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Multitasking In For iPhone 4.0?
The latest word on the iPhone is that the 4.0 OS will finally have
honest-to-goodness multitasking. This could hopefully lead to things like a real chat client, and dangerous battery consumption. I still hope it's true.
this would be AWESOME for the ipad, might even make it worthwhile.
People, what a bunch of bastards
Can it run linux?
I think i've heard this before...
Who cares if it multitasks? The whole argument is just something cooked up by the anti-Apple crowd as ammunition to use against the iPhone.
This ain't rocket surgery.
If you can really use iPhone for more than 3 hours for an heavy user, magine with multitasking....
These kind of apps make me laugh. You've got a phone with SMS & web browsing capabilities, and you want a chat client?
It's a computer with wireless.
Deleted
What if I want to use a streaming music player and some other app at the same time? As it stands, current iPhone OS is capable of multitasking the built-in iPod software with other apps, but not streaming music with other apps.
The iPhone OS has always had real pre-emptive multitasking. The phone, email, iPod, calendar, and other applications run all the time and can do things simultaneously.
Multitasking just hasn't ever been made available to 3rd party developers.
It has never been a technical limitation in the OS. Rather, Apple kept control over it for battery life and security reasons.
First against the wall when the revolution comes
There are real uses for multitasking, which the iPhone already does - like listening to iPod while surfing or the like. Maybe chat as mentioned, but I also hope to set which apps can be multitasking - I don't trust the developers always to make the correct call - there is no reason to leave a game running in the background while I surf, it would be better to save state. I would actually say saving state and resuming again is better the vast majority of times over running in the background.
But oftentimes I try to hang up the phone by hitting the home button instead of the end call button (even though I think I did), and while surfing, I still see that "Return to Call" blinking on top.
To conserve battery life, I already turned off push notifications and other things. And I would turn off multitasking for my parents phones, they hardly can use a computer as it. With this, they'll only be wondering why the phone battery is dying even faster.
This is why Apple should sue the shit out of Google, because once iPhone OS 4 is available, Google will inevitably steal every single idea from it.
You've got a phone with SMS & web browsing capabilities, and you want a chat client?
As I understand it, you can't SMS to or from a U.S. land line. Nor can you SMS to someone who primarily uses AIM, Windows Live Messenger, EFnet IRC, or Freenode IRC.
At one point when looking into developing an Application for the iphone, one of the requirements for *all* apps is that it had to be able to close with in a small time window upon hitting the home button as to kill any chance of running more than 1 app at a time. The reason for this, as I read it, was to avoid having a ton of applications running (w/o the user aware) and killing battery time and other software conflicts. I'm not really sure thats a bad thing. I can remember with my blackberry, If I got a call while in an application I may forget and before I knew it--dead battery. Since it's a phone first and a app platform 2nd, multitasking might not be the best thing for it.
But if they do allow multitasking, I hope Apple becomes MORE restrictive on what they let on the App store. I don't want crap apps sucking my battery down.
As a developer concerned with power usage I would like more access to tell the OS things like how often I need a GPS location update. You can tell the API to update your app when you have moved x distance, but that implies the OS is watching movement constantly and only updates you every so often. I'd also like to shut down such resources when on a screen that doesn't need them, if I can quickly bring them back up.
Think Deeply.
This is why I jailbroke the thing in the first place (well, that, and a few other things): multitasking for everything, not just Apple's apps. For some time now, I have been able to listen to music and browse the web, text, chat, etc. by just switching apps. It works fairly decently, too, and doesn't make it very slow. I am simply amazed they decided this was a proper limitation.
SSC
I guess we should thank god that our overlords at Apple didn't release the first version of iPhone with a DOS/BASIC prompt!
Multitasking comes now -- what's next? Multiple windows?? Hallelujah!!
And it'll be on Verizon's network, too.
Best Slashdot Co
The Nokia N900 has multitasking and is fully open, I have root access without the need for a crack. And did anybody see the news about the latest MS OS for phones which can play 3D games?
The iPhone is crap and now they need to enable multitasking so it does not suck as much anymore or people might wake up and buy something better.
With multitasking, how do you know that a thread doesn't get spawned off that now runs and listens on an arbitrary port for incoming connections?
That's not an argument against multitasking but an argument for using the kernel to block incoming connections to ports other than those that an application has specified in the manifest.
A real chat client? What's missing from it currently? BeeJive with push notifications enabled has been as good for me as any backgrounded chat app I've ever used.
In the old days, we had background processes that always had to run. Now we have signals and the like that can awake idle processes so they do not have to run. Then we had TSR applications, and similar items on the Mac, like the Talking Moose. The former was created to solve the long start up time of applications on DOS and Windows. Multiple windows and such were useful on the PC, with larger screens, but somewhat harder to use on the Mac. The Mac seemed to launch applications faster, so I don't have a recollections of being annoyed that Finder was not multitasking.
Multitasking is a solution to solve some problem on the general computer. I am not sure it is the right solution for a small screen mobile small battery device. I would rather see innovative solutions rather than rehashing the same old thing. I think there this might be a useful solution for the iPad. My concern is that iPhone 4.0 is built for the next iPhone, and will make current iPhones harder to use. This is what happened with iPhone 3.0, which does not run very well on the first generation iPhone.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
The Nokia N900 has multitasking and is fully open
Which U.S. mobile phone operator carries the Nokia N900? Or if you happen to live in a T-Mobile covered area, which U.S. retail store chain carries an unbranded Nokia N900 that I can try before I buy?
The big issue for me is battery life. I don't want some random app draining the battery of the device I use to call a tow if my car breaks down.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
iPhone2G is as powerful as iPhone3G, but Apple seems now to forget these old models. New firmwares for 2G lack features found on 3G. I hope FW4 won't be for "3G / 3GS / 4G only". First iPhone buyers love Apple; Apple, love them !
-- Rastignac was here.
... that Apple will open up the app store, and will allow any and all third party applications. In addition, multiple sources indicate that the iPhone 4.0 will cook dinner and fold the laundry.
In other news, multiple sources are rumors, same as always.
this very moment, as fittingly A need to play GAY NIIGERS from
Can't wait to see the next Hitler Responds to... video about this.
Anytime you mention multitasking to an Apple fanboi they come up with 20 reasons why it's a bad idea and wasn't implemented. I'm sure they're just irate about this new feature and will be pissed off to no end that Apple is adding it, right?
With multitasking and iWorks, I can actually get something done with it while pissing away my life on the subway or on a bus. Now all I need is for Adobe to come up with PDF support on the iPad, and I am one happy camper.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
I've had my Nokia N900 for a couple of months now, and for those unaware, most of the specs are identical to the iPhone 3Gs 32Gb. Well, except that it has a much higher resolution screen, a keyboard, a real GPS, an FM transmitter and a microUSB port for data and charging. But the CPU/GPU and amount of storage are the same, except that you can also add a microSD card to the N900. But now on to the most important difference to the 3Gs. I've used both my N900 and a 3Gs, and the 3Gs just feels sluggish, while having half the functionality.
Flipping home screens on the N900, regardless of how many icons and widgets it's running is smooth, with no clipping. Even with half a dozen apps running in the background, the UI remains equally fast (several instances of the Firefox, Application Manager, Communication app, Contacts app, Skype, MediaBox, battery-eye, conky, etc). Flipping through the 3Gs icon screens clips and feels choppier. It's not a large difference, but keep in mind the hardware is identical and the iPhone has NO applications running in the background.
The N900 also starts up applications faster, in most cases instantaneously. Start up times do increase progressively after about 3-4 large apps are already loaded and actually doing stuff in the background (Firefox loading up pages, Application Manager checking for updates, MediaBox playing music). But many utilities that only refresh while in the foreground do not have any impact at all (Conky, battery-eye, disk usage, etc). In contrast, the 3Gs takes a couple of seconds to load up pretty much every app I tried, regardless of how limited its functionality is, and complex apps take even longer.
Once the apps are running, they are roughly equally fast on both the N900 and the 3Gs. But as I stated above, the N900 may be running several apps in the background, and the foreground apps do not slow down at all.
I think this is why Apple did not allow multitasking up to now. Given how slowly single apps load on their flagship 3Gs, true multitasking will bring it down to its knees. The iPhone OS takes much more resources to run than Maemo or Android, and the iPhone single tasking is a way of masking it. Of course this is speculation since except for the basic Apple apps, nobody managed run more than one app at the same time on the iPhone. And I'm sure those Apple apps are optimized and tweaked to hook into the OS and stay loaded at all times. Most likely the 4G will have a faster processor and more RAM, and will compensate for the OS shortcomings through brute force.
I could do this ages ago with jailbreaking (Backgrounder, Kirikae, etc). But I do wish that in Android it would make backgrounding not default unless I set the program specifically to background.
Apple, Welcome to 2005 and the Nokia N770 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_770_Internet_Tablet. Way to go!
OTOH, I suppose you sold more iPhones **today** than all the 770s sold since they were released.
Disclosure: I have a $200 (new) Nokia N800 and routinely multitask email, music, podcost downloads and browsing while at home.
When on the driving I multitask GPS (maemo-mapper) and music/podcast playback.
When hiking, I run Maemo-mapper and GPSView to help find those geocaches.
The GPS stuff helps me to geotag my photos later. Scroogle "N800, photos, gps" for more information.
Best of all, no cell phone contract.
Someone asked about the best way to get a Nokia N900 in the USA. If best is cheapest over a 2yr life, then buy it unlocked from amazon and bring your GSM SIM card with you to the N900.
Again - Apple - welcome to the show. You should be commended on your innovative efforts!
Actually, the kind of background processing that the Newton used, which has some things in common with what Android does (specifically Android "services"), would be awesome. The main problem is that developers are really not used to working this way.
Basically, you have your main app, and it runs when it's in the foreground, and that's it. But you also have these other chunks of code that the app can register with the system. On the Newton you could attach that code to the OS-level alarm mechanism ("when this alarm that I just asked the system service to execute for me at that timestamp fires, don't show a dialog box or play a sound, run this bytecode instead"). On Android, it can be a daemon-like thing that actually runs in the background (eg. to play streaming music).
The fundamental idea is that the whole app isn't doing background processing -- instead you break of very small pieces and those run in the background, under much more severe constraints. (The distinction between cron-like and daemon-like isn't really critical here. The developer still has to be trained to break their app up into distinct pieces with different constraints, instead of having one big app.)
This is simply not the architecture a lot of developers are used to (though Unix folk have a head start). But it's a way to provide actual real usable multitasking on a device like this without crushing the memory and battery usage (especially if you use the alarm-based method and your apps can schedule the alarms far apart; for some apps this is more than adequate).
Some programmers would certainly yell if they had to jump through that kind of hoop. But something like that could very well be the best compromise on these devices.
I hate to be semantic here, but the iPhone uses a unix based kernel, and at its heart already does multitasking. Beneath the user facing side, many processes run simultaneously already. What most of the posters here, and TFA are referring to is the ability to run multiple user-facing apps at the same time. This feature has been disabled to simplify the user interface and to reduce battery depletion. While we can debate the merits of that decision, the assertion that the iPhone is like a mid 1980's computer because of a lack of pre-emptive multitasking is fallacious.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
How many of the current apps will need updates because the programmers forgot the simplest of lines of code... close(); ...?
Shiny. Let's be bad guys...
Palm's WebOS has had FULL multitasking for ALL apps since Summer 2009. Go check out a Pre or Pixi on Sprint or a Pre +, Pixi + on Verizon. All the "Oh look at the cool multitasking things we can do" on the latest 3Gs commercial? WebOS had it out of the box last summer.
Oh, and then there is the remarkably simple development platform (Web standards! Yay!) and the vibrant non-official apps catalog available in the free PreWare and WebOS Quick Install applications that work in perfect sync with the Official WebOS Catalog.
(Palm has actually been helping the community integrate the sideline catalog, and encouraging mods and patches to the base WebOS setup. Imagine that!)
For all the hype about Apple (and Droid) NEITHER of them can yet do what Palm has already accomplished in less than a year.
Stop dicking around with Apple slaveware and Google's multiple personality disorderware. Go get a Pre or a Pixi.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
Your post has made me curious and I’m watching now the review of the N900 right here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvPTBwEg5UA
Now, I dunno if my perception is screwed or something but the apps on there take 2-4 seconds to launch and the touchscreen does lag tiny little bit in some of them.
On the other hand the apps on the vilified 3gs load - as far as my perception is concerned - within 1-2 seconds.
How bout they just make it so everytime I click on soemthing I want in the app store it doesn't close the app store to "install" it. Seriously.
buy an unlocked version from the Nokia shop
I would, but the closest Nokia shop is 200 miles away. Where do you recommend that I try the phone before I buy it?
In the US, you would be able to use it on any GSM network, which I believe means T-Mobile or AT&T.
That's a possibility, as T-Mobile finally gives a discount for bringing your own handset.
Now there are 2 tasks. You have multitasking; steve jobs' style
Because the only app that you can use to listen to music is the iPod app
He didn't specify how he listened to music. As even you admitted, the iPod app happily plays music. Therefore, the correction was correct.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Sounds like Apple's ripping off Android now. Maybe HTC should sue them back.
I can't stand hearing everyone talk about multitasking on things like Android devices as though it works the same way as it does on their desktop PC. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The first form of multitasking on Android is that applications can elect to receive messages, e.g. "someone is calling", or "wifi state changed".
If you actually need to do constant work in the background (e.g., listening on a network port), you can do so as well, using a "service". And even services will be killed by the system if resources are needed.
No one is talking about running a Handbrake encode session, Firefox with a bunch of animated Flash ads, and a kernel compile at the same time on their phone.
Multitasking on a phone is being able to record breadcrumbs of a journey with a GPS app, listen to streaming internet radio, and receive notifications from an instant messaging client at the same time.
I'm a hardware guy and after swapping from Nokia to the iPhone then to a HTC Magic my next update will be a Dell Mini 5. I really like android and it's openness and now that Android has near 40k apps the iPhone app store doesn't interest me.
What's wrong with buying your music and synching it on your phone if you want to browse at the same time?
Another Slashdot user mentioned "a wealth of great music released [that] isn't on heavy rotation on radio". But people don't have the money to buy every album that comes out, and people want to try it before they buy it.
Would be extremely useful.
I can see in a car where you'd have an in-dash touchscreen (the 5" or whatever the screens are) and a "port" for your iPhone.
Once docked in the port, your iPhone display is on the in-dash display, and integrated with the stereo, the handsfree controls for phoning, etc.
That would be pretty nice.
But that is the key, YOU getting the choice, not Apple.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I think Apple should use a bytecode execution engine and explicitly timeslice jobs. They could modify LUA or Python, providing bindings to a limited, safe set of native API calls (or safe wrappers to them).
Then, iPhone app developers would have the option of providing an explicit LUA/Python/whatever script as part of their app. The only promise Apple would make is that the script would not be guaranteed to run quickly.
The scheduling could be something simple like this:
- Give each script its own small heap, stack, and VM state
- For each script, execute its bytecode for up to 20 milliseconds (or some dynamic value based on load)
- After all scripts have executed their timeslice, sleep for 1 second.
- Start again
Having a ton of background processes from a ton of different apps could cause starvation, but that would happen in a much worse way with unconstrained multitasking.
Some use cases off the top of my head:
- Let me know when I've come into the vicinity of a historical landmark
- Synchronize my media from the cloud onto my device in the background (over, say, 3G)
- To always feel rich by knowing that I Am Rich is still running in the background.
I don't have an iPhone to compare it to, but the Nexus One IS laggy, especially when notifications are coming through for a new email, text, or whatever.
That's great. Good thing the iPhone has a halfway intelligent notification system, isn't it?
iPhone OS is Unix. It's had multitasking disabled from day one!
mod parent up.
Oh great ... now I'm only going to have crappy 2-3 day battery life like every other multi-tasking phone I've ever owned.
or else!
Jobs has a vision for his products and if that vision limits functions, so be it.
Computers get hot so a fan is needed, but Jobs didn't like fans so the original Mac didn't get one.
Transferring files from one computer to another without using a network was an important capability at the time that the NeXT computer was introduced, but it would have compromised Job's vision, so it wasn't included.
If including a standard cut/paste option would logically require a real physical keyboard, than Jobs will convince himself (and his most loyal customers) that copy/paste isn't needed for the iPhone.
Later when it is obvious that most people think copy/paste is a necessary function, Apple found a way to shoehorn it in.
There are a few apps that don't need much more than the very basic notification system that the iPhone already uses. Then, there are a few apps (like music players) that absolutely require full-fledged multitasking. (It'll be nice to finally be able to listen to pandora while checking my email.) But there are a lot of apps that could get by with something in between: a more robust notification system that lets the app register for notifications from the OS when certain conditions are met (example: notify when a phone call comes in, or when the phone enters a geographic area, or connects to a particular wifi network), and run arbitrary code when that happens. This can give the best of both worlds: an app that runs whenever it needs to, but can't waste battery power the rest of the time, even by accident. I wish there were an API that allowed developers to do this.
The first two are valid, but the last is bullshit. Of course Apple wanted copy and paste on the iPhone, but to implement it and have it work crappy is worse than not implementing it at all. It may be acceptable in a niche device, but it would compromise user experience. And Apple really cares about user experience.
So you really think that cut/paste was such a challenge for Apple that they couldn't put it in the original iPhone? It's not as if they had to rush the thing out the door in June so that they could sell them for Christmas.
can it tether?
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
Yes.