True multi-tasking means just that, proper full fat multi-tasking. I'd like to be able to run anything in the background and have it actually run, not sit frozen. How about an IM client or a twitter client? Or an RSS feed, or anything which constantly pulls new data over the net. None of those will run in the background on OS 4.0.
Push Notifications!
Quote:
The GMail support on the iPhone is incredibly basic. It's barely worth mentioning it's so awful. See how it behaves on Android and you will see what I mean.
Well okay, never tried it since I don't have it. But hey, you could also complain about Android missing any decent MobileMe support, right?
[qoute]After being so far ahead when launching the iPhone (in terms of OS functonality and sophistication) it puzzles me why they are so incredibly cautious now. Why is Steve seemingly so happy to let Android pull further and further ahead? Considering how much he apparently hates all things Google, I would have thought he would want to get ahead again. Or is he just happy with his truck loads of money now?[/QUOTE]
Apple doesn't want to be ahead in implementing as many features as possible - and I'm glad about that. I rather have a few features really well implemented than a thousand poorly implemented features. Sure, there will always be a few features missing for different people.
I am sure a lot of people here would pay you more than what the current model sells at the apple store, just to take that 3GS off your hands and have you post at the google forums instead.
The 3G may be two years old, but it's still a current model, you can still buy them brand new from Apple. To drop support for a current model is pretty unusual, ...
I know you are just an anti-Apple troll, but this is a misrepresentation.
The new OS will be supported on the 3G, it just won't do multi-tasking because it won't work as well with the limited memory. The 3G also will most likely not be available for sale when 4.0 comes out if Apple follows past practice, so it won't be a "current" model at that point anyway.
You are just twisting things around to suit conclusions about Apple that you reached a long time ago. In other words a classic troll, more concerned with self-affirmation than debate.
It seems like the basic reactions to the new background-processing stuff ("multitasking," if you insist) fall into three categories:
Developers: "Hey, cool. Now I can keep the stuff that actually needs to persist persistent without having to do a lot of housekeeping in my app."
Nerds: "I want the freedom to completely ruin my phone. Damn you, Apple."
84.99 million of the 85 million iPhone OS-based device owners: "What the heck is 'multitasking?'"
Apple's philosophy on the iPhone has always been crystal-clear: Battery life is the top priority; nothing else comes close. And it's easy to understand why, if you just think about it for a second. You're out driving in bad weather. You see a car accident. You jump out to help, and grab your iPhone to call 911 ? except you can't, because the battery is dead. This is unacceptable. There are other scenarios that involve merely inconvenience rather than tragedy, but it's the same basic idea just taken to its logical conclusion.
The maximum battery capacity of the device is basically limited by its physical size. It's up to both Apple and developers to ensure that that battery capacity is used as efficiently as possible. Apple has taken on the responsibility of saying to developers, "Battery life is such a priority, we're going to put hard limits in place to guarantee that your apps behave responsibly."
Don't like that? That's fine. You don't have to buy an Apple device.
Google, on the other hand, basically puts the onus on the developers to build responsible apps ? and word on the street is, many of them don't. It's just a different attitude, a different philosophy. There's no absolute right or wrong, just different priorities.
At the very least, nobody who's been paying attention should be surprised by anything Apple announced today. It's all pretty logical, given what's come before.
I know you are just an anti-Apple troll, but this is a misrepresentation.
The new OS will be supported on the 3G, it just won't do multi-tasking because it won't work as well with the limited memory. The 3G also will most likely not be available for sale when 4.0 comes out if Apple follows past practice, so it won't be a "current" model at that point anyway.
You are just twisting things around to suit conclusions about Apple that you reached a long time ago. In other words a classic troll, more concerned with self-affirmation than debate.
They aren't dropping support for it at all, so I'm not understanding his complaint. They just aren't including the feature that it's feasibly* run.
At least we can infer that the update cycle for the iPhone is 3 years so the 3G is getting the boot next year. That seems more than fair for a phone. I can't think of any other phone that has even come close to that in rich YoY updates.
Despite being Beta 1 with nothing extraneous running, I have 10-12MB more RAM available between Inactive and Free, about 75 total). WIth 4 heavy pages in Safari open and the iPod playing Apple Lossless I still have about 32MB.
This is better than v3.x and gives me hope that Apple can make backgrounding work on the iPad which uses an additional 20MN on start up over the 3GS and already requires Safari pages to reload with multiple pages open.
they've redesigned the calculator app's icon. looks much cleaner now. i never liked the white outline on the icon -- especially because no other built-in apps were designed that way. a minor thing, of course, but any kind of refinements is appreciated.
It seems like the basic reactions to the new background-processing stuff ("multitasking," if you insist) fall into three categories:
Developers: "Hey, cool. Now I can keep the stuff that actually needs to persist persistent without having to do a lot of housekeeping in my app."
Nerds: "I want the freedom to completely ruin my phone. Damn you, Apple."
84.99 million of the 85 million iPhone OS-based device owners: "What the heck is 'multitasking?'"
Apple's philosophy on the iPhone has always been crystal-clear: Battery life is the top priority; nothing else comes close. And it's easy to understand why, if you just think about it for a second. You're out driving in bad weather. You see a car accident. You jump out to help, and grab your iPhone to call 911 ? except you can't, because the battery is dead. This is unacceptable. There are other scenarios that involve merely inconvenience rather than tragedy, but it's the same basic idea just taken to its logical conclusion.
The maximum battery capacity of the device is basically limited by its physical size. It's up to both Apple and developers to ensure that that battery capacity is used as efficiently as possible. Apple has taken on the responsibility of saying to developers, "Battery life is such a priority, we're going to put hard limits in place to guarantee that your apps behave responsibly."
Don't like that? That's fine. You don't have to buy an Apple device.
Google, on the other hand, basically puts the onus on the developers to build responsible apps ? and word on the street is, many of them don't. It's just a different attitude, a different philosophy. There's no absolute right or wrong, just different priorities.
At the very least, nobody who's been paying attention should be surprised by anything Apple announced today. It's all pretty logical, given what's come before.
"Game changing" is a tech blog term for the easily bored ADD gearhead set. Apple is patiently and thoroughly developing a platform. They don't rush out APIs because if they get them wrong and have to fix them later they break things. Android, OTOH, seems hell bent on spinning out whatever crosses the mind of the bright children at Google as fast as they can, because that's their idea of "innovation." Whatever ease of use or elegance of UI they might have managed to lift from the iPhone is quickly getting swamped by the feverish pace of iteration, hardware and custom UI. Here's the thing, though: as much as some folks want the iPhone/Android story to be a repeat of the Mac/PC trajectory (and they certainly are using exactly the same arguments, caveats and rationalizations) there's a huge difference. There isn't a commodity cheap place for Android phones to go. As long as the vast majority of cell phone cost is tied up in the service plan, TCO of the iPhone and any Android handset is going to be roughly the same. Even for the impulse "this one's cheaper" shopper, there is almost certainly going to be an iPhone 3Gs for $99 available this summer, which can run the latest OS. So it's going to come down to ease of use and ecosystem. Yes, Android has been growing rapidly, but Apple's in it for the long haul. If people buy Android handsets because it's the "new thing" and discover that they're actually more difficult to use (and despite what we've been repeatedly told by Android fan boys, for the average user that's just a fact) they may start shopping around next time their contract is up. If the Android effort gets increasingly muddled while the iPhone effort gets increasingly focused, that's going to have an effect on sales. Android can't hide behind commodity hardware like the PC industry did, and "good enough" isn't if you can have better for the same money.
I was reading a lot of those comments at PC World. The Android users seem to feel Apple failed and they will win. I'm mostly pleased with 4.0 but I do wish they'd worked on alerts.
I like: The new mail with conversations and 2 exchanges. iAd - freaking awesome ads, and they use HTML 5. Multitasking - awesome implementation, seems way snappier then webOS. GameRoom - that could be freaking awesome challenging your friends to a cart race during break at school.
Indifferent: Folders - meh, I like many screens where each screen has a certain kind of apps. iBooks - too small of a screen to read for a long time.
I wish was there: printing, improved safari with full screen and updated webkit.
Strangely enough, I'm not that hot for multitasking; I don't have much use for it. Apps like Stanza already remember state on exit, so if I have to exit Stanza to do SMS and then return to Stanza, I can't see that putting Stanza in the background, doing SMS and returning to Stanza will be that much faster (if faster at all). Plus, it will require more home button pressing.
If iPhone had bigger screen (like iPad) and apps could be windowed, it would make sense running Stanza in bigger window and SMS/chat client in smaller, both on the screen at the same time; but if I need to swap screens, I might just as well exit and return to my application.
In fact, the only need for multitasking on iPhone I see in apps like Pandora (which I personally don't use).
I am still looking forward to see how's that implemented and how it will affect the way I'm using my iPhone.
What I'd like to see (but will not, it seems) would be easier access to user folders inside iPhone. I don't mind Apple keeping music, video folders invisible, iTunes-only and well protected because of copyright etc., but I'd really like to have an easy way to copy my personal photos, PDFs, Office documents and eBooks I already have on my desktop easily to an iPhone.
I like: The new mail with conversations and 2 exchanges. iAd - freaking awesome ads, and they use HTML 5. Multitasking - awesome implementation, seems way snappier then webOS. GameRoom - that could be freaking awesome challenging your friends to a cart race during break at school.
Indifferent: Folders - meh, I like many screens where each screen has a certain kind of apps. iBooks - too small of a screen to read for a long time.
I wish was there: printing, improved safari with full screen and updated webkit.
For me, folders was the 2nd most needed feature. The most needed feature, a robust system notification system, didn't even make an appearance.
WebKit was updated. What exactly are you referring to?
I am finding this to be an amazingly stable Beta 1 using even less RAM than 3.1.3.
The problems I've noticed so far are:
Mail not organizing by thread
iPod not display album covers until after a restart
Notes only copy works not paste
Disabling Localizations in Maps and you click on the GPS symbol or get directions by Current Location there is no reminder that it's off. This isn't a bug, just an user friendly issue which may not get resolved until after a bunch of calls to Apple Support.
Really, that's it for me so far. I can't even get an app to crash.
For me, folders was the 2nd most needed feature. The most needed feature, a robust system notification system, didn't even make an appearance.
WebKit was updated. What exactly are you referring to?
I am finding this to be an amazingly stable Beta 1 using even less RAM than 3.1.3.
The problems I've noticed so far are:
Mail not organizing by thread
iPod not display album covers until after a restart
Notes only copy works not paste
Disabling Localizations in Maps and you click on the GPS symbol or get directions by Current Location there is no reminder that it's off. This isn't a bug, just an user friendly issue which may not get resolved until after a bunch of calls to Apple Support.
Really, that's it for me so far. I can't even get an app to crash.
I don't know if this is a hopeful sign or not, but here's the specific exchange from the post presentation Q&A:
Quote:
Q: it seems like iPad is perfect opportunity for glanceable information on the lock screen, etc
Steve: We just shipped it on Saturday, and we rested on Sunday
(everyone laughs)
Q: So it's possible? Steve gives some sort of non-answer
I mentioned this elsewhere, but typically when Steve gets asked about something they don't plan to do, he goes with "We think we have a great solution in what we're doing" etc., so this might be a hint that they've got something cooking that isn't ready yet.
For instance, when asked about background stuff for Twitter or IM clients, it went like this:
Quote:
Q: Background APIs. You don't seem to support anything that keeps track of a Twitter timeline or IM conversation. Is there a reason you're not letting people keep track of timelines?
Scott: we believe a lot of things like Twitter and stuff are great with push notifications. As far as saving your state, all of the fast app switching is much deeper than what I showed. Developers will learn when they read the documentation
instead of "give us time we're only human."
So fingers crossed. Surely even Apple can't be so weirdly stubborn as to not realize that their notification scheme hasn't scaled well.
I don't know if this is a hopeful sign or not, but here's the specific exchange from the post presentation Q&A:
I mentioned this elsewhere, but typically when Steve gets asked about something they don't plan to do, he goes with "We think we have a great solution in what we're doing" etc., so this might be a hint that they've got something cooking that isn't ready yet.
I think I my request ambiguous. To be clear, by "robust system notifications" I am referring to the popover for a single notification that can't display long messages or multiple messages, can't be retrieved again and requires the user to remember what app it came from if you ever want to read it within the app.
I sounds like the question is regarding lock screen info, which would also be great and hopefully give us access to a rich notification system history.
Quote:
For instance, when asked about background stuff for Twitter or IM clients, it went like this:
instead of "give us time we're only human."
So fingers crossed. Surely even Apple can't be so weirdly stubborn as to not realize that their notification scheme hasn't scaled well.
I agree that Jobs is vague but much can be inferred from his canned replies. He was a firm "No" to Flash and Java with an "Anything can happen" response to another question.
I don't understand the Twitter/IM question. The PNS is perfect for these apps. If you access the app after getting notified the app will have the timelines. Am I missing something?
PS: Asking about Flash and Java? What a waste of a question!
Comments
True multi-tasking means just that, proper full fat multi-tasking. I'd like to be able to run anything in the background and have it actually run, not sit frozen. How about an IM client or a twitter client? Or an RSS feed, or anything which constantly pulls new data over the net. None of those will run in the background on OS 4.0.
Push Notifications!
The GMail support on the iPhone is incredibly basic. It's barely worth mentioning it's so awful. See how it behaves on Android and you will see what I mean.
Well okay, never tried it since I don't have it. But hey, you could also complain about Android missing any decent MobileMe support, right?
[qoute]After being so far ahead when launching the iPhone (in terms of OS functonality and sophistication) it puzzles me why they are so incredibly cautious now. Why is Steve seemingly so happy to let Android pull further and further ahead? Considering how much he apparently hates all things Google, I would have thought he would want to get ahead again. Or is he just happy with his truck loads of money now?[/QUOTE]
Apple doesn't want to be ahead in implementing as many features as possible - and I'm glad about that. I rather have a few features really well implemented than a thousand poorly implemented features. Sure, there will always be a few features missing for different people.
I am sure a lot of people here would pay you more than what the current model sells at the apple store, just to take that 3GS off your hands and have you post at the google forums instead.
Make me an offer.
The 3G may be two years old, but it's still a current model, you can still buy them brand new from Apple. To drop support for a current model is pretty unusual, ...
I know you are just an anti-Apple troll, but this is a misrepresentation.
The new OS will be supported on the 3G, it just won't do multi-tasking because it won't work as well with the limited memory. The 3G also will most likely not be available for sale when 4.0 comes out if Apple follows past practice, so it won't be a "current" model at that point anyway.
You are just twisting things around to suit conclusions about Apple that you reached a long time ago. In other words a classic troll, more concerned with self-affirmation than debate.
Make me an offer.
Sign me a paper you won't be coming back as JoshSkaterSTud.
As a note: this is not the place to advertise personal items for sale. Doing so will result in a temporary ban.
Any additional posts that are off topic will see infractions and bans as required.
Developers: "Hey, cool. Now I can keep the stuff that actually needs to persist persistent without having to do a lot of housekeeping in my app."
Nerds: "I want the freedom to completely ruin my phone. Damn you, Apple."
84.99 million of the 85 million iPhone OS-based device owners: "What the heck is 'multitasking?'"
Apple's philosophy on the iPhone has always been crystal-clear: Battery life is the top priority; nothing else comes close. And it's easy to understand why, if you just think about it for a second. You're out driving in bad weather. You see a car accident. You jump out to help, and grab your iPhone to call 911 ? except you can't, because the battery is dead. This is unacceptable. There are other scenarios that involve merely inconvenience rather than tragedy, but it's the same basic idea just taken to its logical conclusion.
The maximum battery capacity of the device is basically limited by its physical size. It's up to both Apple and developers to ensure that that battery capacity is used as efficiently as possible. Apple has taken on the responsibility of saying to developers, "Battery life is such a priority, we're going to put hard limits in place to guarantee that your apps behave responsibly."
Don't like that? That's fine. You don't have to buy an Apple device.
Google, on the other hand, basically puts the onus on the developers to build responsible apps ? and word on the street is, many of them don't. It's just a different attitude, a different philosophy. There's no absolute right or wrong, just different priorities.
At the very least, nobody who's been paying attention should be surprised by anything Apple announced today. It's all pretty logical, given what's come before.
IMO, Apple's implementation is pretty bad, especially compared to the already-existing implementations available for the iPhone.
It's an icon for a folder. Folders usually have pretty generic icons.
Here the iPhone OS takes the time to generate a semi customized icon for the folder.
Also usually people recognize folders by name, and after a while you recognize it by position.
I know you are just an anti-Apple troll, but this is a misrepresentation.
The new OS will be supported on the 3G, it just won't do multi-tasking because it won't work as well with the limited memory. The 3G also will most likely not be available for sale when 4.0 comes out if Apple follows past practice, so it won't be a "current" model at that point anyway.
You are just twisting things around to suit conclusions about Apple that you reached a long time ago. In other words a classic troll, more concerned with self-affirmation than debate.
They aren't dropping support for it at all, so I'm not understanding his complaint. They just aren't including the feature that it's feasibly* run.
At least we can infer that the update cycle for the iPhone is 3 years so the 3G is getting the boot next year. That seems more than fair for a phone. I can't think of any other phone that has even come close to that in rich YoY updates.
Despite being Beta 1 with nothing extraneous running, I have 10-12MB more RAM available between Inactive and Free, about 75 total). WIth 4 heavy pages in Safari open and the iPod playing Apple Lossless I still have about 32MB.
This is better than v3.x and gives me hope that Apple can make backgrounding work on the iPad which uses an additional 20MN on start up over the 3GS and already requires Safari pages to reload with multiple pages open.
* For the trolls: feasibly ≠ technically
Please keep to the topic.
As a note: this is not the place to advertise personal items for sale. Doing so will result in a temporary ban.
Any additional posts that are off topic will see infractions and bans as required.
Teckstud alias tekstud alias MrKoolaid alias Josh.B. gets only a temporary
It seems like the basic reactions to the new background-processing stuff ("multitasking," if you insist) fall into three categories:
Developers: "Hey, cool. Now I can keep the stuff that actually needs to persist persistent without having to do a lot of housekeeping in my app."
Nerds: "I want the freedom to completely ruin my phone. Damn you, Apple."
84.99 million of the 85 million iPhone OS-based device owners: "What the heck is 'multitasking?'"
Apple's philosophy on the iPhone has always been crystal-clear: Battery life is the top priority; nothing else comes close. And it's easy to understand why, if you just think about it for a second. You're out driving in bad weather. You see a car accident. You jump out to help, and grab your iPhone to call 911 ? except you can't, because the battery is dead. This is unacceptable. There are other scenarios that involve merely inconvenience rather than tragedy, but it's the same basic idea just taken to its logical conclusion.
The maximum battery capacity of the device is basically limited by its physical size. It's up to both Apple and developers to ensure that that battery capacity is used as efficiently as possible. Apple has taken on the responsibility of saying to developers, "Battery life is such a priority, we're going to put hard limits in place to guarantee that your apps behave responsibly."
Don't like that? That's fine. You don't have to buy an Apple device.
Google, on the other hand, basically puts the onus on the developers to build responsible apps ? and word on the street is, many of them don't. It's just a different attitude, a different philosophy. There's no absolute right or wrong, just different priorities.
At the very least, nobody who's been paying attention should be surprised by anything Apple announced today. It's all pretty logical, given what's come before.
a very rational, well-written post, man. thanks!
Nope, not an Android user. I have a 3GS.
But I now think that I will get a Nexus One and sell the iPhone on eBay.
... and you joined in April 2010 and have been able to get that message across within only 8 days and only 253 posts.
.
"Game changing" is a tech blog term for the easily bored ADD gearhead set. Apple is patiently and thoroughly developing a platform. They don't rush out APIs because if they get them wrong and have to fix them later they break things. Android, OTOH, seems hell bent on spinning out whatever crosses the mind of the bright children at Google as fast as they can, because that's their idea of "innovation." Whatever ease of use or elegance of UI they might have managed to lift from the iPhone is quickly getting swamped by the feverish pace of iteration, hardware and custom UI. Here's the thing, though: as much as some folks want the iPhone/Android story to be a repeat of the Mac/PC trajectory (and they certainly are using exactly the same arguments, caveats and rationalizations) there's a huge difference. There isn't a commodity cheap place for Android phones to go. As long as the vast majority of cell phone cost is tied up in the service plan, TCO of the iPhone and any Android handset is going to be roughly the same. Even for the impulse "this one's cheaper" shopper, there is almost certainly going to be an iPhone 3Gs for $99 available this summer, which can run the latest OS. So it's going to come down to ease of use and ecosystem. Yes, Android has been growing rapidly, but Apple's in it for the long haul. If people buy Android handsets because it's the "new thing" and discover that they're actually more difficult to use (and despite what we've been repeatedly told by Android fan boys, for the average user that's just a fact) they may start shopping around next time their contract is up. If the Android effort gets increasingly muddled while the iPhone effort gets increasingly focused, that's going to have an effect on sales. Android can't hide behind commodity hardware like the PC industry did, and "good enough" isn't if you can have better for the same money.
I was reading a lot of those comments at PC World. The Android users seem to feel Apple failed and they will win. I'm mostly pleased with 4.0 but I do wish they'd worked on alerts.
Indifferent: Folders - meh, I like many screens where each screen has a certain kind of apps. iBooks - too small of a screen to read for a long time.
I wish was there: printing, improved safari with full screen and updated webkit.
If iPhone had bigger screen (like iPad) and apps could be windowed, it would make sense running Stanza in bigger window and SMS/chat client in smaller, both on the screen at the same time; but if I need to swap screens, I might just as well exit and return to my application.
In fact, the only need for multitasking on iPhone I see in apps like Pandora (which I personally don't use).
I am still looking forward to see how's that implemented and how it will affect the way I'm using my iPhone.
What I'd like to see (but will not, it seems) would be easier access to user folders inside iPhone. I don't mind Apple keeping music, video folders invisible, iTunes-only and well protected because of copyright etc., but I'd really like to have an easy way to copy my personal photos, PDFs, Office documents and eBooks I already have on my desktop easily to an iPhone.
I like: The new mail with conversations and 2 exchanges. iAd - freaking awesome ads, and they use HTML 5
Indifferent: Folders - meh, I like many screens where each screen has a certain kind of apps. iBooks - too small of a screen to read for a long time.
I wish was there: printing, improved safari with full screen and updated webkit.
For me, folders was the 2nd most needed feature. The most needed feature, a robust system notification system, didn't even make an appearance.
WebKit was updated. What exactly are you referring to?
I am finding this to be an amazingly stable Beta 1 using even less RAM than 3.1.3.
The problems I've noticed so far are:
- Mail not organizing by thread
- iPod not display album covers until after a restart
- Notes only copy works not paste
- Disabling Localizations in Maps and you click on the GPS symbol or get directions by Current Location there is no reminder that it's off. This isn't a bug, just an user friendly issue which may not get resolved until after a bunch of calls to Apple Support.
Really, that's it for me so far. I can't even get an app to crash.For me, folders was the 2nd most needed feature. The most needed feature, a robust system notification system, didn't even make an appearance.
WebKit was updated. What exactly are you referring to?
I am finding this to be an amazingly stable Beta 1 using even less RAM than 3.1.3.
The problems I've noticed so far are:
- Mail not organizing by thread
- iPod not display album covers until after a restart
- Notes only copy works not paste
- Disabling Localizations in Maps and you click on the GPS symbol or get directions by Current Location there is no reminder that it's off. This isn't a bug, just an user friendly issue which may not get resolved until after a bunch of calls to Apple Support.
Really, that's it for me so far. I can't even get an app to crash.I don't know if this is a hopeful sign or not, but here's the specific exchange from the post presentation Q&A:
Q: it seems like iPad is perfect opportunity for glanceable information on the lock screen, etc
Steve: We just shipped it on Saturday, and we rested on Sunday
(everyone laughs)
Q: So it's possible? Steve gives some sort of non-answer
I mentioned this elsewhere, but typically when Steve gets asked about something they don't plan to do, he goes with "We think we have a great solution in what we're doing" etc., so this might be a hint that they've got something cooking that isn't ready yet.
For instance, when asked about background stuff for Twitter or IM clients, it went like this:
Q: Background APIs. You don't seem to support anything that keeps track of a Twitter timeline or IM conversation. Is there a reason you're not letting people keep track of timelines?
Scott: we believe a lot of things like Twitter and stuff are great with push notifications. As far as saving your state, all of the fast app switching is much deeper than what I showed. Developers will learn when they read the documentation
instead of "give us time we're only human."
So fingers crossed. Surely even Apple can't be so weirdly stubborn as to not realize that their notification scheme hasn't scaled well.
I don't know if this is a hopeful sign or not, but here's the specific exchange from the post presentation Q&A:
I mentioned this elsewhere, but typically when Steve gets asked about something they don't plan to do, he goes with "We think we have a great solution in what we're doing" etc., so this might be a hint that they've got something cooking that isn't ready yet.
I think I my request ambiguous. To be clear, by "robust system notifications" I am referring to the popover for a single notification that can't display long messages or multiple messages, can't be retrieved again and requires the user to remember what app it came from if you ever want to read it within the app.
I sounds like the question is regarding lock screen info, which would also be great and hopefully give us access to a rich notification system history.
For instance, when asked about background stuff for Twitter or IM clients, it went like this:
instead of "give us time we're only human."
So fingers crossed. Surely even Apple can't be so weirdly stubborn as to not realize that their notification scheme hasn't scaled well.
I agree that Jobs is vague but much can be inferred from his canned replies. He was a firm "No" to Flash and Java with an "Anything can happen" response to another question.
I don't understand the Twitter/IM question. The PNS is perfect for these apps. If you access the app after getting notified the app will have the timelines. Am I missing something?
PS: Asking about Flash and Java? What a waste of a question!