Why the iPad and the iPhone don't support multitasking • Hacker News Board

Re: Why the iPad and the iPhone don't support multitasking

#61

Post by gte910h » Mon, Apr 05, 2010, 6:14 PM UTC

tumult wrote: post #30

orangecat wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

77% after an hour.

Sign in with the connection currently using WiFi instead of GPRS/3G, and it will keep the WiFi hardware on, which is what kills it. There is no way for a normal user to know that they need to open new, persistent connections over a connection type that uses the cellular modem instead of the WiFi. And Android defaults to using WiFi for new connections if the WiFi hardware is powered on and connected to a network. The…

Wow, thanks for this point. Just reminded me to turn off the android phone I was using but had stuck in the drawer.

Re: Why the iPad and the iPhone don't support multitasking

#62

Post by gte910h » Mon, Apr 05, 2010, 6:26 PM UTC

jm4 wrote: post #7

gte910h wrote: post #6

This guy is just wrong: Apple OS has turned off multitasking for 3rd party apps to maintain battery life. It fully supports it. This is a control situation, where Apple has decided "We want our devices to have good battery life more than we want to allow multitasking".

Source?

Do you hear music in the background while doing other things?

Do you see your mail being checked while doing other things?

Do you get background notifications while doing other things?

Do you get appstore apps downloaded while doing other things?

The iphone is fundamentally built on a mach kernel, which supports multitasking. Taking it out, when they already needed to use it for multitasking for the above tasks, is a silly idea.

Here is a rundown of other parts of the iPhoneOS kernel: http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2007/07/13/iphone-os-x-archite...

Re: Why the iPad and the iPhone don't support multitasking

#63

Post by tumult » Mon, Apr 05, 2010, 6:40 PM UTC

theBobMcCormick wrote: post #57

tumult wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an iPhone user as well, and it also kills the iPhone. the point was that on iPhone, 3rd party apps are not given the opportunity to do this without the user being aware (because it's in the foreground.) i've had a runaway android app kill my phone after it screwed up and started devouring resources in the background while it was in my pocket.

The user would have to be aware of streaming audio. Also, as stated elsewhere in this thread, apps don't normally run in the background on Android either. I'm curious what app you believe killed your battery life in the background? That sounds... unusual.

Apps normally run in the background all the time in Android. I know which app it was (meebo) because I can view the stats afterwards. Also, to help alleviate some of your confusion, we are talking about background processes, not just streaming audio.

Re: Why the iPad and the iPhone don't support multitasking

#64

Post by glhaynes » Mon, Apr 05, 2010, 7:52 PM UTC

astine wrote: post #15

glhaynes wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that's poor wording. The techie in me was aghast at the idea of Apple shipping iPhones with a full Unixy kernel but with no swap (and minimal background processing -- and for that matter, I wondered why its Objective-C runtime didn't support garbage collection) until I actually laid hands on one and realized how fluid things can be when they don't stutter and stop randomly while swapping in parts of the foregro…

"In the physical world, you never flick a real switch on a panel and then it actually moves a second or two later!" I know some old lights which do that.

I didn't mean the resulting action might not take a moment, I meant the actual movement of the switch.

Re: Why the iPad and the iPhone don't support multitasking

#65

Post by theBobMcCormick » Mon, Apr 05, 2010, 8:02 PM UTC

tumult wrote: post #63

theBobMcCormick wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The user would have to be aware of streaming audio. Also, as stated elsewhere in this thread, apps don't normally run in the background on Android either. I'm curious what app you believe killed your battery life in the background? That sounds... unusual.

Apps normally run in the background all the time in Android. I know which app it was (meebo) because I can view the stats afterwards. Also, to help alleviate some of your confusion, we are talking about background processes, not just streaming audio.

Apps only run in the background if they specifically register a background service. Usually this is when you click a button in the apps preferences like "update in background", etc.

Read this: http://geekfor.me/faq/you-shouldnt-be-using-a-task-killer-wi...