iPhone OS vs Web OS Multitasking.

[ZebraineZ]

One thing I don't get is how people say web os does the best multitasking when most of it's apps if not all are pretty much web apps? I know that web apps aren't bad since they use little resources but people say how it multitasks over 50 apps (don't even get me started) but they are essentially the same thing as the tabs in mobile safari.

I've been using 4.0 for the whole day now, highest amount of apps I ran at once was 36 with no lag (3gs) and those were all the apps I had on my phone I think running webapps + live multitasking are worse than native apps + save states/background API's, since the latter sort of already does both, wether it be web apps (sort of obsolete though, limited to the how many tabs you can open) or running native apps with the needed API's.

Don't forget, web os can run 50 apps at once...because it only has 50 apps :/ no thanks Palm.

Apple is hella slow, but they manage to find the best medium.

 

[fishkorp]

One thing I don't get is how people say web os does the best multitasking when most of it's apps if not all are pretty much web apps? I know that web apps aren't bad since they use little resources but people say how it multitasks over 50 apps (don't even get me started) but they are essentially the same thing as the tabs in mobile safari.

I've been using 4.0 for the whole day now, highest amount of apps I ran at once was 36 with no lag (3gs) and those were all the apps I had on my phone I think running webapps + live multitasking are worse than native apps + save states/background API's, since the latter sort of already does both, wether it be web apps (sort of obsolete though, limited to the how many tabs you can open) or running native apps with the needed API's.

Don't forget, web os can run 50 apps at once...because it only has 50 apps :/ no thanks Palm.

Apple is hella slow, but they manage to find the best medium.

You do know those apps on your iPhone are not multitasking, right? Unless they're all your own apps you wrote and you updated the App Delegate to include the multitasking, NONE of the apps you're running are performing any of the background stuff. They're just getting stuffed in the tray for fast app switching when you close out of it. I confirmed this by updating 2 of my own apps. The current versions perform just as they do now on 3.x. Once I update the code to include the backgrounding stuff, then they actually do the stuff in the background (like stream music). You are not really multitasking with what you are doing. This is why the average person is going to be disappointed when running the 4.0 betas. They're going to think they can just magically background stuff or listen to Pandora while surfing the web. Fact is, they can't. Those apps won't be available until 4.0 is officially released. So again, unless you write your own apps that take advantage of the multitasking APIs, you're not really multitasking.

 

[NJMetsHero]

Yeah apps need to build in API's to take advantage of multitasking I'm pretty sure. The Pandora in that App Store can't to the things they showed at the keynote, same for Skype or Tap Tap. Apple's should be if you're running 4.0 though. So if you run all of them they should be multitasking-able.

 

[ZebraineZ]

Don't forget the 50+ apps on web os was on the pre plus, 512mb ram compared to 3gs 256, yet the 3gs is by far the fastest phone whatever you throw at it.

 

[kdarling]

One thing I don't get is how people say web os does the best multitasking when most of it's apps if not all are pretty much web apps?

The language an app is coded in is immaterial.

Under WebOS (or any other common desktop or phone OS), all apps are multitaskable without needing any special programming. For instance, if you tap the display so that you can see several app screens at once, they're all being updated. On most phone OSs, this also means that such things as live homescreen widgets are possible.

Under iPOS 4.0, the "multitasking" is a combination of fast app switching and some background processing. The only apps that multitask in the above traditional manner are those rewritten to use Task Completion, which allows an app to continue doing what it needs to in the background. Live homescreen widgets are not possible.

Having central OS APIs for common wake-up scenarios is a smart move and not uncommon on other mobile OSs.

Whether something is "best" partly depends on user experience and expectations. To my eyes, Apple's approach with iPOS has consistently been that task switching and keeping context while moving between apps, is up to you. Most other phone OSs try to do those things for you.