apple ever gets on the ball we will have a new iPhone soon that doubles performance.
The funny thing About iPhone is that frankly it should be an idea platform to run background apps. You don't have to be worried about the over head of Java like other phones. Plus the OS is fairly robust and I would hope evolves to be even more stable. It is a shame that Apple has taken the current course of action in slighting the use of background apps. Maybe they will see the light soon.
Dave
They already do, for the OS and their own apps (iPod music player, cell phone radio monitor, mail push/pull, alarm timers, etc.). So a small, limited memory size and CPU cycles background process sandbox might work just fine (similar to PalmOS Cobalt). The problem would be how to develop a clean and secure API to get apps to share this limited resource.
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This is the first time I've ever seriously considered jailbreaking. That's pretty cool, I have to admit. I'm gonna have to think about it but I don't know. That's pretty tempting. 
Not only can I have jailbroken apps and official apps, I can have what I choose running in he background while I work. This is especially great for the IM clients and streaming radio. I can't bring myself to do it though. My little 8gb Edge phone is so pure and innocent!
Not only can I have jailbroken apps and official apps, I can have what I choose running in he background while I work. This is especially great for the IM clients and streaming radio. I can't bring myself to do it though. My little 8gb Edge phone is so pure and innocent!This is the first time I've ever seriously considered jailbreaking. That's pretty cool, I have to admit. I'm gonna have to think about it but I don't know. That's pretty tempting.
I never wanted to do it either. I just did. It's worth it.
I can record videos, hide the stock and YouTube apps (and others if I wanted to) and run apps in the background. For free.
Maybe if it actually showed up for me in the app store I wouldn't ask such a dumb question...
Thanks.
I'm happy with the iPhone OS's normal "best of both worlds" flavor of multitasking--especially when the universal Push service is ready.
The Home button could be considered Quit, or it could be considered like tabbing through multiple apps.... to the user, it doesn't matter: you can still get from app to app quickly, and each individual app has the RAM it needs. Each app can (if so designed) resume just where it had been, and there's no need to manually save data before you hit Home. So although the process may exit, the behavior is more like a desktop running multiple apps at once. But without the resource overhead.
But yes, it's still cool to have hacks out there to make things work in other ways. I'm all for that kind of creativity.
The Home button could be considered Quit, or it could be considered like tabbing through multiple apps.... to the user, it doesn't matter: you can still get from app to app quickly, and each individual app has the RAM it needs. Each app can (if so designed) resume just where it had been, and there's no need to manually save data before you hit Home. So although the process may exit, the behavior is more like a desktop running multiple apps at once. But without the resource overhead.
But yes, it's still cool to have hacks out there to make things work in other ways. I'm all for that kind of creativity.
It works great. Why oh why does apple push us to modify our devices because they wont give us what we want. They are such schmucks. Jailbreak all the way. I mean Cycorder works great. Why can't apple just do it legitimately? Thank you so much to all hackers who put in their time for the rest of us. My iphone is much more enjoyable thanks to yall.
Can someone tell me how to default my GPS program to automatically run? The program is called "GPS Tracker", and it's from iTunes.
I read on the "How To" portion of Backgrounder that you have to make a preference file. Can someone do that for me, or tell me how I do it?
Can someone create the file for me??
I read on the "How To" portion of Backgrounder that you have to make a preference file. Can someone do that for me, or tell me how I do it?
Can someone create the file for me??
This is the greatest news I have heard in awhile. I have tried the background and it works great with my iPhone 3G. I tried AOL Radio and works in the background and no slow down either. Then, I thought I try it with Netshare using background and to my expectation, that works well also. I can finally do something else on my iPhone while surfing at the same time. Also I did another experiment with the Netshare. I was able to call my girlfriend on the phone while using the Netshare and surf at the same time and again Netshare works as expected....thank you, thank you, thank you. Jailbreaking the iPhone couldn't be any better.
You're missing the point of this. Sure, for some apps like an ebook reader, or a solitaire game, simply saving and restoring state is all you need, since there's no benefit to actually letting it keep running in the background.
However some apps really would benefit from being able to run in the background. Even Apple agrees; for example the iPod app runs in the background, which is why you can listen to music while running other programs. Similarly the Apple Clock program, which is why alarms and timers can still go off even when you're using some other program. However Apple hasn't provided any approved way for third party apps to do the same thing, and this hack provides that way. So now for example internet radio programs like Pandora or last.fm can be used to listen to music while using another program, just like with the iPod app.
Someone should really do some testing and release how battery life is with certain apps running in the background.
Standby with no apps running
IM app running
pedometer running
etc
Also of interest, which apps are resource hogs that you should not use in the background. IE It will slow your browsing down for instance.
Thanks in advance =)
Standby with no apps running
IM app running
pedometer running
etc
Also of interest, which apps are resource hogs that you should not use in the background. IE It will slow your browsing down for instance.
Thanks in advance =)
It's hard to see why people don't jailbreak as it's pretty easy now and doesn't harm anything. If you update your firmware all it does is remove the jailbreak, so no biggie there either.
Sure this alone might not be worth it, but there's lots of great jailbroken apps, for example:
- WinterBoard
- MxTube (download youtube videos)
- VLC (play any type of movie without having to convert them for the iPod/iPhone)
- Emulators... GBA, Gameboy, MAME, SNES, PSX
- Flashlight (can adjust the brightness of your screen + has a strobe mode... app store can't do this)
- BossPrefs (lots of extra preferences for you)
- iCommander (file manager)
- PDF viewers
- Power tool (lets you reset, respring or turn off your iPhone if things get slow or buggy this generally fixes it)
- Categories (lets you make folders for apps e.g. games, networking, system...etc when you get heaps of apps)
So it's pretty narrow to say that it's not worth it as there's now absolutely no risks, I haven't noticed any slow-downs that can't be fixed by a reset and as demonstrated above, you get a lot more power over what apps you can install.