Imho multitasking on pda/cellphones are only a bad thing. Important apps already mustitask by default. We will a lot of noob users who destory their batter in 1 hour because they have a lot of apps multitasking without knowing it.
Sorry but this is a bad news if true, that's just my opinion and i know many users who would want to have multitasking but usually they don't gave nay good reason... just because their computer multitask.
The stagnation of the iPhone market share and the failure to update the OS might be linked, given that other OS's are surging in popularity. I don't know the answer. Others here have a host of explanations as to why Apple is, for example, falling further behind RIM.
I asked what the heck is taking so long in catching up to the competition vis a vis OS capabilities, and pointed out that ground is being lost in the meantime.
You're a troll as already stated. I hope for you that you are a troll, otherwise you are just stupid and/or live in another world.
Apple is leading the way, the things you mentition are not in iphone os for a reason. maybe they will be implemented... but let's see how flash is working if present in other pda or phones, and about multitasking.. it is a battery killer and only few users would have advantages in it.
It is an insult because you just referred to my mother as "dumb" and a "moron" simply because she doesn't care about finding with gadgets. She has has plenty of other skills and advanced degrees, though not in computer science. She doesn't care about or need to know how every app will affect her iPhone, she only needs to know that it will work as advertised so she can focus on the other things in life that do matter to her.
Apple didn't revitalize the smartphone industry and make every mobile OS maker switch gears to follow Apple's lead because they were making fisher price toys. Cars with automatic transmissions weren't designed for people who are too stupid to learn to drive a manual. Restaurants weren't created for people who are too dumb to cook for themselves.
So you're saying your mom wouldn't understand, and would complain when her iphone told her she had too many apps open at once?
The trick here is for Apple to make it easier to close apps than to keep them running in the background. The way you exit an app is just by hitting the home button right? Well if they implemented something so hitting the home button just stuck the app in the background, then yes, I could see how people would be upset when they went to open another app and the iphone said it needed to close one of the apps in the background.
So imagine making a complete swipe from the top left corner down to the bottom right hand corner to stick the program into the background. The imagine some kind of task manager at the home screen (perhaps to the left of the search screen) that showed the running apps, and allowed you to close them easily from that screen.
Why is any of what I say unreasonable? How could any of that be confusing for someone like your mother, who has multiple degrees and clearly has a fully functional brain (and obviously a woman of decent intelligence since she didn't raise a complete fool )
edit:
BTW with bing, coreplayer (with night at the museum open and paused), facebook (connected), Midomi, morphgear (running super mario world), Opera Mobile 10 (at wikipedia's site), resco file explorer, and windows live open (connected and ready for conversations) I'm still at 90% battery life, and my phone still runs fine.
I've owned an iPhone since about a week after it first released. Finally upgraded that first generation phone a few months ago to the 3GS. I have to say, it's come a long way, in many subtle and meaningful ways. It's also improved in many obvious ways (camera and video being one obvious area).
Is it the end-all, be-all of smart phones? The only kid on the block? No, of course not. N1 and Droid are respectable alternatives, and there are others. I have tried quite a few, but find them relatively inconvenient, and far less intuitive than my iPhone (and it's not just a familiarity thing). Still, they are worth considering and present good competition.
I have a couple of questions and concerns about "multi-tasking" on the iPhone. (Mind you, I am thinking device-specific here. I understand the benefits of multi-tasking both 'conceptually' and tangibly on my main workstations... I'm asking specific to this device... thanks.)
First, what can I really expect to gain from it? No-one has yet given me a clear and directly DEMONSTRABLE benefit of having multi-tasking fully enabled on my iPhone. Given how well the iPhone functions now, how would that functionality demonstrably improve? I need tangible examples, please...
Second, battery life. We're already pushing the envelope here on small devices. I don't want my battery life shortened even more. I'm sure someone will give good examples of "multi-tasking on iPhone" benefits. Can you also show how that benefit outweighs the inevitable loss of battery life?
Third, performance. With more apps running concurrently, things are going to slow down. More instructions competing for cycles... it's the nature of the beast.
So, multi-tasking will surely reduce battery life and performance, right? I'd really need to see tangible benefits that are worth the tradeoff in lost performance, battery life, and security before I sign on to "fixing what ain't broke" in my daily use of this device.
Now, the iPad could be another story entirely. But, I haven't got the experience there to compare...
I'm sorry, you're right. I falsely assumed you were a bitter Droid owner....Now your attitude REALLY makes sense?To be a fan of Palm and to have to watch their complete and total implosion when the Pre and Pixi had so many good ideas? You poor thing iGenius! I really pity you.
I'm not a "fan" of corporations. Not even sports teams. Not any actors, or any particular brand of beer. I own a Honda, and I'm satisfied, but next time around I'll look at other good brands too. I used to own Honda motorcycles, but these days, I think other companies have been making better ones.
If I were to buy a Triumph or a BMW or a Harley, there's not a chance in hell that I'd buy logo-ed apparel. My identity is not bound by corporate or product sales figures, nor by advertising the products I choose to buy.
I wanted the Pre to do well, but when it became apparent that they would be unlikely to gain any critical mass, I lost interest. It saddens me to see how badly Palm is doing, but I don't really care much.
I've addressed this point before... This is exactly how Apple separates themselves from the competition... For two years people said that without cut/copy/paste the iPhone was dead....in OS3 they implemented it better than any other smart phone. They do the R&D until they figure out the best solution. I'm sure multi-tasking will be done in the same manner....
100% agree.
I think it's pretty hard to figure out the nuts and bolts of how Apple will actually implement multitasking so I'm not going to try. I'll just wait until it comes out.
I have been thinking about this issue a bit since so many of the naysayers attack the iPad for it's lack of multitasking. Basically, I think about 95% of iPhone users are fine without multitasking. Pandora and IM clients seem to be the biggest reason for requiring multitasking. I suspect that if Apple could have only two apps running at one time that this would resolve 80% of the remaining issues. They'll still be criticized but for not having "true" multitasking, but from a practical perspective, multitasking will no longer be a problem for all but a few users on the fringe.
In Settings » General » Home you can change the result for the double-click. I have mine set to Camera as it's the fastest way to get to the camera when you need it.
I know that I could change it, but I need that functionality for the iPod lurking in my iPhone!
Then again, I actually miss that I could navigate my traditional iPods sight-unseen in my jacket pocket via the clickwheel; that was lost with the iPhone OS touch interface. Knowing where the iPhone home button is and having the play/pause/skip buttons on the cord of my in-ear earbuds is my closest approximation.
It is an insult because you just referred to my mother as "dumb" and a "moron" simply because she doesn't care about finding with gadgets. She has has plenty of other skills and advanced degrees, though not in computer science. She doesn't care about or need to know how every app will affect her iPhone, she only needs to know that it will work as advertised so she can focus on the other things in life that do matter to her.
Apple didn't revitalize the smartphone industry and make every mobile OS maker switch gears to follow Apple's lead because they were making fisher price toys. Cars with automatic transmissions weren't designed for people who are too stupid to learn to drive a manual. Restaurants weren't created for people who are too dumb to cook for themselves.
I agree. We all assume that everyone knows all about computers. But most of my friends just want to use a device that works. If I told them they had to manage which programs were running and which ones were not, they probably wouldn't use it. It's just too much to think about.
Most people have a thousand other things on their minds (kids, bills, jobs, TV, etc). They bought the iphone because they wanted something that just worked. Multi-tasking sounds great for us who spend most of our lives on a computer. But think for once about your friends and relatives. I hope Apple is thinking about them. Because once they implement multi-tasking, the haters will just jump to some other missing feature in the hope to force Apple to follow what they consider is the perfect business plan.
android is turning out to be an OS nightmare with how it's fragmenting into different OS's with different UIs.
What's the point with the fragmentation? Does it stop you from using the platform? Or does it stop developers from developing new applications? As a developer I can tell you that there is no problem to create an application that will work on almost every Android device.
"Google's Android was the big gainer for the period -- seeing its market share rise to 7.1 percent, from 2.8 percent previously. Apple's iPhone experienced a small gain, edging above 25 percent, from 24.8 percent before."
"Google's Android was the big gainer for the period -- seeing its market share rise to 7.1 percent, from 2.8 percent previously. Apple's iPhone experienced a small gain, edging above 25 percent, from 24.8 percent before."
I agree. We all assume that everyone knows all about computers. But most of my friends just want to use a device that works. If I told them they had to manage which programs were running and which ones were not, they probably wouldn't use it. It's just too much to think about.
Most people have a thousand other things on their minds (kids, bills, jobs, TV, etc). They bought the iphone because they wanted something that just worked. Multi-tasking sounds great for us who spend most of our lives on a computer. But think for once about your friends and relatives. I hope Apple is thinking about them. Because once they implement multi-tasking, the haters will just jump to some other missing feature in the hope to force Apple to follow what they consider is the perfect business plan.
ok perhaps I was a bit harsh lol. Not morons, not unintelligent, just the least techy.
All this inane discussion about how Apple might implement multitasking and switching...the solution is already out there. Spend five minutes with a Palm Pre and you have a wonderful, elegant and intuitive solution to multitasking.
It's simple. It's brilliant. It works. Flick up to see your apps (they show up as smaller windows), swipe left or right to slide through the apps, flick up on an app to kill it, click an app to have it come to full screen.
As Ireland wrote: Next
Bah, Apple shouldn't do that. They should never ever do anything remotely resembling Palm. Most of all this since Apple would have to make a hardware design change. How about this:
4 point swipe down to expose. Open GUI apps appear with close "x" buttons in the upper left in the Snow Leopard fashion. Tap app to bring to front. Tap "x" to close apps.
4 point swipe up to reveal home screen. Open GUI apps swoop out. Find app and tap to open. If not, 4 point down swipe to bring you back to where you were.
4 point swipe right or left to switch to the previously used app. Another 4 point swipe right or left in quick succession switches to the app used the 3rd most. Another swipe in quick succession, move down the queue in terms of how much they have been used.
Implementable on all iPhone OS X devices to date if Apple so chooses. Familiar, no?
So you're saying your mom wouldn't understand, and would complain when her iphone told her she had too many apps open at once?
No one should have to understand the RAM and CPU requirements of each app they open so they subtract that from their device's HW specifications so they can stop opening up new apps when the limitations of their device are met. THAT IS NOT THE WAY TO MAKE A CONSUMER FRIENDLY DEVICE.
Quote:
The trick here is for Apple to make it easier to close apps than to keep them running in the background.
What you're suggesting reminds me of people arguing that command line is so much better than a GUI and that anyone is too stupid or dumb to learn DOS or UNIX shouldn't be using a computer anyway. Having a task manager app or app that restarts your device nightly to deal with leaking apps IS NOT THE WAY TO MAKE A CONSUMER FRIENDLY DEVICE.
The only way this will work is for it to be intelligent and intuitive. There are about 150k apps on the App Store and yet only a handful even have a reason to run in the background and only one is presented as reason for ALL apps to run in the background all the time. It's a silly suggestion in every single way. The only viable option I've seen is to make a backgrounding API that is first in the developer's court and then an option in Settings for apps that can benefit from it.
I agree. We all assume that everyone knows all about computers. But most of my friends just want to use a device that works. If I told them they had to manage which programs were running and which ones were not, they probably wouldn't use it. It's just too much to think about.
Most people have a thousand other things on their minds (kids, bills, jobs, TV, etc). They bought the iphone because they wanted something that just worked. Multi-tasking sounds great for us who spend most of our lives on a computer. But think for once about your friends and relatives. I hope Apple is thinking about them. Because once they implement multi-tasking, the haters will just jump to some other missing feature in the hope to force Apple to follow what they consider is the perfect business plan.
Just to support your statement, it's not only a question of being technologically knowledgeable. Probably most of the people here also enjoy playing with the various options on their phones. I love trying out new things and attempting to get things "just right". But my friend, Suzanne, bought an iPhone and she has done not one thing to it. NOT ONE THING. She will not even go into the settings App. To me, this is a waste because so many cool things are available if she'd just take a couple of minutes to learn a few things. To her, the iPhone works right out of the box and she's thrilled with it.
It's insulting to say that Suzanne is dumb or lazy or technologically ignorant. That would just be untrue. She simply likes getting things done as quickly and with as little fuss as possible. I have a feeling there are a lot more people like Suzanne out there than there are people like me (and possibly you).
"Google's Android was the big gainer for the period -- seeing its market share rise to 7.1 percent, from 2.8 percent previously. Apple's iPhone experienced a small gain, edging above 25 percent, from 24.8 percent before."
This has been pretty much all over the tech news sites for a couple of days. I thought it was common knowledge.
*sigh*
Ok, I'll try to explain this in simple terms. Lets say, I have a 'dumb' phone. I decide to make my own smartphone, and I call it the AzDroid phone. So, I dump my 'dumb' phone, and start using my Azdroid. I just expanded the smartphone market. I didn't -switch- from another smartphone manufacturer, I created a new option in an existing market. Now, you come along, and see me talking up my Azdroid phone on the internet. You decide you want one so you can dump your 'dumb' phone, so I cobble one together for you and *boom*, the Azdroid marketshare just doubled, and again, expanded the smartphone market. Pretty soon, Azdroid gets so popular that lots of 'dumb' phone users are looking to make the switch to a cheap, effective smartphone. So these are -new- customers coming into the market, hopping on a -new- brand of phone. Next thing you know, Verizon is pumping the suckers out with all sorts of 'buy-one-on-a-Tuesday-get-5-Azdroid-phones-for-less-than-you-would-pay-for-a-cappuccino' offers.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Android hasn't caused people to switch from alternative smartphones. Not saying that at all. But the majority of the Android users I know *personally*, and there are quite a few, had no compelling reason to get a blackberry, and didn't want to switch from their existing provider just to get an iPhone with which to replace their prior 'dumb' phones. Of the non-techy people with an Android that I know, most of them got one because it was the best they could get with the minimal amount of effort and change involved.
Comments
Sorry but this is a bad news if true, that's just my opinion and i know many users who would want to have multitasking but usually they don't gave nay good reason... just because their computer multitask.
The stagnation of the iPhone market share and the failure to update the OS might be linked, given that other OS's are surging in popularity. I don't know the answer. Others here have a host of explanations as to why Apple is, for example, falling further behind RIM.
I asked what the heck is taking so long in catching up to the competition vis a vis OS capabilities, and pointed out that ground is being lost in the meantime.
You're a troll as already stated. I hope for you that you are a troll, otherwise you are just stupid and/or live in another world.
Apple is leading the way, the things you mentition are not in iphone os for a reason. maybe they will be implemented... but let's see how flash is working if present in other pda or phones, and about multitasking.. it is a battery killer and only few users would have advantages in it.
It is an insult because you just referred to my mother as "dumb" and a "moron" simply because she doesn't care about finding with gadgets. She has has plenty of other skills and advanced degrees, though not in computer science. She doesn't care about or need to know how every app will affect her iPhone, she only needs to know that it will work as advertised so she can focus on the other things in life that do matter to her.
Apple didn't revitalize the smartphone industry and make every mobile OS maker switch gears to follow Apple's lead because they were making fisher price toys. Cars with automatic transmissions weren't designed for people who are too stupid to learn to drive a manual. Restaurants weren't created for people who are too dumb to cook for themselves.
So you're saying your mom wouldn't understand, and would complain when her iphone told her she had too many apps open at once?
The trick here is for Apple to make it easier to close apps than to keep them running in the background. The way you exit an app is just by hitting the home button right? Well if they implemented something so hitting the home button just stuck the app in the background, then yes, I could see how people would be upset when they went to open another app and the iphone said it needed to close one of the apps in the background.
So imagine making a complete swipe from the top left corner down to the bottom right hand corner to stick the program into the background. The imagine some kind of task manager at the home screen (perhaps to the left of the search screen) that showed the running apps, and allowed you to close them easily from that screen.
Why is any of what I say unreasonable? How could any of that be confusing for someone like your mother, who has multiple degrees and clearly has a fully functional brain (and obviously a woman of decent intelligence since she didn't raise a complete fool
edit:
BTW with bing, coreplayer (with night at the museum open and paused), facebook (connected), Midomi, morphgear (running super mario world), Opera Mobile 10 (at wikipedia's site), resco file explorer, and windows live open (connected and ready for conversations) I'm still at 90% battery life, and my phone still runs fine.
Is it the end-all, be-all of smart phones? The only kid on the block? No, of course not. N1 and Droid are respectable alternatives, and there are others. I have tried quite a few, but find them relatively inconvenient, and far less intuitive than my iPhone (and it's not just a familiarity thing). Still, they are worth considering and present good competition.
I have a couple of questions and concerns about "multi-tasking" on the iPhone. (Mind you, I am thinking device-specific here. I understand the benefits of multi-tasking both 'conceptually' and tangibly on my main workstations... I'm asking specific to this device... thanks.)
First, what can I really expect to gain from it? No-one has yet given me a clear and directly DEMONSTRABLE benefit of having multi-tasking fully enabled on my iPhone. Given how well the iPhone functions now, how would that functionality demonstrably improve? I need tangible examples, please...
Second, battery life. We're already pushing the envelope here on small devices. I don't want my battery life shortened even more. I'm sure someone will give good examples of "multi-tasking on iPhone" benefits. Can you also show how that benefit outweighs the inevitable loss of battery life?
Third, performance. With more apps running concurrently, things are going to slow down. More instructions competing for cycles... it's the nature of the beast.
So, multi-tasking will surely reduce battery life and performance, right? I'd really need to see tangible benefits that are worth the tradeoff in lost performance, battery life, and security before I sign on to "fixing what ain't broke" in my daily use of this device.
Now, the iPad could be another story entirely. But, I haven't got the experience there to compare...
Thanks for your consideration!
I'm sorry, you're right. I falsely assumed you were a bitter Droid owner....Now your attitude REALLY makes sense?To be a fan of Palm and to have to watch their complete and total implosion when the Pre and Pixi had so many good ideas? You poor thing iGenius! I really pity you.
I'm not a "fan" of corporations. Not even sports teams. Not any actors, or any particular brand of beer. I own a Honda, and I'm satisfied, but next time around I'll look at other good brands too. I used to own Honda motorcycles, but these days, I think other companies have been making better ones.
If I were to buy a Triumph or a BMW or a Harley, there's not a chance in hell that I'd buy logo-ed apparel. My identity is not bound by corporate or product sales figures, nor by advertising the products I choose to buy.
I wanted the Pre to do well, but when it became apparent that they would be unlikely to gain any critical mass, I lost interest. It saddens me to see how badly Palm is doing, but I don't really care much.
I've addressed this point before... This is exactly how Apple separates themselves from the competition... For two years people said that without cut/copy/paste the iPhone was dead....in OS3 they implemented it better than any other smart phone. They do the R&D until they figure out the best solution. I'm sure multi-tasking will be done in the same manner....
100% agree.
I think it's pretty hard to figure out the nuts and bolts of how Apple will actually implement multitasking so I'm not going to try. I'll just wait until it comes out.
I have been thinking about this issue a bit since so many of the naysayers attack the iPad for it's lack of multitasking. Basically, I think about 95% of iPhone users are fine without multitasking. Pandora and IM clients seem to be the biggest reason for requiring multitasking. I suspect that if Apple could have only two apps running at one time that this would resolve 80% of the remaining issues. They'll still be criticized but for not having "true" multitasking, but from a practical perspective, multitasking will no longer be a problem for all but a few users on the fringe.
Considering you seem to come here to do nothing but bitch and complain, I'd say you should get whatever shuts you up.
Yes I agree - why has this guy not been banned as all he does is post inflammatory crap.
In Settings » General » Home you can change the result for the double-click. I have mine set to Camera as it's the fastest way to get to the camera when you need it.
I know that I could change it, but I need that functionality for the iPod lurking in my iPhone!
Then again, I actually miss that I could navigate my traditional iPods sight-unseen in my jacket pocket via the clickwheel; that was lost with the iPhone OS touch interface. Knowing where the iPhone home button is and having the play/pause/skip buttons on the cord of my in-ear earbuds is my closest approximation.
It is an insult because you just referred to my mother as "dumb" and a "moron" simply because she doesn't care about finding with gadgets. She has has plenty of other skills and advanced degrees, though not in computer science. She doesn't care about or need to know how every app will affect her iPhone, she only needs to know that it will work as advertised so she can focus on the other things in life that do matter to her.
Apple didn't revitalize the smartphone industry and make every mobile OS maker switch gears to follow Apple's lead because they were making fisher price toys. Cars with automatic transmissions weren't designed for people who are too stupid to learn to drive a manual. Restaurants weren't created for people who are too dumb to cook for themselves.
I agree. We all assume that everyone knows all about computers. But most of my friends just want to use a device that works. If I told them they had to manage which programs were running and which ones were not, they probably wouldn't use it. It's just too much to think about.
Most people have a thousand other things on their minds (kids, bills, jobs, TV, etc). They bought the iphone because they wanted something that just worked. Multi-tasking sounds great for us who spend most of our lives on a computer. But think for once about your friends and relatives. I hope Apple is thinking about them. Because once they implement multi-tasking, the haters will just jump to some other missing feature in the hope to force Apple to follow what they consider is the perfect business plan.
And you have numbers to prove this statement?
http://www.androidcentral.com/admob-...y-double-again
android is turning out to be an OS nightmare with how it's fragmenting into different OS's with different UIs.
What's the point with the fragmentation? Does it stop you from using the platform? Or does it stop developers from developing new applications? As a developer I can tell you that there is no problem to create an application that will work on almost every Android device.
And you have numbers to prove this statement?
"Google's Android was the big gainer for the period -- seeing its market share rise to 7.1 percent, from 2.8 percent previously. Apple's iPhone experienced a small gain, edging above 25 percent, from 24.8 percent before."
http://www.techflash.com/seattle/201...age_falls.html
This has been pretty much all over the tech news sites for a couple of days. I thought it was common knowledge.
http://www.androidcentral.com/admob-...y-double-again
"Google's Android was the big gainer for the period -- seeing its market share rise to 7.1 percent, from 2.8 percent previously. Apple's iPhone experienced a small gain, edging above 25 percent, from 24.8 percent before."
http://www.techflash.com/seattle/201...age_falls.html
This has been pretty much all over the tech news sites for a couple of days. I thought it was common knowledge.
Sorry, my fault. I understood the initial statement wrong
I agree. We all assume that everyone knows all about computers. But most of my friends just want to use a device that works. If I told them they had to manage which programs were running and which ones were not, they probably wouldn't use it. It's just too much to think about.
Most people have a thousand other things on their minds (kids, bills, jobs, TV, etc). They bought the iphone because they wanted something that just worked. Multi-tasking sounds great for us who spend most of our lives on a computer. But think for once about your friends and relatives. I hope Apple is thinking about them. Because once they implement multi-tasking, the haters will just jump to some other missing feature in the hope to force Apple to follow what they consider is the perfect business plan.
ok perhaps I was a bit harsh lol. Not morons, not unintelligent, just the least techy.
All this inane discussion about how Apple might implement multitasking and switching...the solution is already out there. Spend five minutes with a Palm Pre and you have a wonderful, elegant and intuitive solution to multitasking.
It's simple. It's brilliant. It works. Flick up to see your apps (they show up as smaller windows), swipe left or right to slide through the apps, flick up on an app to kill it, click an app to have it come to full screen.
As Ireland wrote: Next
Bah, Apple shouldn't do that. They should never ever do anything remotely resembling Palm. Most of all this since Apple would have to make a hardware design change. How about this:
4 point swipe down to expose. Open GUI apps appear with close "x" buttons in the upper left in the Snow Leopard fashion. Tap app to bring to front. Tap "x" to close apps.
4 point swipe up to reveal home screen. Open GUI apps swoop out. Find app and tap to open. If not, 4 point down swipe to bring you back to where you were.
4 point swipe right or left to switch to the previously used app. Another 4 point swipe right or left in quick succession switches to the app used the 3rd most. Another swipe in quick succession, move down the queue in terms of how much they have been used.
Implementable on all iPhone OS X devices to date if Apple so chooses. Familiar, no?
So you're saying your mom wouldn't understand, and would complain when her iphone told her she had too many apps open at once?
No one should have to understand the RAM and CPU requirements of each app they open so they subtract that from their device's HW specifications so they can stop opening up new apps when the limitations of their device are met. THAT IS NOT THE WAY TO MAKE A CONSUMER FRIENDLY DEVICE.
The trick here is for Apple to make it easier to close apps than to keep them running in the background.
What you're suggesting reminds me of people arguing that command line is so much better than a GUI and that anyone is too stupid or dumb to learn DOS or UNIX shouldn't be using a computer anyway. Having a task manager app or app that restarts your device nightly to deal with leaking apps IS NOT THE WAY TO MAKE A CONSUMER FRIENDLY DEVICE.
The only way this will work is for it to be intelligent and intuitive. There are about 150k apps on the App Store and yet only a handful even have a reason to run in the background and only one is presented as reason for ALL apps to run in the background all the time. It's a silly suggestion in every single way. The only viable option I've seen is to make a backgrounding API that is first in the developer's court and then an option in Settings for apps that can benefit from it.
I agree. We all assume that everyone knows all about computers. But most of my friends just want to use a device that works. If I told them they had to manage which programs were running and which ones were not, they probably wouldn't use it. It's just too much to think about.
Most people have a thousand other things on their minds (kids, bills, jobs, TV, etc). They bought the iphone because they wanted something that just worked. Multi-tasking sounds great for us who spend most of our lives on a computer. But think for once about your friends and relatives. I hope Apple is thinking about them. Because once they implement multi-tasking, the haters will just jump to some other missing feature in the hope to force Apple to follow what they consider is the perfect business plan.
Just to support your statement, it's not only a question of being technologically knowledgeable. Probably most of the people here also enjoy playing with the various options on their phones. I love trying out new things and attempting to get things "just right". But my friend, Suzanne, bought an iPhone and she has done not one thing to it. NOT ONE THING. She will not even go into the settings App. To me, this is a waste because so many cool things are available if she'd just take a couple of minutes to learn a few things. To her, the iPhone works right out of the box and she's thrilled with it.
It's insulting to say that Suzanne is dumb or lazy or technologically ignorant. That would just be untrue. She simply likes getting things done as quickly and with as little fuss as possible. I have a feeling there are a lot more people like Suzanne out there than there are people like me (and possibly you).
"Google's Android was the big gainer for the period -- seeing its market share rise to 7.1 percent, from 2.8 percent previously. Apple's iPhone experienced a small gain, edging above 25 percent, from 24.8 percent before."
http://www.techflash.com/seattle/201...age_falls.html
This has been pretty much all over the tech news sites for a couple of days. I thought it was common knowledge.
*sigh*
Ok, I'll try to explain this in simple terms. Lets say, I have a 'dumb' phone. I decide to make my own smartphone, and I call it the AzDroid phone. So, I dump my 'dumb' phone, and start using my Azdroid. I just expanded the smartphone market. I didn't -switch- from another smartphone manufacturer, I created a new option in an existing market. Now, you come along, and see me talking up my Azdroid phone on the internet. You decide you want one so you can dump your 'dumb' phone, so I cobble one together for you and *boom*, the Azdroid marketshare just doubled, and again, expanded the smartphone market. Pretty soon, Azdroid gets so popular that lots of 'dumb' phone users are looking to make the switch to a cheap, effective smartphone. So these are -new- customers coming into the market, hopping on a -new- brand of phone. Next thing you know, Verizon is pumping the suckers out with all sorts of 'buy-one-on-a-Tuesday-get-5-Azdroid-phones-for-less-than-you-would-pay-for-a-cappuccino' offers.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Android hasn't caused people to switch from alternative smartphones. Not saying that at all. But the majority of the Android users I know *personally*, and there are quite a few, had no compelling reason to get a blackberry, and didn't want to switch from their existing provider just to get an iPhone with which to replace their prior 'dumb' phones. Of the non-techy people with an Android that I know, most of them got one because it was the best they could get with the minimal amount of effort and change involved.