Apple set to reveal multitasking, iAd with iPhone OS 4.0 - report - Page 2

iNoThankYou.

This would be awesome. I can't figure out why this is not enabled. Would be great when I'm at the gym, and want to go back to that track that had me in the zone.

Look up 'sarcasm'. You might learn something.

He suggested that Apple sell a system which was 100% user configurable - no standards, just a framework for the user to configure it however they wish. I merely took that argument to the extreme.

The double-tap Home button search does pretty good...

It finds stuff in mail, calendars, etc. (not for iWork file names or content, though ).

*

Me too...It was a total turnoff!

How long have you been using Apple products?

Excessive preferences to enable/disable features, and especially stuff like appearance themes, add complexity, which is the antithesis of what Apple does. Brace yourself, because it's not gonna happen to the extent that you want.

You mean AARP card for the early-bird buffet special?

I can't believe the people on here who seem to believe that Apple is just going to start spamming them with unwanted ads!

Could this be Apple's way of giving you subsidized 3G service? What if there were two plans: The one you have now and one that is 50% less expensive with iAd advertising? Following the money, Apple could collect money from advertisers, pay some of that to the carrier to subsidize the lower rate plan, and attract customers who might have been unwilling to commit to the full-price data plan as it now exists.

What if you had the option of month-to-month service with no commitment if you opted in for the iAd content? Don't want the ads? Sign a two year service agreement.

There are all kinds of scenarios in which this could be something desirable to some consumers while not impacting those who wish to opt out. Let's wait to see what the actual iAd service (if real) turns out to be.

Bing!

That would be great for many devs. The pain to save state and restore it grows exponentially with the complexity of your app (amount and type of screens, user input in progress restored "a la Facebook" et al, etc. ), and you don't have too much time to save/restore. But that approach won't help Pandora or Skype, will it? Those NEED to stay awake.

I'd rather propose having the bulk of the app go to sleep, except for possibly one special "sentinel" thread especially designed for that purpose (a fictional "NSBackgroundThread", to say) that stays active in the background monitoring networks (not user input for sure), etc, with limited resources (some memory to store data, but NO UI objects at all, no UIViews, no UIViewControllers, no Events).

If Apple makes such a feature available with good documentation and several code samples, it shouldn't be that hard to implement in your app. Just dreaming...

That would surely be an "iPhone only" plan since the iPad will already be month-to-month. I wonder how they would manage the gap. They are two different devices, I know, but it still sounds awkward.

While I understand the choice to maintain data with each application, for simplicity sake, I wish that there was a central storage option that all applications could access. iDisk works for me, but not everybody is willing to pay for it. Also, onboard storage is faster. I've had files on my iPhone that I wanted to access by another application. I had to upload to the cloud and re-download to the other app. What a pain. This will be more important on the iPad.

For multitasking on the iPhone, I would be happy with a switcher program, as provided with the old Mac OS. Not multitasking, but simply suspension. When I switch back and forth between apps now, I have to wait on multiple reloads. That is particularly annoying when the files are on iDisk. A switcher mechanism should be available for all apps. It would provide a pseudo-multitasking that would not kill your battery, and if managed properly, would not hurt performance.

I would probably have a different opinion for the iPad (which I do not own [yet]). That is likely to be used more like a netbook. The ability to shove something in the background while it is processing is pretty basic to a modern OS.

Cocoa Touch is fun, believe me. Managed memory is a pain at first, but having it imposed on you promotes better programming practices in the long run than garbage collection IMHO. And I believe no garbage collector can be smart enough to understand your code at a high level and know better than you what's needed and what isn't when and where. And you do away with the performance hit. It's a win-win. Once you get used to all the [[Me hates:this] because: itSucks];

I am fully aware it won't happen. That's why jailbreaking exists. I just find it funny that Chairman Mao ZeJobs thinks he knows what's best for his buyers. He doesn't. To answer your first question, I've been using them since I was very young.

There's always the risk of a malicious app saving a file in that directory, one "specially crafted" to exploit some known (guessed?) vulnerability in some other app. Me Paranoid much?

maybe now we can have an app that makes you think you are playing a game but you are really deleting things off your device

yes, the jokes could be endless ... "Why has my windscreen gone blue when I changed tracks?"

Actually, he apparently does.

Apple is consistently rated #1 (by far) in customer satisfaction among computer companies. That means that, on the whole, Apple does a better job of meeting customer needs than any other company in the industry.

One of the ways they do this is by keeping things simple. Apple would rather have 100 functions that work properly and work well together than 10,000 functions that are a jumbled mess and don't work well. If you need the 101st function, then the product might not be for you, but Apple was one of the first in the industry to realize that you can't be all things to all people - and that has accounted for a great deal of their success.

So, while no one would claim that Apple can always make EVERYONE happy, they do a better job than anyone else.

Sounds like Android to me.

In my opinion, iPhone and probably iPad are a success because they leave almost nothing to the user, so everything works simply and cleanly. The more customization they add, the more complex things will become.

All this means is that Jobs knows what Fanbois want. MS market share is much higher than Apple's so it would seem that MS knows more about what the average consumer wants.

Although Apple seems to have the market cornered when it comes to MP3 players, so yes, Apple knows what consumers want when it comes to an MP3 player. Computers and phones? not so much.

I agree with you here. The whole "I want a file system" discussion is in reality the question of whether or not they should design their products for techies or general users.

I'm more than happy to not have a file system, as long as there is a sensible way to manage documents I create in Pages, I couldn't care less about where it actually is on the device.

The one thing I would like to see is wireless management of content. I don't mind the fact that managing what's on my iPod Touch, and iPad (when I get one) is mostly done on the Mac, but it does seem a bit last year that I need to plug the thing into the computer to be able to do that - I don't know why I can't do it on my wireless network.

Based on Apple's financial performance over the past ten years, I'd say he does.

Sincerely,

iAAPLshareholderLaughingAllTheWayToTheBank

I thought Apple had bigger market share for smartphones than Microsoft have?

I think you are right in that Jobs knows what a certain segment of the market wants, but I wouldn't say it's just Apple fans. Apples skill is knowing what general users want, and even more, the general users who are at the high value end of the market.

I agree that the name doesn't quite hit you straight off, but but with iPod being so well established the association was too strong to let pass. Also if, as Apple believe, this is the first of a whole new class of device present in every home, it will soon develop a generic name. A 'pad' or a 'slate'? My money is on the former.

Mind you, the 'Naming Department' made (or perhaps was compelled) the change from Powerbook, which worked so well on several levels, to MacBook Pro which er... doesn't.


"A rose is a rose is a rose."

Gertrude Stein

Apple knows what ITS CUSTOMERS want. The fact that there are more people who are not Apple customers is irrelevant to that issue.

As a consumer, I fully support the idea that companies (such as Apple) should impose a single way to do things. When I buy a product, I don't want to have to decide between multiple ways the interface can work, or whatever. That decision is work! I'm paying someone else to do that work for me. I'd much rather be told "This is how you use it" than "You can use it one of many ways, and change it around in Settings".

The article implies (and it makes sense) that the ad api will be there for developers. It does not mean that you'll be seeing ads all over the phone from core apps.

If a particular irritates you with ads, give it a low score, and get rid of it. Easy enough. That's one thing I love about the app store. User feedback and scores right there for everyone to see.

Multi-tasking I could do without, but if it floats someone's boat and doesn't kill my batter (I'm hoping I can just turn it off for non-core apps), then no harm no foul.

I hope that iPhone OS 4.0 will allow us to QUICKLY enable/disable Bluetooth/3G/WiFi/GPS, etc. Right now, it's pretty cumbersome just to enable/disable a few items -- you have to go dig through the options pages.

That's one of the reasons why I jailbreak (in addition to tethering). With Sbsettings, I have quick access to all connectivity options with a simple swipe across the top bar:

Ha! I clicked on the comments in order to post exactly the same thing. (you were quick with 2nd post)
Yeah; just a checkbox in the Settings or something:
"Universal Multitasking - ON"
"Universal Multitasking - OFF"

I will be very loud in my complaining if battery life is short because of multitasking. I will get up on my roof and scream, "why is battery life short in 4.0 because of multitasking when 3.x jailbroken iPhones with multitasking don't experience battery issues?"

My guess is that Apple will be able to do an even better job than the jailbreakers when it comes to efficient multitasking.

Me too.

Actually, I hope Apple is looking very closely at the jailbreaking community and adopting many more of their good ideas in addition to SBSettings, I'd like to see:
Categories (folders for apps)
iTunes WiFi sharing
And so many other things I often forget I hacked until I get a new unjailbroken iPhone and realize I miss all the features of my old one until the new jailbreak is available.

What is wrong with you?
Apple is not your government. They are not your mommy.
They are a bunch of people who make things that THEY think are really cool (Jobs said this in the 1980s; he still says it today). It turns out a lot of other people think their stuff is really cool too.
If you don't like what they put out; go buy something that you do like. Just stop whining and crying because "Steve" won't do what YOU want him to. Contrary to what you believe, he is not here to do what you think is best for his buyers.

Ignoring that startlingly bad UI design for a moment ... why exactly would you want such instant and direct access to Bluetooth/3G/WiFi/GPS settings?

I've never met or heard of anyone who wants this (which is why it will never be in the OS), but I'm curious why whatever tiny group of individuals that *do* want it, do so.

The wireless networking features are all automatic, as they are in most phones. Why does anyone want to take a feature that pretty much works flawlessly in an automatic way, and manage it themselves? Not only that, why would it be so damned important to manage these automatic services that you'd want to have it on your main screen like that with a system wide gesture to implement it?

The only possible reason I can see is paranoia or trying to save battery life, but given the battery of the iPhone is probably the best in the industry, I'm leaning towards the reason being simple paranoia (like turning off GPS so "Big Brother" can't track you or whatever).

It just seems incredibly weird to me that you want this feature so badly.

And therein lies the argument.

Funny that people who desperately want their computer to be able to achieve the same thing a thousand different ways are happy to be able to sit in a car that will have a steering wheel to pick direction, push the pedal on the right to make it go, the one in the middle to make it stop and the one on the left to change gear!

I dread the day that you become allowed to pick which pedal makes a car stop

I totally agree.

I think I might have been a bit vague in making my point. All I'm saying is that I hope they don't turn the iPhone OS into "Linux on a phone" which is what some people seem to want.

There is a need for a documents folder or something similar and drag and drop access to it when the mobile device is mounted on another computer (hopefully regardless of whether it's your computer or not). There is also a need for some apps (Internet radio being the obvious one) to run in the background.

I'm hoping this can be done without introducing a management regime for things that I don't want to manage, and I'm somewhat of a computer expert/tech. I think the *average* iPhone user (non-techie), is in the same boat and doesn't want or need anything beyond simple access.

The people using the fact that a bit of multi-tasking goodness and file access is necessary, as a feint for the argument that the whole OS should be opened up or "Linuxified" are being disingenuous IMO.

The fact that you use Windows as your example of good UI design explains a great deal.

In fact, Windows uses about the worst possible UI design. If one started from the presumption that doing it the Windows way is always wrong, they wouldn't be too far off.

Ignoring that, saying that something is right just because someone else does it that way is a silly circular argument. Apple consistently pushes for simple, clean solutions -- and their incredible user satisfaction scores support that. It doesn't mean that it's better for everyone, but it does support the contention that it's a very viable strategy. Given that, it only makes sense to continue that strategy rather than simply abandon it every time a small group of whiners suggests something different.


Not weird at all - you're just not getting the mentality.

There are 3 groups of users who are adamantly opposed to Apple's way of doing things:

1. People who just oppose everything Apple does on general principles. They may not have any logic or reasoning on their side, but they'll completely oppose ANYTHING that is done Apple's way.

2. People who have a vested interest in doing things the Windows (or Blackberry) way and can't accept anything different. They may be users who are scared to death to learn something new or IT people who make their livings because the complexity of other systems gives them a demi-God role. Either way, they are opposed to change.

3. A much smaller, but more vocal number of people who are pure geeks. They want 100% access to every item of the hardware and software so they can tweak away. Apple's system is designed for the average user and tweakability is a little more hidden. I don't have any problem with people in this group. The problem I DO have is their belief that their group is large enough to matter to Apple - and their belief that their wishes are more important than the millions of non-geeks.

Tethering is really bad. Most iPhone users don't really know about how clumsy it is since they have AT&T and don't even have that option, or simply don't need it. When tethering is enabled, your iPhone tethers whenever you plug it in to your computer, even if you just want to sync your device. Because of this you would want to keep tethering off until you want want to use it. Unfortunately turning tethering on and off is rather time consuming and requires you to navigate multiple levels of settings before getting the option to turn it off or on. I would much appreciate a quicker way of doing it.

Well I think there's a difference between customizing a phone and a car. There aren't federal standards on how a UI on a phone should work. I must say though, and I know you didn't do it, but today is the first time I have been quoted so much. Oh well. After all, the point of these boards are to share opinions.

http://247wallst.com/2010/04/06/appl...crosofts-soon/

Apple's market cap is $208B, one place behind Microsoft's $257B and Exxon Mobil's $322B.

http://www.tuaw.com/2010/02/08/micro...ments-for-now/

Apple has $39.8B CASH in the bank; Microsoft has $40.4B.

http://ycharts.com/search?q=MSFT%20v...APL&c=revenues

and Apple appears to have more revenue.

Looks to me like Apple knows MORE about what consumers want than Microsoft, as evidenced by the fact that people spend more money buying Apple stuff than they do Microsoft stuff.

As for phones: dude, open your eyes and look around. Everybody and their brother is chasing the iPhone in terms of look-and-feel, the App store, etc. Every new phone release is the new "iPhone killer" - except that the iPhone isn't dead yet. More people want the iPhone OS on their phones than any other smartphone OS ( http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/artic..._market_share/ ). To say that Apple doesn't know what consumers want in their phones is to ignore every single relevant fact about what phones actual consumers really buy.

Yes, there are more Windows computers sold than Macs, by a lot. But we all know why - Macs aren't cheap (interestingly, Microsoft's net and gross profit margins are both higher than Apple's). Of course, MS doesn't sell computers, just the OS. But Apple gets 91% of all sales of computers over $1,000 - dude, 91%! - which covers just about all of Apple's line. When you spend more than $1,000 on a computer, you are 10 times more likely to buy an Apple! That's too many sales to be brainwashing, that's recognition that value is different from price. That's people choosing to spend more money to get an Apple machine. And Apple has the highest customer satisfaction in the industry, which means people are not only spending more money but are happy with what they get for their money.

Apple has a higher market share than Microsoft in several areas, the biggest of which would be MP3 players and phones. However, there are software areas where Apple leads despite have a lower market share for the platform (Final Cut).

However there's a difference between knowing what the average consumer wants and having market share as a goal.

A great example that people seem to forget is that it was Apple with a GUI OS versus Microsoft with a command-line OS, where Microsoft had much higher market share, but consumers *wanted* a GUI OS. Thus, Microsoft adopted a GUI approach.

PCs with Windows may sell more in volume than the Mac today, but is volume really the right measurement? Do consumers not want a BMW or other premium automobile? Take a look at Apple and its profit as a computer maker and compare that to others. Compare the satisfaction ratings. Read the surveys on why people have PCs instead of Macs...IT policy, price, software lock-in, are all higher on the list than personal preference of OS.

Also, it's funny you used the word "consumer". Microsoft does much better in enterprise markets than consumer markets. They've traditionally lost money in areas that are consumer only. Their record here is quite poor indeed. It's not a coincidence that they've been focusing so much on consumer products and services during this past decade while their market cap has fallen from $590 billion to a little over $250 billion.

Meanwhile, Apple, who has been focused on consumer products and services, has had their market cap go from $16 billion to over $215 billion during the same time period.

In the past decade, what has Microsoft produced that's been a hit or at least desirable by consumers (as opposed to enterprise) other than the Xbox? (and even the Xbox still has a net loss overall).