Apple's iPad

[Wiglaf]

Not good enough, especially with fast app switching. There must be something else you can think of. Practical example of why this would be so much worse.

[Asher]

If I switch between my game and IM program, it takes 5-6 seconds each time I want to reply to someone.

On Android, I pull the notification drawer down (implemented way better on Android as it doesn't interrupt the game, either), select the message they sent, click on it, type out a reply, then resume.
On iPhone, you'd get an annoying popup window pausing and interrupting your game play. You can hit "reply", it takes 5-6 seconds to load up the IM app while persisting your game state to flash memory, then you can type a response, then take 5-6 seconds to bring the game back.

If you can't figure out the difference, God help you.

"fast app switching" is not what you think it is, BTW. It's only applicable for custom-designed, very light weight apps since they are VERY restricted on how much memory they can use. It's essentially saying "if you use extremely low amounts of RAM, we'll let you stay in RAM rather than have to write out to flash memory". That's it.

[Hauldren Collider]

If you don't have true multitasking, things can't actually run in the background. Though I think Asher mentioned some crappy workaround for that.

[Asher]

If you don't have true multitasking, things can't actually run in the background. Though I think Asher mentioned some crappy workaround for that.

The apps themselves don't run in the background, they can just spawn one of 7 types of background threads which can do limited amount of work.

It's not a BAD solution, it's a rather nice compromise to keep RAM use minimal while permitting some basic forms of multitasking for most users.

It's just not true multitasking, which lets multiple apps run at the same time.

[Jon Miller]

can there be a wow ap?

jm

[Vanguard]

Well, apps will be able to do "real" multitasking. But they will only be able to use it to do certain things (basically the same things that Apple apps can multitask now)---- music, talking, location-finding, mailing and retrieving data. Apparently there will also be cross app notifications of some sort.

In practice I think that what this amounts to is that Apple is going to re-write these types of apps by themselves and then let developers put front ends on them.

[Vanguard]

can there be a wow ap?

jm

Lol, I barely have enough room for all the buttons I need in WoW on my 22" monitor.

[Hauldren Collider]

Well, apps will be able to do "real" multitasking.

This is false.

[Wiglaf]

Asher has defeated me with his insider knowledge. I should probably get in the line behind Hauldren Collider and Nikolai for the masochistic dick suck fest.

[Vanguard]

This is false.

Lol, if an app can do something while you are doing something else, that's multitasking. That is the definition of the term.

If Pandora plays music while you are playing Scrabble, that is real multitasking. What the hell else would multitasking be? You want to run SETI in the background on your phone?

[-Jrabbit]

You want to run SETI in the background on your phone?

YES!!!

[Asher]

Lol, if an app can do something while you are doing something else, that's multitasking. That is the definition of the term.

If Pandora plays music while you are playing Scrabble, that is real multitasking. What the hell else would multitasking be? You want to run SETI in the background on your phone?

Sigh.

It's not "real multitasking" because the REAL app does not run at the same time as other apps.

What the OS is allowing is a system call to launch a separate process/thread with a ton of restrictions on what it can or cannot do (it needs to do one of seven predefined things, no more). This is far closer to how Apple implemented push notifications than anything else. If you want a technical explanation, there's one of two ways Apple implements each of the 7 background threads:
1) It lets the app hook into preexisting system APIs for things like persistent audio (the "feature" that you can use the iPod controls to control things like Pandora comes from the fact that the audio stream is the same system functionality as the iPod, it's just temporarily replacing it).
2) It lets you implement "callbacks" -- functions that get called at regular intervals by the OS (this is how they implement things like location tracking, checking for messages, etc)

Neither are true multitasking. True multitasking means apps don't need to be specifically designed to work in the background -- any app you have will keep working whether it's in the background or foreground. This is how desktop PCs behave and how Android apps can behave.

[Hauldren Collider]

Asher has defeated me with his insider knowledge. I should probably get in the line behind Hauldren Collider and Nikolai for the masochistic dick suck fest.

You just wish you were as good at CS and UNIX as Asher or myself.

[Vanguard]

YES!!!

Well you'll be able to then! Just get your GPS coordinates!

[Vanguard]

It's not "real multitasking" because the REAL app does not run at the same time as other apps.

Sure it will. For something like Pandora, the "REAL app" is the code that streams and plays the music. The rest of the app is just an advertising delivery system.

The parts of an app that need to multitask within a phone-type environment will multitask. The parts that can be suspended will be suspended. Just like what happens during focus changes on any system, although this is, admittedly, a pretty extreme example.