Apps that can run in background?

[Sceneshifter]

Hey, before I begin: I only own my ipod touch for about two days now and never followed any news/rumors related to this device.

So I understand you can not run apps in the background due to some rules etc... but I keep finding these reviews of apps that state they DO run in the background. I can not find them in the app store, perhaps they're old and this was once possible but not anymore? Or perhaps these apps are only for jailbroken touches and phones?

Would be great if it was possible to be calling on skype (or any better voip app you might suggest) while browsing my mail/internet. However, clearly Skype closes itself of as soon as you ... close skype to go to browse

I read somewhere that there is an app that would at the very least put you as 'idle' when you switch apps (which is already a little better than completely cutting you off...), but again is this a legit app or does it no longer exist or what ? I think that it's Beejive, but I'm not sure

Last, is there any news of apple adding support for running apps in the background in an upcoming software update I am not aware of yet? I'm only asking as I suppose you've all seen what the Pre is doing, and that's pretty slick!

Thanks

 

[kas23]

You can only run 3rd party Apps in the background on jailbroken phones. No exceptions.

As for Apple allowing background running apps in the future, who knows? But, it doesn't look like it right now.

 

[fishkorp]

Other than apps from Apple, they cannot run in the background without jailbreaking. Many apps keep your status saved server-side, like BeejiveIM and other IM clients. You may see more applications doing this once 3.0 is released and push notifications are implemented.

 

[uberamd]

Hey, before I begin: I only own my ipod touch for about two days now and never followed any news/rumors related to this device.

So I understand you can not run apps in the background due to some rules etc... but I keep finding these reviews of apps that state they DO run in the background. I can not find them in the app store, perhaps they're old and this was once possible but not anymore? Or perhaps these apps are only for jailbroken touches and phones?

Would be great if it was possible to be calling on skype (or any better voip app you might suggest) while browsing my mail/internet. However, clearly Skype closes itself of as soon as you ... close skype to go to browse

I read somewhere that there is an app that would at the very least put you as 'idle' when you switch apps (which is already a little better than completely cutting you off...), but again is this a legit app or does it no longer exist or what ? I think that it's Beejive, but I'm not sure

Last, is there any news of apple adding support for running apps in the background in an upcoming software update I am not aware of yet? I'm only asking as I suppose you've all seen what the Pre is doing, and that's pretty slick!

Thanks

You can run apps in the background on jailbroken devices. Apple is not adding the ability, but instead allowing for push notifications so if you close your AIM client for example, you can still get messages and you will be alerted by a badge number over the app icon.

I jailbroke my devices for backgrounding, and it just killed my battery since when you sleep the device off the iPod cuts out WiFi so you then need an app to make WiFi stay active, which drains the battery worse.

 

[Sceneshifter]

Other than apps from Apple, they cannot run in the background without jailbreaking. Many apps keep your status saved server-side, like BeejiveIM and other IM clients. You may see more applications doing this once 3.0 is released and push notifications are implemented.

Any free clients that allow this storing on a webserver thing?

Thanks for the quick replies so far everybody!

 

[Mr. Giver '94]

I think it's interesting that the Apple standard apps run in the background. For example, start the stop watch in the clock and it will keep going no matter what until you stop it.

 

[wooo]

I think it's interesting that the Apple standard apps run in the background. For example, start the stop watch in the clock and it will keep going no matter what until you stop it.

ooTunes Radio can keep playing radio streams in the background when used with the ooTunes Server. this takes advantage of the fact that safari keeps running in the background. My personal belief is that apple will allow "background apps" the day they have a device that they can upsell everyone to. Add a bit more CPU power and memory and allow that and a ton of people will ditch their old 3G iPhone to buy the new one.

The notifications are fine for most "background" purposes but don't address at all important things like music playback (which based on the apps in the top 20 paid and free apps in the music section are a big market).

My $.02 (and shameless plug). Jailbreaking is probably the best way as most of the others mentioned (and I've had reports that my own app works pretty well with "backgrounder".)

 

[JonHimself]

..The notifications are fine for most "background" purposes but don't address at all important things like music playback (which based on the apps in the top 20 paid and free apps in the music section are a big market)...

To be honest, as far as I know, the background apps, for me, are only useful for the music apps. I'm perfectly ok with push for things like IM, twitter, or whatever else but things like imeem, last.fm, satellite app (soonish), would be great in the background.

 

[SFC Archer]

To be honest, as far as I know, the background apps, for me, are only useful for the music apps. I'm perfectly ok with push for things like IM, twitter, or whatever else but things like imeem, last.fm, satellite app (soonish), would be great in the background.

ooTunes radio does all of that and runs in the background through Safari while you use your other apps. This is what wooo was trying to tell you above. I use this app daily and am able to use all of my apps on the phone without shutting down ooTunes.

 

[mrbass]

http://somafm.com/ works in Mobile Safari too. Has 14 streaming music stations and you can play your games while listening to it in the background.

 

[JonHimself]

ooTunes radio does all of that and runs in the background through Safari while you use your other apps. This is what wooo was trying to tell you above. I use this app daily and am able to use all of my apps on the phone without shutting down ooTunes.

Can ootunes play Sirius? (Actual question, I don't mean "yeah well.. i bet it can't play sirius!") I remember looking at ootunes because it was like simplify media but also did video (which is what I want). Right now I'm using iPhone remote on my laptop to be able to access my video files but ootunes would be great. I'm holding off until I see if there will be background apps in 3.0 before doing anything (side note: I can really see Apple saying that the new iphone supports background apps because it has better hardware, but we've included an option to allow you to run 2 apps (just a random guess) at a time in the background on the previous versions of the iphone if you wan to though we dont recommend it)

 

[admanimal]

For example, start the stop watch in the clock and it will keep going no matter what until you stop it.

This actually doesn't require background processing at all. The stopwatch can just save the exact time of day that it was started on, and then if you quit the app and start it again it still can figure out how much time should be on the stopwatch based on the difference between the current time of day and the time of day that the stopwatch was started.

 

[Ding.Dong]

This actually doesn't require background processing at all. The stopwatch can just save the exact time of day that it was started on, and then if you quit the app and start it again it still can figure out how much time should be on the stopwatch based on the difference between the current time of day and the time of day that the stopwatch was started.

True, but the timer and alarm will still go off at the correct time, even if it's not in the foreground.