Multitasking In For iPhone 4.0? 345
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.
Existing Apps? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:It's a freakin' PHONE (Score:5, Interesting)
The Apple UI is so smooth compared to Android's, there really is no comparison. I HATE lag when I'm dealing with a UI, and Android's multi-tasking Java based applications take a good 1-3 seconds to do anything I tell them to do. If there's any chance Apple would have impacted their UI performance to enable multi-tasking, I think they made a great move.
I still wouldn't switch from an Android to an iPhone because of the restrictions (and I'm not going to wager hundreds of dollars on a jailbreak), but now I see why people enjoy Apple products.
For most users multi-tasking is a secondary concern to a nice UI.
Re:It's a freakin' PHONE (Score:2, Interesting)
What Android phone do you have? My Motorola Droid is mostly instantious (give or take a few milliseconds) unless it's low on memory. Sure it has the occasional slowdown, but 98%+ of button presses are more or less instant.
I have no problem with the Android UI. It's pretty damn simple. Press the button on what you want to do, and there is an auxillary button for options. I havn't used an Iphone, but what do they do that's really so much better?
Huh? (Score:1, Interesting)
Nokia N900 vs. iPhone 3Gs (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Yah but... (Score:0, Interesting)
Welcome to 2005 and the Nokia N770 (Score:1, Interesting)
Apple, Welcome to 2005 and the Nokia N770 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_770_Internet_Tablet [wikipedia.org]. 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!
Re:They haven't been phones for years (Score:4, Interesting)
It's a computer with wireless.
It is and it isn't. Apple seems to think they've finally hit on the much anticipated "computer as consumer appliance" while most geeks think it should just be a computer which does phone calls. This is the reason for most of the controversy around some aspects of the iPhone and iPad.
Re:I hope it's optional in settings (Score:3, Interesting)
I think the key, especially for your parents, is making it very obvious as to whether you are closing or backgrounding a program. That's one of the things I hate about my Blackberry Curve 8330. Almost every app is different, some you "Exit", some you "Close", some close when you hit the back button, some stay open when you hit the back button.
It makes it a pain in the ass to try and figure out what all you have running.
Re:They haven't been phones for years (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Streaming music player + other app (Score:5, Interesting)
Well if multi tasking is implemented as a series of call backs so that any process that is waiting on data is not consuming clock cycles
iPhone OS is a UN*X; multi-tasking is ultimately implemented as "calls that wait for something to happen end up making a system call and the process blocks".
then there should be no more drain when "multitasking" then when running one application.
...unless, for example, an app is continuously updating the display, showing an animated ad, or displaying a game screen, or.... Perhaps the app would be told "you're going into the background, stop updating the screen (but don't necessarily stop playing audio)".
s far as I can tell using the backgrounder on my jail broken iphone when not actively working most programs still consume cycles.
What indicates that they're consuming cycles, rather than just blocked in a system call?
So almost all of this could be fixed if the wait() call is not properly implemented in the lib.
As per another comment of mine, iPhone OS being a UN*X, wait() is the call you use if you've started a subprocess (fork()/vfork(), posix_spawn()) and you wait to wait for it to exit. There is no single call that is the call to wait for something to happen - there are a whole bunch of blocking system calls such as read(), recv(), recvmsg(), connect(), etc., as well as the usual wait-for-events calls such as select(), poll(), and kevent(), plus the Mach messaging calls. Most apps probably use higher-level APIs that are built atop them.
Re:Please enlighten me (Score:5, Interesting)
The latest N900 firmware resolved a LOT of issues. Not sure what firmware the review phone is using, but looking at his theme, it's an older one. My N900 with firmware 3.2010.02-8.002 released about a month ago loads up ALL apps faster than in the review. Same goes for the touchscreen lag. The next firmware, due to be released in a couple of weeks will improve things even further.
But that's not all. :) The N900 also gets faster as you use it. After a cold boot the RAM has 100Mb used, but after loading all sorts of apps it goes up to 153Mb and stays there. Those extra 50Mb contain cashing data for all your apps. I just tried every app I could think of: Communications (SMS and IM), Firefox, Contacts, Phone, Media Player (not MediaBox), Disk Usage, battery-eye, Settings, Application Manager, File Manager, Xterm, PDF Reader, Email. Every single one loaded up instantly, in less than 1 sec.
The only offender is MediaBox, because it insists on scanning your entire device for music, movies, etc. BTW, the N900 can play regular AVI movies without dropping frames or losing sound sync, AND it can output to any TV. I watched 9 (the entire animation movie) full screen on my HD TV the other day. :))
And I NEVER need to reboot my N900, it's rock solid. Even if the first time you start the apps it takes as long as on the iPhone, after 10 mins of use it's much faster.
Well olddotter, the N900 has to perform all the phone related tasks you've listed as well. So your point doesn't apply.
Re:Nokia N900 vs. iPhone 3Gs (Score:3, Interesting)
I am getting at least 1 day for a charge, usually 2 days. BUT here's how I use it:
- 1-2h worth of phone conversations over GSM with a BT headset.
- 1-2h a day as an ebook reader. Fbreader is AWSOME, between my old N800, N810 and now N900, I think I read 100 books using these devices.
- Constantly connected to WiFi (where available, which is almost everywhere for me) or 3G, checking my gmail accounts every 5 mins throughout the day, being available on skype, etc.
The difference between 1 day and 2 day charges is whether or not I play movies, use the FM transmitter or the GPS. Streaming flash clips off the web through WiFi or 3G will take a LOT of battery life. Same goes for using the FM transmitter to broadcast music to my car stereo, or the GPS but that's in my car where I have a charger.
Re:It's already been there (Score:4, Interesting)
The apps most likely to be running in the background on my phone are various audio players, google navigation, and other various gps apps for recording trip information.
Re:ipad might be worthwile (Score:3, Interesting)
The multitasking aspect is essential for things like keeping an instant messenger or VoIP app running in the background (a 24/7 scenario here)...
Although I've got to say - most Android IM apps suck at staying connected in the background. Fring, eBuddy, Nimbuzz - they all disconnect (and then don't reconnect automatically!) or crash after a while...