Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

OS 4.0 Multitasking question

B

Blues003

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 18, 2010
415
0
Hey there! I already asked this question on another forum but did not get a satisfactory answer so...

I was thinking a bit about the way MTasking was implemented, and I saw a huge flaw. There is no way to quickly close apps.

Long-home-click brings up voice control. Short-home-click freezes the app and takes it to the background. Double-clicking brings up the dock with background-running apps. So in no way is it possible to quickly truly close an app.

Does that mean that, by the end of the day, I will have to open the dock with the background apps, and hold-and-press-minus for every single app that I do not want running on the iPhone's background? Does that mean that opening the dock, holding an app's icon, and pressing -, is the ONLY way of truly closing an app? Granted, the impact on battery and processor is low. But it is still a hit. Shouldn't we have the option of quickly truly closing an app?
 
You misunderstand how 4.0's multitasking works.

At this point, killing an app is done by yes, pressing the minus sign when you're in the "background app" dock, but I expect that to change to something a bit different.

But, just because those apps are in that background area does not mean that they are using CPU (read: no battery use is taking place). Only the memory to run those apps is still being used, and will automatically be cleared if your current app requires more.

Only apps that actually use one of the background services will ever use the CPU in the "background."
 
I think from what I saw during the press conference, is when you bring up MT toolbar via a quick 2 click, you can hold down on an app, then a X appears (like a push notification badge) and you can close it.
 
I get all that. Mind I said "low" hit on processor and all.

Yet, the following situation: You're on your Safari browser, and you want to continue playing a game you were playing before. You double-click Home, just like Steve Jobs did. After all, it's much easier to do that, then to scroll through pages of apps, right? Thing is, you end up finding out that you also have to scroll through docks of apps, because in between your goal-game, there are several apps that really are of no interest for you to be running in the background (camera, calculator, photos), but that are just there. Why? Because there was no option to directly close them, and you really wouldn't be bothered to hold-and-press-minus on every single one of them. So I can see this as being not-as-user-friendly-as-it-should. Or at least, not "that simple", to quote Apple's CEO.
 
broncopde, that link was very enlightening.

So the phone will enter some form of self-resource-management and delete older apps and all?

I guess that would work for the situation I mentioned... but I am still relunctant :\
 
The home double-tap isn't a list of apps in the background, it's a fast app switcher. Recently opened apps show up there. Every app I open now shows up there and 99% of them aren't doing anything background related since they are 3.x compiled apps.
 
Blues003 said:
broncopde, that link was very enlightening.

So the phone will enter some form of self-resource-management and delete older apps and all?

I guess that would work for the situation I mentioned... but I am still relunctant :\
Click to expand...

Yes, if you delete them from memory, it will replace them with other apps. So you're really fighting a battle that's not helping anything (and it's not hurting anything to let things sit in memory while they don't use the processor because if their memory is needed, they are simply replaced)

You should definitely check out daringfireball.net . That's where I saw that piece linked to. John Gruber, though he can be full of himself at times, can really help you find some of the most interesting stuff on the web.
 
Why are people so hot and bothered by how multi-tasking is going to work.
Isn't the most important feature we will be able to go back to the program we left at the exact same place we left it?

That is all I really care about. And how many apps are you going to be using at one time? 4 tops?
 
My concern was not so much about the impact on processor and battery - when Apple compromises resources, it usually does it well -, but more about the functionality of the fast-app-switcher. How fast would it be for us to scroll through docks and docks and docks of apps to find the one we wanted, just because meanwhile it'd be filled with apps like Camera, Photos, Weather, Calculator? Not that fast, heh?

Anyone know the limit of apps that appear on that dock? In other words, the number of apps from which the iPhone begins deleting older apps and starts creating room for "new" ones.
 
Blues003 said:
My concern was not so much about the impact on processor and battery - when Apple compromises resources, it usually does it well -, but more about the functionality of the fast-app-switcher. How fast would it be for us to scroll through docks and docks and docks of apps to find the one we wanted, just because meanwhile it'd be filled with apps like Camera, Photos, Weather, Calculator? Not that fast, heh?

Anyone know the limit of apps that appear on that dock? In other words, the number of apps from which the iPhone begins deleting older apps and starts creating room for "new" ones.
Click to expand...

The tray allows you to view (running) apps in Chronological order. So the last app used is first, and the second last is second and so on.
If you want to switch to an app used some while back, it's probably easier to select it from Springboard than scroll through a bunch of icons in the tray.

C.
 
fishkorp said:
The home double-tap isn't a list of apps in the background, it's a fast app switcher. Recently opened apps show up there. Every app I open now shows up there and 99% of them aren't doing anything background related since they are 3.x compiled apps.
Click to expand...

This is correct. As far as I know, developers are currently unable to submit their 4.0-ready applications for review anyway.

Unless you know a developer who can provision you a version of their app to run on OS 4.0 then it's pretty much impossible to test the true "multitasking" feature we saw demoed at the keynote.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back