It depends on how good the app developer is. There are many good apps that restarts at where you left. Some developers are lazy/inexperience and don't account for such events.
No need to throw insults at developers or toe the Apple party line. It doesn't matter that most apps can resume where I left off. It's just plain tedious waiting for apps to restart, not to mention having to poke around to find the different apps that I need to switch between. Even on the 3GS, many apps take several seconds to start. Then they'll ask if you want to continue where you left off. If apps could just be suspended (roughly in the UN*X sense of the word), it would be miles better than the current situation.
As a sign of just how much I want to make Apple and all its investors happy, I'm actually not asking for (more) multitasking.
Back to the multitasking question...It will be curious to see how the iPad handles iWork....Imagine you've just spent an hour writing a paper with the word processor and accidentally hit the home button. I can't imagine it would just loose your work. They'll have to address this issue...if not some kind of multitasking they'll need an auto save.
For all you haters out there be patient.... The Mac OS took ages to evolve (using OS 9 turned me off to Macs) I had no idea how much of a leap forwards OS X would be. To all the Android evangelists, as was said before, why are you wasting your breathe in an Apple forum? Just strange....
Do you have an iPhone and have you sent text messages? You can type out a text message, hit the home button, go back into the messaging app and the message will still be there, ready to send. Auto-save is practically a given for iWork.
No need to throw insults at developers or tow the Apple party line. It doesn't matter that most apps can resume where I left off. It's just plain tedious waiting for apps to restart, not to mention having to poke around to find the different apps that I need to switch between. Even on the 3GS, many apps take several seconds to start. Then they'll ask if you want to continue where you left off. If apps could just be suspended (roughly in the UN*X sense of the word), it would be miles better than the current situation.
I didn't insult anyone. There are lazy and inexperience developers everywhere. It is your responsibility as an end user and a buyer to get the most of your money. Apple provided everything a developer need to develop a desktop class apps and like any desktop app it is the responsibility of the developer to establish a quality standard, including how the app handle crashes and unexpected events.
I'm sure you see the obvious and clear difference in the every day usage of that old desktop vs a phone.
You cannot really just make a blanket statement because every app does not function the same way and every app does not use system resources the same way. Some developers will be better skilled at making their app run more efficiently than others.
The point is if/when Apple allows multitasking it will be with rules that force developers to do all of the hard work so that the end user does not have to deal with allocating system resources at all.
As to your first paragraph?no, not really. Like I said previously, go check out justanotheriphoneblog's review of using multifl0w (multitasking app) on a 3GS. The speed of the phone didn't slow down until he had 10-12 processes running in the background and a few were games such as Scrabble. As for battey life, he got the same as any other smartphone which was somewhere around 5 hours. Apple could easily allow just 5 apps to run in the background with minimal affect on performance or battery life.
As to you're second paragraph, there are very few apps that take up large amounts of memory in the background. In fact it is very little because it is doing nothing. Also, I could be mistaken, but doesn't the App Store reviewers check for serious memory leak issues?
If Apple may want the "perfect situation" to have true multitasking for the technologically ignorant then I suggest that they have a feature in settings that has multitasking off by default and give the power users (which is everyone on this forum) they power that they need The Wii-type owner will never even bother to touch Settings anyway.
If a streaming background app uses more than 10% CPU it is useless, because it is inefficient.
The amount of data couldn't be that high, because it is at most at WiFi g speed and thats not to hard to handle, decompressing the audio (because video is kind of strange without viewing it) shouldn't be hard either. Unless it is done inefficiently.
So, I think 10% should be enough for audio streams, but hey its just a number, it could be 40%, it could even be a dynamic constraint, depending on the need of the 'essential processes' than run on the device (iPhone).
I don't know why people are so focussed on streaming apps anyway. It Apple does introduce widgets, it would make far more sense for a streaming app to become a widget. Widgets would be able to run all the time when needed and could in theory be accessible without leaving your current app (this would depend on how they were implemented of course).
I didn't insult anyone. There are lazy and inexperience developers everywhere. It is your responsibility as an end user and a buyer to get the most of your money. Apple provided everything a developer need to develop a desktop class apps and like any desktop app it is the responsibility of the developer to establish a quality standard, including how the app handle crashes and unexpected events.
Yes, you were calling (some) developers lazy. No need. Most developers do seem to save state in their apps. It's the iPhone OS that's "broke"--no suspend feature.
Then why must you relaunch the app? If I have to relaunch the app then how am I mutitasking?
All of Apple's own apps multitask. It is just that the app's interface hasn't been launched. This is another element to multitasking that you are mentioning: fast-switching between open applications.
All of Apple's own apps multitask. It is just that the app's interface hasn't been launched. This is another element to multitasking that you are mentioning: fast-switching between open applications.
Your point about fast switching between running apps hits the nail on the head.
To be clear about Apple's own apps multitasking, note that none of Apple's App Store apps run in the background. They aren't showing favoritism to their apps, just excluding any App Store apps from in the background at this point.
Do you have an iPhone and have you sent text messages? You can type out a text message, hit the home button, go back into the messaging app and the message will still be there, ready to send. Auto-save is practically a given for iWork.
You're right, hadn't thought of that...true with email as well....
Will be interesting to watch the iPhone/iPad OS evolve...Assuming you have a lot of documents on your iPad, would you still launch the app and then find your doc inside, will there eventually be a My Documents icon where you can access everything, will it be something else....
App startup time on my 3GS is not a problem for me. Most of the apps start way faster than 2 seconds. You must realize that the network connection could be a part of the delay.
But I agree that suspending an App is a good solution. It could be that the current virtual memory setup is tuned for flash memory. This could mean that paging out to flash is restricted to reduce the memory writes. And this in turn restricts the amount of virtual memory and the number of apps that can be open at the same time.
I don't know this for sure, I'm not an Apple engineer, but flash memory is restricted in memory writes (even modern flash) and tuning the OS for this is essential, as another big OS software maker has found out the hard way.
This is your opinion. It doesn't make it correct. Android has lots of problems. In a couple of years, every manufacturer will have its own version that will only be partly compatible with the others. It's been happening already. Google has already sent out a notice on how to program for the different versions, and as you said, Android is just getting started.
What are the problems? List it, please
Own version? Are you kidding me? Does iMac and Mac Book has different Mac OS? Or may be a Dell desktop and a Lenovo notebook has different version of Windows 7?
Yes, you were calling (some) developers lazy. No need. Most developers do seem to save state in their apps. It's the iPhone OS that's "broke"--no suspend feature.
I find it amazing that you think it is insulting to call lazy developers lazy but it is OK for you to say the iPhone OS is "broke" because it is not doing the developers job in remembering where their apps left. It is also amazing that you admit that many apps do remember where you left and many don't and still think it is Apple's mistake not the developers of those apps.
I am a developer and I have several apps available in the App Store and I can tell you this. Apple provide the necessary tools for developers to save the status of their apps when they terminate. Some developers, which could be a 12 year-old in his mom basement, ignore this because they are lazy (didn't read the documentations), inexperienced, or both. Maybe you find it difficult to believe but there are lazy and inexperienced doctors, engineers, accountants, ... etc.
A single-tasking operating system, like the original 1984 Macintosh or the Palm OS line of PDAs, is simply incapable of running multiple concurrent applications due to design constraints.
I can't tell about Mac OS, but MS DOS could run several applications at the same time
I am a developer and I have several apps available in the App Store and I can tell you this. Apple provide the necessary tools for developers to save the status of their apps when they terminate. Some developers, which could be a 12 year-old in his mom basement, ignore this because they are lazy (didn't read the documentations) or inexperienced.
I thought that one of the testing criteria for the App Store was that an app should save its state correctly when it shuts down. Is that right or am I getting my platforms mixed up?
I thought that one of the testing criteria for the App Store was that an app should save its state correctly when it shuts down. Is that right or am I getting my platforms mixed up?
Will be interesting to watch the iPhone/iPad OS evolve...Assuming you have a lot of documents on your iPad, would you still launch the app and then find your doc inside, will there eventually be a My Documents icon where you can access everything, will it be something else....
You will not see a documents icon and it simply isn't needed. Apple is intent on hiding the file structure from the user. Why would you need to see the files anyway? What I do hope they include is a documents library that other apps can see, much like the photos library.
You will not see a documents icon and it simply isn't needed. Apple is intent on hiding the file structure from the user. Why would you need to see the files anyway? What I do hope they include is a documents library that other apps can see, much like the photos library.
This will be available in the iPad (iPhone OS 3.2) but not sure if it will carry over to the iPhone and iPod Touch as well.
I'm not betting on it. I'm sold on Google's Android. It's just a matter of what phone to pick. I know it won't be on AT&T. At least until they get their mobile 3G, 4G, LTE up to speed.
ATT has announced that they will soon carry 5 Android phones. I can't wait. I have dust under my iPhone screen and so I can get a new refurb to sell on eBay any time until June. I hope that ATT will sell at least one Android phone that will be a better device than my iPhone.
I read a great posting today. The iPhone is like the pre-teen kids phone. Easy to use but can't do enough to hurt them. Android is for the mature smartphone user. Elegant, Intuitive and a work horse that you can still have fun with.
Apple doesn't care about the mature smartphone user. That much is obvious, given that so much of their design seems to be intended to keep naive users happy.
Comments
It depends on how good the app developer is. There are many good apps that restarts at where you left. Some developers are lazy/inexperience and don't account for such events.
No need to throw insults at developers or toe the Apple party line. It doesn't matter that most apps can resume where I left off. It's just plain tedious waiting for apps to restart, not to mention having to poke around to find the different apps that I need to switch between. Even on the 3GS, many apps take several seconds to start. Then they'll ask if you want to continue where you left off. If apps could just be suspended (roughly in the UN*X sense of the word), it would be miles better than the current situation.
As a sign of just how much I want to make Apple and all its investors happy, I'm actually not asking for (more) multitasking.
Def getting heated here...
Back to the multitasking question...It will be curious to see how the iPad handles iWork....Imagine you've just spent an hour writing a paper with the word processor and accidentally hit the home button. I can't imagine it would just loose your work. They'll have to address this issue...if not some kind of multitasking they'll need an auto save.
For all you haters out there be patient.... The Mac OS took ages to evolve (using OS 9 turned me off to Macs) I had no idea how much of a leap forwards OS X would be. To all the Android evangelists, as was said before, why are you wasting your breathe in an Apple forum? Just strange....
Do you have an iPhone and have you sent text messages? You can type out a text message, hit the home button, go back into the messaging app and the message will still be there, ready to send. Auto-save is practically a given for iWork.
No need to throw insults at developers or tow the Apple party line. It doesn't matter that most apps can resume where I left off. It's just plain tedious waiting for apps to restart, not to mention having to poke around to find the different apps that I need to switch between. Even on the 3GS, many apps take several seconds to start. Then they'll ask if you want to continue where you left off. If apps could just be suspended (roughly in the UN*X sense of the word), it would be miles better than the current situation.
I didn't insult anyone. There are lazy and inexperience developers everywhere. It is your responsibility as an end user and a buyer to get the most of your money. Apple provided everything a developer need to develop a desktop class apps and like any desktop app it is the responsibility of the developer to establish a quality standard, including how the app handle crashes and unexpected events.
I'm sure you see the obvious and clear difference in the every day usage of that old desktop vs a phone.
You cannot really just make a blanket statement because every app does not function the same way and every app does not use system resources the same way. Some developers will be better skilled at making their app run more efficiently than others.
The point is if/when Apple allows multitasking it will be with rules that force developers to do all of the hard work so that the end user does not have to deal with allocating system resources at all.
As to your first paragraph?no, not really. Like I said previously, go check out justanotheriphoneblog's review of using multifl0w (multitasking app) on a 3GS. The speed of the phone didn't slow down until he had 10-12 processes running in the background and a few were games such as Scrabble. As for battey life, he got the same as any other smartphone which was somewhere around 5 hours. Apple could easily allow just 5 apps to run in the background with minimal affect on performance or battery life.
As to you're second paragraph, there are very few apps that take up large amounts of memory in the background. In fact it is very little because it is doing nothing. Also, I could be mistaken, but doesn't the App Store reviewers check for serious memory leak issues?
If Apple may want the "perfect situation" to have true multitasking for the technologically ignorant then I suggest that they have a feature in settings that has multitasking off by default and give the power users (which is everyone on this forum) they power that they need The Wii-type owner will never even bother to touch Settings anyway.
If a streaming background app uses more than 10% CPU it is useless, because it is inefficient.
The amount of data couldn't be that high, because it is at most at WiFi g speed and thats not to hard to handle, decompressing the audio (because video is kind of strange without viewing it) shouldn't be hard either. Unless it is done inefficiently.
So, I think 10% should be enough for audio streams, but hey its just a number, it could be 40%, it could even be a dynamic constraint, depending on the need of the 'essential processes' than run on the device (iPhone).
I don't know why people are so focussed on streaming apps anyway. It Apple does introduce widgets, it would make far more sense for a streaming app to become a widget. Widgets would be able to run all the time when needed and could in theory be accessible without leaving your current app (this would depend on how they were implemented of course).
I didn't insult anyone. There are lazy and inexperience developers everywhere. It is your responsibility as an end user and a buyer to get the most of your money. Apple provided everything a developer need to develop a desktop class apps and like any desktop app it is the responsibility of the developer to establish a quality standard, including how the app handle crashes and unexpected events.
Yes, you were calling (some) developers lazy. No need. Most developers do seem to save state in their apps. It's the iPhone OS that's "broke"--no suspend feature.
Then why must you relaunch the app? If I have to relaunch the app then how am I mutitasking?
All of Apple's own apps multitask. It is just that the app's interface hasn't been launched. This is another element to multitasking that you are mentioning: fast-switching between open applications.
All of Apple's own apps multitask. It is just that the app's interface hasn't been launched. This is another element to multitasking that you are mentioning: fast-switching between open applications.
Your point about fast switching between running apps hits the nail on the head.
To be clear about Apple's own apps multitasking, note that none of Apple's App Store apps run in the background. They aren't showing favoritism to their apps, just excluding any App Store apps from in the background at this point.
Do you have an iPhone and have you sent text messages? You can type out a text message, hit the home button, go back into the messaging app and the message will still be there, ready to send. Auto-save is practically a given for iWork.
You're right, hadn't thought of that...true with email as well....
Will be interesting to watch the iPhone/iPad OS evolve...Assuming you have a lot of documents on your iPad, would you still launch the app and then find your doc inside, will there eventually be a My Documents icon where you can access everything, will it be something else....
But I agree that suspending an App is a good solution. It could be that the current virtual memory setup is tuned for flash memory. This could mean that paging out to flash is restricted to reduce the memory writes. And this in turn restricts the amount of virtual memory and the number of apps that can be open at the same time.
I don't know this for sure, I'm not an Apple engineer, but flash memory is restricted in memory writes (even modern flash) and tuning the OS for this is essential, as another big OS software maker has found out the hard way.
J.
This is your opinion. It doesn't make it correct. Android has lots of problems. In a couple of years, every manufacturer will have its own version that will only be partly compatible with the others. It's been happening already. Google has already sent out a notice on how to program for the different versions, and as you said, Android is just getting started.
What are the problems? List it, please
Own version? Are you kidding me? Does iMac and Mac Book has different Mac OS? Or may be a Dell desktop and a Lenovo notebook has different version of Windows 7?
Yes, you were calling (some) developers lazy. No need. Most developers do seem to save state in their apps. It's the iPhone OS that's "broke"--no suspend feature.
I find it amazing that you think it is insulting to call lazy developers lazy but it is OK for you to say the iPhone OS is "broke" because it is not doing the developers job in remembering where their apps left. It is also amazing that you admit that many apps do remember where you left and many don't and still think it is Apple's mistake not the developers of those apps.
I am a developer and I have several apps available in the App Store and I can tell you this. Apple provide the necessary tools for developers to save the status of their apps when they terminate. Some developers, which could be a 12 year-old in his mom basement, ignore this because they are lazy (didn't read the documentations), inexperienced, or both. Maybe you find it difficult to believe but there are lazy and inexperienced doctors, engineers, accountants, ... etc.
A single-tasking operating system, like the original 1984 Macintosh or the Palm OS line of PDAs, is simply incapable of running multiple concurrent applications due to design constraints.
I can't tell about Mac OS, but MS DOS could run several applications at the same time
I am a developer and I have several apps available in the App Store and I can tell you this. Apple provide the necessary tools for developers to save the status of their apps when they terminate. Some developers, which could be a 12 year-old in his mom basement, ignore this because they are lazy (didn't read the documentations) or inexperienced.
I thought that one of the testing criteria for the App Store was that an app should save its state correctly when it shuts down. Is that right or am I getting my platforms mixed up?
I thought that one of the testing criteria for the App Store was that an app should save its state correctly when it shuts down. Is that right or am I getting my platforms mixed up?
Apple recommend it but they don't require it.
Will be interesting to watch the iPhone/iPad OS evolve...Assuming you have a lot of documents on your iPad, would you still launch the app and then find your doc inside, will there eventually be a My Documents icon where you can access everything, will it be something else....
You will not see a documents icon and it simply isn't needed. Apple is intent on hiding the file structure from the user. Why would you need to see the files anyway? What I do hope they include is a documents library that other apps can see, much like the photos library.
You will not see a documents icon and it simply isn't needed. Apple is intent on hiding the file structure from the user. Why would you need to see the files anyway? What I do hope they include is a documents library that other apps can see, much like the photos library.
This will be available in the iPad (iPhone OS 3.2) but not sure if it will carry over to the iPhone and iPod Touch as well.
I'm not betting on it. I'm sold on Google's Android. It's just a matter of what phone to pick. I know it won't be on AT&T. At least until they get their mobile 3G, 4G, LTE up to speed.
ATT has announced that they will soon carry 5 Android phones. I can't wait. I have dust under my iPhone screen and so I can get a new refurb to sell on eBay any time until June. I hope that ATT will sell at least one Android phone that will be a better device than my iPhone.
I wonder how many other folks feel the same way?
ATT has announced that they will soon carry 5 Android phones.
I think they will carry the Palm Pre Plus, too.
I read a great posting today. The iPhone is like the pre-teen kids phone. Easy to use but can't do enough to hurt them. Android is for the mature smartphone user. Elegant, Intuitive and a work horse that you can still have fun with.
Apple doesn't care about the mature smartphone user. That much is obvious, given that so much of their design seems to be intended to keep naive users happy.