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multi-task blah

Multi-tasking I really dont see the point on the iphone....just seems like an endless need to B*tch about apple :rolleyes:
 
Multi-tasking I really dont see the point on the iphone....just seems like an endless need to B*tch about apple :rolleyes:

To be honest, on the iPhone it doesn't make a lot of sense. But with the much larger screen real estate on the iPad, it should be possible to have say a twitter client opened while browsing the web. Or a chat app. Remember both apps won't need to fill the whole screen anyway.
 
I don't get the obsession with multitasking?

I have an iphone and the existing apps that multitask are fine. I have never encountered a situation where I wished an additional app was "running."
The only example people yell about is Pandora, which I don't use. Heck my iphone is jailbroken and I can background, and I never use it the feature. Oh wait, one time I was using skype and I needed to background it, but it wasn't a big deal if it didn't work as compared the the heart attacks folks seem to have about running "OOOH PANDORA"

Can someone provide some real productivity gains for additional multitasking other than what is already that way on the iphone platform (phone, sms, ipod, etc)? One I can think of is VOIP apps so you can receive calls (i.e. skype), but again I have a PHONE so it's not such a huge loss.

What if you're in the middle of a game and get a text or phone call? I've left many games unfinished because I needed to answer a text message. I lose my progress and go back to the beginning.
 
i just want to be able to have at least 2 background apps. like they have on the blackberrys. just let us have at least the choice of any 2. or something like that. i think background app is diff then multitasking
 
Launch date is still a ways away. It's certain iPhone OS 4.0 preview is around the corner. Apple wanted to wet everybody's mouth today and get it out there so they won't have to worry about secrecy anymore. I assume they knew if multitasking was included today everybody would be bugging about when the feature is coming to the iPhone or why is it not on the iPhone if they have a similar OS. The first iPhone media event was similar to this, Steve showed off a select few big features and many other were discovered in later months up til it's summer release date. Don't assume til iPad is for sale.
 
Multitasking even on a phone screen is nice, if it's well done as in the Palm Pre.

Multitasking on a large screen like the iPad has, should be totally expected.

A lot of us figured we could have multiple iPhone apps open at once on such a screen. For example, a weather app in one corner, Twitter in another, a game in another, and SlingTV in another.

I wonder if those who say they can't think of a reason for multitasking actually work that way on their laptop computers. Do they look up a reference in a web browser, copy it, then shut down the browser and open a document editor and paste the reference and write a little bit. Then shut down the editor and reopen the browser again. Repeat ad nauseum until you lose track of what you're doing.

Single-tasking is a throwback to thirty years ago.
 
I agree, multitasking should be a must on something like the ipad.
It should have plenty of battery and resources to handle it.
I know with some netbooks you can only run up to 3 things at once or something similar though.
 
Well we don't know for sure. The iPad only runs OS 3.2, there's always the possibility that Apple would make a major announcement like multi-tasking with 4.0.
 
I think Apple needs to be careful. I don’t want the iPhone OS to turn into Windows Mobile where you had to open the task manager to shut down applications (does WM still do this?), but I would like to run stuff like Pandora while I do other things.

Also, it would be nice to have iChat on the phone.

Multitasking is one of those things (like copy and paste and applications) that needs to be implemented intuitively.

I have to think they’re working on it. I’m ready for the March SDK event.
 
How would this idea be for multitasking:

Instead of holding down on an App icon for a second or two, to make them start shaking, (the steps taken to delete apps) why not just make apps deletable only by going into the settings app, under a delete option.

That frees up the "hold an App icon for a couple of seconds" feature to be left open to multitasking. All of your currently running background apps could have like a blue aura around them or something to indicate they are running in the background. You could then hold down on an app for a second, begin the wiggling/shaking process, and tap on any apps to activate or dis-activate background processes.
 
What if you're in the middle of a game and get a text or phone call? I've left many games unfinished because I needed to answer a text message. I lose my progress and go back to the beginning.

I don't know about yours but my games save the progress when closed.

I am jailbroken and installed Backgrounder+Proswitcher which I never found any real use for. Unistalled after 1 week.
 
Backgrounder FTW!

Im always in Twitter / Facebook / Poker, & recieve texts, Just enable Backgrounder & reply to the text, go back into whatever you were doing!

Its a godsend for me.
 
i just want to be able to have at least 2 background apps. like they have on the blackberrys. just let us have at least the choice of any 2. or something like that. i think background app is diff then multitasking

Honestly I would rather have more battery time than multitasking, but this suggestion makes sense.
 
I don't know about yours but my games save the progress when closed.

Unfortunately, some don't. My small daughter's favorite bowling game doesn't, and it's not fun when if a call comes in and she's in the ninth frame!

One thing I do with multitasking on other phones, is to leave SlingTV playing in the background during a commerical. I'll go read email and other things until I hear the commercial end, then I can instantly switch back to the TV.

Honestly I would rather have more battery time than multitasking, but this suggestion makes sense.

Except for those playing sound or keeping track of our GPS position, most apps don't use any processor when they're waiting in the background. They're simply taking up app memory.

More app memory is getting very common. Noted the articles the other day when someone opened 50 apps on the new Palm Pre Plus just for fun.

What uses more battery (and wears down the flash memory) is having to save and restore state each time we have to swap apps. That's barbaric behavior in computing terms.
 
Well we don't know for sure. The iPad only runs OS 3.2, there's always the possibility that Apple would make a major announcement like multi-tasking with 4.0.

Would Apple really annouce a tablet now with a crippled OS that they knew everyone would criticise heavily if they were already planning to fix it three months later? Why not just delay the anoucement a month and do without the bad press?

I am really quite worried this means the iPhone development team have gone back to spending a year dawdling and doing very little except changing resolution support for 3.2, and have basically got virtually nothing lined up to address the many, many improvements the the iPhone OS still needs for 4.0.

Phazer
 
Would Apple really annouce a tablet now with a crippled OS that they knew everyone would criticise heavily if they were already planning to fix it three months later? Why not just delay the anoucement a month and do without the bad press?

To me, it feels like Jobs is stuck in a simplistic paradigm rut.

Twenty-six years ago, the Mac was successful with a grid of app icons and single tasking. Decades later, the iPhone is successful because of the same kind of simplicity. Now the iPad looks almost naked in its main screen bareness. But he's doggedly sticking with the icon grid because it's worked before.

He also seems to dislike the idea of user customization, which would let people make their iPhone look like other phones, and validate the more complicated but also more useful homescreens they all have.

In other words, I think Jobs is forcing his engineers to keep things simple. That's great for newcomers and yet holds back those who've become more experienced smartphone users. And some of his top people have left to be able to implement great ideas like the Pre's card paradigm.

I hope I'm way off base, and he's going to let something more complicated be an option.
 
Jobs says that the iPad is his most important device he's worked on(or words to that effect).
In my opinion, the iPhone holds that title, he's merely trying to justify it(iPad) to us and himself, by talking like that.
I believe that's why the OS is called the iPhone OS, rather than OSX Mobile, or something. :D
iPhone 4.0 and 4th gen iPhone will (I pray) deliver the majority of the goods we seek.

Awesome straw clutching? You betcha!
 
I think we will see multitasking when they release the next iPhone and the new software that accompanies it.

AnDy
 
I think Apple needs to be careful. I don’t want the iPhone OS to turn into Windows Mobile where you had to open the task manager to shut down applications (does WM still do this?), but I would like to run stuff like Pandora while I do other things.

Also, it would be nice to have iChat on the phone.

Multitasking is one of those things (like copy and paste and applications) that needs to be implemented intuitively.

I have to think they’re working on it. I’m ready for the March SDK event.

Have you ever used a Palm Pre? Go to your local Best Buy or Sprint Store and use one. That is how multitasking should work on any phone, or possibly the iPad. It's a genius idea and Palm is getting totally overlooked on it because of all the insane Apple fanboys in this world bashing anything that's not Apple. I hope Palm and/or Google makes a device like the iPad so people can own a device that works like it should.
 
Have you ever used a Palm Pre? Go to your local Best Buy or Sprint Store and use one. That is how multitasking should work on any phone, or possibly the iPad. It's a genius idea and Palm is getting totally overlooked on it because of all the insane Apple fanboys in this world bashing anything that's not Apple. I hope Palm and/or Google makes a device like the iPad so people can own a device that works like it should.

There's a jailbroken app for that. :p Really, most of the complaints that we've seen about the iPad will be covered when it gets jailbroken. Right now it's over powered for software that you can get on a phone...

The biggest complaint I have is one that we can't do anything about. No USB. No Displayport. No HDMI...

They went with the single Apple 30pin connector. I'm pretty sure that these changes won't be coming with OS 4.0!

The nice thing about having a computer is... Your device doesn't have a camera? USB cameras are all over! Heck you can even take your Point and Shoot cam and plug it in with USB and pull off the pictures. They could even have put an SD reader (also, won't be in a software update) to let you pull off pictures from cameras or even expand the memory. What about the users that want to expand storage? At least with a netbook you can get an external drive to use when you're home. Sure, they have some creative sharing software to let you put things on the drive, maybe they'll open that two way, but there's not even a way to browse the iPad filesystem, I'm not sure that they'll ever let you browse a network filesystem. Maybe a 3rd party app will.

$h1ts weak Apple... Weeeak!!

I like my Apple products and all, iPhone, iPod, iMac, Macbook Pro, but what is one reason why someone with a MBP and an iPhone should want this? So far all it does is run iPhone apps and use iWork.
 
This 'jailbreaking' theme has somehow continued to the iPad. Makes me think that Apple isn't doing what Apple claims to do: To provide products that the public uses in their **original manufactured condition**.

I wonder if this will be a recurring theme for Apple in their other mobile devices...

Maybe they should jailbreak an iPhone and see how useful it becomes!
 
Would Apple really annouce a tablet now with a crippled OS that they knew everyone would criticise heavily if they were already planning to fix it three months later? Why not just delay the anoucement a month and do without the bad press?

The iPad has to go through regulatory approval over the next few months. Like the iPhone, Apple didn’t want rumors sites like this spoiling their announcement.

Jobs says that the iPad is his most important device he's worked on(or words to that effect).

Jobs never said that. It was attributed to him by TechCrunch without any sources.

Have you ever used a Palm Pre? Go to your local Best Buy or Sprint Store and use one. That is how multitasking should work on any phone, or possibly the iPad. It's a genius idea and Palm is getting totally overlooked on it because of all the insane Apple fanboys in this world bashing anything that's not Apple. I hope Palm and/or Google makes a device like the iPad so people can own a device that works like it should.

I’ve used the Palm Pre briefly and I’m not a fan of the “deck of cards” design. It’s almost like you’re running widgets as opposed to full blown phone applications. It’s hard to tell if that method will scale because the WebOS doesn’t have near the CPU/GPU intensive games the iPhone has.

The demo versions at Best Buy didn’t have anything like that to test on it. And the demo unit felt slow during multitasking, but since it was a retail store it may have been running older firmware (who knows).

But Palm is not getting overlooked because of Apple fanboys. Apple fanboys don’t make up the bulk of smartphone sales. Palm is getting ignored because they refused to change in 2007 when the iPhone came out and public opinion soured on them (Palm is dead, etc).

The fact that the Palm Pre is only available on Sprint doesn’t help. Maybe the Pixi on Verizon will be a hit for them.
 
One obvious use case for multi-tasking (apart from music streaming) is that of doing research whilst creating an iWork document. Examples include: pasting content or links from Safari into a report, using a Dictionary or wiktionary, and collaboration via Skype or IM.

Attempting to support these kinds of cases with application state-preservation and fast launch times seems, to me, to be unrealistic.
 
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