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A simple question about multitasking...

S

stevearm

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Nov 15, 2007
992
91
There's something I don't really understand.

So, say over the course of the day, I've opened about 30 different apps... would double clicking the home button and therefore activating multitastking display all 30 at the bottom of the screen, therefore meaning all of them are running?

Isn't that a giant waste of resources? I know you can close each individual app, one by one by holding it down, and clicking the X, but assuming you don't... what if over the course of a week, I've opened 200 apps, would they ALL be running??

Sorry but am I missing something?
 
stevearm said:
There's something I don't really understand.

So, say over the course of the day, I've opened about 30 different apps... would double clicking the home button and therefore activating multitastking display all 30 at the bottom of the screen, therefore meaning all of them are running?

Isn't that a giant waste of resources? I know you can close each individual app, one by one by holding it down, and clicking the X, but assuming you don't... what if over the course of a week, I've opened 200 apps, would they ALL be running??

Sorry but am I missing something?
Click to expand...
Unless the software specifies so, like playing music/getting directions via system calls, apps in the list are frozen. They are not running. In this case, all it amounts to is a recently used Apps list.

As quoted in MacStories, from Frederico Viticci,

The current beta has its quirks, though: you can’t choose whether you want to simply quit an application or send it to the background, as the OS simply backgrounds every app every time you press the home button to quit. So yeah, it’s like multitasking by default. As I mentioned here, you have to hold an icon and press an additional button on screen to actually quit an app. Obviously, this is going to change, but it’s curious nonetheless that Apple decided to ship a first beta with this “problem”. Perhaps they just wanted some free feedback.
Click to expand...
 
It's not going to change in the final. It's by design. It's in the support docs that "your apps won't be terminated when the user clicks the home button". I think the reason Apple included the "minus" method is for when apps freak out or lock up. The user has a way of killing the app without having to reboot. It's a last resort but isn't needed in regular operation.
 
I wonder why Apple doesn't just put the apps that are being multi-tasked there. Forget about saving the state of the application for "faster boot". No one really complains about closing an app then going back as being too slow (especially since a lot of other phones are a lot slower).

This method is good for frozen applications, though. For some reason, holding power button,then holding home never really quit the app for me (well, it did, but it only like half quit as sometimes the lock was still there upon return).
 
From what I understand, you can only have 8 at a time. As you add more, the last used will be bumped off.
 
kayloh20 said:
I wonder why Apple doesn't just put the apps that are being multi-tasked there. Forget about saving the state of the application for "faster boot". No one really complains about closing an app then going back as being too slow (especially since a lot of other phones are a lot slower).
Click to expand...

IMO there are two big advantages to what Apple has done.

First, all apps will be truly saving state EXACTLY as they were. In my experience a very high percentage of apps do a horrible job of saving state. Many do nothing in that regard. Switching back and forth and having to get back to your state is a huge pain. This should completely handle that and make the iphone experience much more enjoyable.

Second, assuming the running apps list is always in order of last used, this will make it so much quicker to find your apps if you need to go back and forth between two or three of them multiple times.

Another, though lesser advantage is that it eliminates the problem of losing data when a phone call comes in during an edit in another app (you haven't saved the edit yet, but you're automatically switched to the phone), as well as avoiding the loss of unsaved edits when you choose to respond immediately to an alert. Further, some apps (like Navigon, other GPS apps, and a variety of others) really do take a long time to load initially, and this could be a noticeable improvement in speed of switching.


It all sounds excellent to me.

Pete
 
macrlz9 said:
From what I understand, you can only have 8 at a time. As you add more, the last used will be bumped off.
Click to expand...

Not true. There's no mention of any limit in any of the docs. There's a limit to the amount of memory in the devices so in low memory situations the least most recent apps get terminated. My app switcher has listed 60 or so app at once. Obvious these apps weren't actually running but the switcher had no problem listing that many apps which it wouldn't do if it the whole process was limited in some way.
 
Kahnyl said:
Not true. There's no mention of any limit in any of the docs. There's a limit to the amount of memory in the devices so in low memory situations the least most recent apps get terminated. My app switcher has listed 60 or so app at once. Obvious these apps weren't actually running but the switcher had no problem listing that many apps which it wouldn't do if it the whole process was limited in some way.
Click to expand...

Oh Ok
 
macrlz9 said:
From what I understand, you can only have 8 at a time. As you add more, the last used will be bumped off.
Click to expand...

I would assume that apps using background services would not be bumped off by apps that are not running in the background.

Imagine that while you're listening to pandora, you use 10 other apps. I would certainly hope and expect that pandora would continue to run.

No?

Pete
 
PeteLP said:
I would assume that apps using background services would not be bumped off by apps that are not running in the background.

Imagine that while you're listening to pandora, you use 10 other apps. I would certainly hope and expect that pandora would continue to run.

No?

Pete
Click to expand...

There is no limit to apps in the multitasking list. They may, or not, be using background services.
 
PBF said:
I can see how the multitasking dock can easily become home screen II with 2,160 apps in it. LOL

Apple, how about a second multitasking dock to manage the first multitasking dock? LOL
Click to expand...

When you double click home the special dock comes up with the most recently used apps first (ie, sorted by recency)

It's basically a history

anything you've used recently will be right there

anything you haven't used in a while will be found more conveniently by using your standard icon pages and folders

it sounds totally convenient
 
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