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Multifl0w... Wow!! Best/New Way to Multi-Task! (Update out, close apps easily)

Vandam500

Vandam500

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Sep 29, 2008
1,844
109
It was released today for $4.99 in RockApp. Before everybody goes crazy asking, it will be released in Cydia as soon as Saurik puts it up.

Here is a video of it in action:

Long Video

Short Video

Also, installing it via RockApp you do get a 10 day trial!!!

You can't use Kirikae or mQuickdo with it (Conflicts with both but it's way better!)

I have been using it for the last hour and a half and it's amazing!!!

Update:

All bugs have been fixed and now you can close apps from within the app itself
IMG_0158.png
 
jmann said:
How cool! Looks like *cough*webOS*hack*
Click to expand...

Exactly! That's why I am loving it soo much!!! webOS hands down is the best for multi-tasking and that is undeniable. This is just like that!
 
Vandam500 said:
Come on man... You know he made it just to demostrate the app
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thats just the point. it's a demonstration. if even in the demonstration they can't show something useful about their application switcher, then there must be nothing useful about it.

1. why do i need to see which programs i have open in a scrollable list?
2. why do i need to run anything in the background unless it's doing something in the background like playing music or stitching photos?
3. do the previews have live update or is it just a static screenshot? if the latter, then it's totally lame.

If someone can write a program that takes over the home button and completely copies the behavior the cards thing that the palm pre has, then maybe i'd be interested... but using this just looks completely tedious.
 
The General said:
thats just the point. it's a demonstration. if even in the demonstration they can't show something useful about their application switcher, then there must be nothing useful about it.

1. why do i need to see which programs i have open in a scrollable list?
2. why do i need to run anything in the background unless it's doing something in the background like playing music or stitching photos?
3. do the previews have live update or is it just a static screenshot? if the latter, then it's totally lame.

If someone can write a program that takes over the home button and completely copies the behavior the cards thing that the palm pre has, then maybe i'd be interested... but using this just looks completely tedious.
Click to expand...

1. Why wouldn't you want to see the programs you have open?
2. Thats true but it's why you just background programs you are using. Example- just now I am using Facebook, Slacker and FML. I am switching between all 3 seamlessly with this program and its a real delight.
3. The previews aren't live but everytime you open the app and close it it updates the image. The developer is still making tons of bug fixes and has said he will be adding new stuff to it so you never know.

jmann said:
I agree with this. I personally have no need for background AT ALL, but it'd be nice.
Click to expand...

For real? Damn, you guys don't multi-task ever? So tell me something, on your Mac or PC, do you only have the internet browser open and everything else closed.

And to say view a picture, do you close the internet browser then view the picture?

And say your playing a game but want to listen to some internet radio, do you not open the internet radio program and game?

There are soo many scenarios for multi-tasking. How can you NOT need backgrounding?
 
Vandam500 said:
For real? Damn, you guys don't multi-task ever? So tell me something, on your Mac or PC, do you only have the internet browser open and everything else closed.

And to say view a picture, do you close the internet browser then view the picture?

And say your playing a game but want to listen to some internet radio, do you not open the internet radio program and game?

There are soo many scenarios for multi-tasking. How can you NOT need backgrounding?
Click to expand...

I don't listen to internet radio, but i'm sure other people do. I don't understand your viewing a picture example. I am sure many people have the need for multitasking on the phone, but with my current situation, I don't. I multitask on my computer though. :)
 
Vandam500 said:
For real? Damn, you guys don't multi-task ever? So tell me something, on your Mac or PC, do you only have the internet browser open and everything else closed.

And to say view a picture, do you close the internet browser then view the picture?

And say your playing a game but want to listen to some internet radio, do you not open the internet radio program and game?

There are soo many scenarios for multi-tasking. How can you NOT need backgrounding?
Click to expand...

There is a HUGE difference between a computer and a phone. For one, battery. I know for a fact that this program will significantly drain the battery. If it didn't, then Apple would have already implemented it into their phone natively. It is a cool feature, just like all of the jailbreaking applications. That is all they are, cool and fun. They all get extremely old and boring, which is why I never get into customizing my phone or computer. It gets old.

You can't honestly sit here and tell me the performance of the phone and the batter are diminished a ridiculous amount with that application open. If so, then you have some ridiculous iPhone no one else has. It simply isn't worth it. The iPhone is NOT meant to multitask at this time.
 
In order to replace Kirikae, this would have to offer an easy way to close out applications (perhaps a red X in the top left corner a la MobileSafari tabs).

EthanNixon said:
I know for a fact that this program will significantly drain the battery. If it didn't, then Apple would have already implemented it into their phone natively. It is a cool feature, just like all of the jailbreaking applications. That is all they are, cool and fun. They all get extremely old and boring, which is why I never get into customizing my phone or computer. It gets old.

You can't honestly sit here and tell me the performance of the phone and the batter are diminished a ridiculous amount with that application open. If so, then you have some ridiculous iPhone no one else has. It simply isn't worth it. The iPhone is NOT meant to multitask at this time.
Click to expand...

This app shouldn't significantly increase the drain on battery. It only runs when it's called from the home button. Backgrounder is what runs in the background and keeps backgrounded applications open, and that is a tiny mobile substrate extension. What really uses battery is running the apps themselves. But many of us already run application in the background. I listen to internet radio and music in dTunes in the background all the time. And I frequently would like an easy way to switch between open applications (I use Kirikae now). Just because you don't find multitasking on the iPhone useful doesn't mean that nobody does.

By the way, the iPhone 3GS handles multitasking just fine. Sure, it drains the battery a little to have AOL radio and Safari open at the same time; but it doesn't drain it significantly more than having one of them open would. After all, Safari runs in the background most of the time anyway...
 
Uh...I guess it's cool? I'm doing just fine with Kirikae+Backgrounder, though. Besides, it looks like these guys are using Backgrounder and just slapping a neat (webOS-ripoff) GUI onto it. Seems like mostly eye candy though when Backgrounder (I assume) is doing the real hard work behind the scenes.

Just my two pennies.
 
Vandam500 said:
For real? Damn, you guys don't multi-task ever? So tell me something, on your Mac or PC, do you only have the internet browser open and everything else closed.
Click to expand...

Right now, yes. Most of the time? I have a few things open, but this is a computer, not a phone. Apples to oranges.

Vandam500 said:
And to say view a picture, do you close the internet browser then view the picture?
Click to expand...

No, I open the picture. Luckily, on my iPhone, Safari stays running in the background while I close it and go to the picture viewer. Why would I need to see Safari and the picture viewer at the same time?

Vandam500 said:
And say your playing a game but want to listen to some internet radio, do you not open the internet radio program and game?
Click to expand...

I open Pandora, enable backgrounding and go play the game. No where in that do I need to see both the game and Pandora at the same time.

Vandam500 said:
There are soo many scenarios for multi-tasking. How can you NOT need backgrounding?
Click to expand...

Applications have persistence and re-open after being closed in the exact same position. The only benefit of running stuff like the calculator or notes or Tweetie in the background while I go do other stuff is that when I reopen it, it's way faster.

If I run said programs in the background, I do so just for the speed improvement. They run in the background only temporarily until I'm done switching back and forth between Safari and Tweetie or whatever I am doing at the moment, then I close the programs because they do not need to be openned.

The only benefit of having multiple applications open on the Palm Pre is because the programs and cards have live updates so you can see the applications actually running and doing stuff. One such benefit would be that you can run an RSS feed reading application, and while you're switching around between applications you can see the new news as it comes in, or new tweets or emails or whatever.

But why have this? Why be able to see screen shots of the open applications in a sliding view? They don't live update the views, so it's not for the reason outlined in the above paragraph. It's not easier to switch between programs, instead of "click and then tap on the icon" it's "double click slide around between some screenshots and then tap on the screenshot"

It's a waste of freaking money.
 
The General said:
Right now, yes. Most of the time? I have a few things open, but this is a computer, not a phone. Apples to oranges.



No, I open the picture. Luckily, on my iPhone, Safari stays running in the background while I close it and go to the picture viewer. Why would I need to see Safari and the picture viewer at the same time?



I open Pandora, enable backgrounding and go play the game. No where in that do I need to see both the game and Pandora at the same time.



Applications have persistence and re-open after being closed in the exact same position. The only benefit of running stuff like the calculator or notes or Tweetie in the background while I go do other stuff is that when I reopen it, it's way faster.

If I run said programs in the background, I do so just for the speed improvement. They run in the background only temporarily until I'm done switching back and forth between Safari and Tweetie or whatever I am doing at the moment, then I close the programs because they do not need to be openned.

The only benefit of having multiple applications open on the Palm Pre is because the programs and cards have live updates so you can see the applications actually running and doing stuff. One such benefit would be that you can run an RSS feed reading application, and while you're switching around between applications you can see the new news as it comes in, or new tweets or emails or whatever.

But why have this? Why be able to see screen shots of the open applications in a sliding view? They don't live update the views, so it's not for the reason outlined in the above paragraph. It's not easier to switch between programs, instead of "click and then tap on the icon" it's "double click slide around between some screenshots and then tap on the screenshot"

It's a waste of freaking money.
Click to expand...

I understand all of that and you do have some points but it is still undeniable that multi-tasking is very important especially when you see all the things you can do with it. This is why you see all the new phones stressing the fact that they do it and the iPhone doesn't.

I don't believe its a waste of money and you can get a free 10 day trial.
 
There have been many stupid things said in this thread, but the idea that the WebOS app switching interface is itself not plainly inspired by Mobile Safari's tab switching interface really takes the cake. You can't "rip-off" a "rip-off".
 
Kahnyl said:
There have been many stupid things said in this thread, but the idea that the WebOS app switching interface is itself not plainly inspired by Safari's tab switching interface really takes the cake. You can't "rip-off" a "rip-off".
Click to expand...

Haha thats true!
 
Wont be compatible to run kirikae along side this from looking at the video.
The idea is nice but the author should disable the animations as the app switching looks clunky.
This is just from watching the short video though and was the first thing i noticed, overall its a nice addon.

I wonder if you can run apps from within it rather than going back to the springboard.
Also, why do people hate on something and say its useless because they wouldnt use it? lol. mindless comments.
I too probably wouldn't use it, doesn't mean its not a cool addon.
 
Vandam500 said:
I understand all of that and you do have some points but it is still undeniable that multi-tasking is very important especially when you see all the things you can do with it. This is why you see all the new phones stressing the fact that they do it and the iPhone doesn't.

I don't believe its a waste of money and you can get a free 10 day trial.
Click to expand...

I'm not saying that multitasking is useless. I'm saying this type if application switching interface is useless.
 
This thread is hilarious. I wonder why people bother to engage in such discussions as the merits of backgrounding here.

Anyways...

Have downloaded and installed the app. Overall, no surprises one way or the other. Works like the video shows. Scrolling is smooth. Low memory footprint. A few bugs related to mail app but otherwise it has alot of potential. Its much easier for me to use this app to find my open programs since i have very few apps on my springboard and most are in categories. Hence hard to see which apps are backgrounded without going into processes in SBSSettings.

In order for the developer to charge as much as he wants to, however, he has to implement an ability to kill apps from multifl0w interface. Otherwise its only partially useful compared to using Kirkae. Then adding features like launching apps from directly within multifl0w and live images, etc will make it real nice but must must have the ability to kill apps first.
 
I'd agree with you there. Haven't tried the app yet but if it doesn't have the ability to close an app from within then it seems quite limited.
The idea of live view would be awesome but I don't see how that would be possible without a large memory impact.

This is the kind of app you can see Apple implementing into the actual OS at a later date. It's actually got a nice iPhone style to it. Like the way the springboard scrolls, the open windows can too.
Obviously they cannot do that without allowing some form of backgrounding, but then risk a huge memory impact in the process.
 
What else (besides the iPod/IM) do you need to have open that requires multi-tasking?

Cool concept, but on a serious note, I have no use for that. I can only do one thing at a time (see: screen size restrictions), so multi tasking is irrelevant.
 
Coming out of Quickoffice to change the album you're listening to and then reopening it and having to load up the doc again gets old at times.

There are only positives to multitasking. No negatives. Battery life in my experience is identical in the sense that if you stream music for 15 mins and then edit a doc for 15 minutes you'll use up say 5% of battery in 30 minutes. But if you do both at the same time you'll use up the same amount in 15 minutes. I'm fine with that tradeoff.
 
Looks very cool. I always end up removing backgrounder though from my phone. My 3G just doesn't handle it very well. That video of it running on the 3Gs looks awesome though!

Also... Some people obviously want to background their apps. Just because you don't doesn't make it not useful to someone else.

For me it was as simple as not wanting to have to lose my Turn-by-Turn GPS directions when I got a call. Internet radio is a popular one. Also, it's just quicker to access again when it's still running.

Battery life and memory usage would be better if Backgrounding was enabled by apple (apps could run without GUI loaded into memory or as daemons to save cpu and memory when they are backgrounded) but for now if you want to background these are the best options available. This GUI looks great too and I could see an avid backgrounder (with a 3Gs :D) finding it worth while.
 
jav6454 said:
What else (besides the iPod/IM) do you need to have open that requires multi-tasking?

Cool concept, but on a serious note, I have no use for that. I can only do one thing at a time (see: screen size restrictions), so multi tasking is irrelevant.
Click to expand...

AOL Radio, LastFM, Pandora, dTunes, Terminal (while it is processing lengthy tasks), Rooms (IRC). It is true that since Push notifications became available one no longer needs to run IM apps in the background, but backgrounding still has its uses.
 
Kahnyl said:
There have been many stupid things said in this thread, but the idea that the WebOS app switching interface is itself not plainly inspired by Safari's tab switching interface really takes the cake. You can't "rip-off" a "rip-off".
Click to expand...

Uh...come again?
 
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