(reminds me of old tech support joke about Mac being yes/no and PC being maybe but…)

Its NOT unmanaged. The user should be able to measure the utility of the 3rd party app vs the powerdrain it causes. Its a pity Apple consider most of its users dunces.

When WM 1.0 came out, PDA’s did not have radios at all.

Look, no keyboard and a grid of icons!! Its clearly a rip off of the iPhone!!!

Surur

I agree with Hockenberry that unrestricted access to the radios by any developer will lead to power problems (because it becomes unmanaged, much as happens with WinMob today). I’d also add my own security concerns to that as well.

What developers want and what they need are not always the same thing.

(Remind me, if I don’t remember, how multiple network radio access was managed on WinMob 1.0 and what the success rate was with early SDK developments?)

So, do you accept this guys argument or not.

Either Hockenberry does not know what he is talking about, and cant program his way out of a paper bag, and his experience with his twitter client is not indicative of the effect of background network access, at which point one questions why you posted the article.

Or he is talking sense, and on the iPhone network access really drains the battery, and the iPhone has poor power management.

Which is it then?

Surur

Again, real world, the iPhone has thus far trumped battery life on both my old WinMob and Palm devices, and done so with more functionality (WiFi) and heftier multimedia specs (including a far bigger screen).

No comparing Apples to prunes now…

Thats not the claim. The claim is that on the iPhone, simply activating the network every 5 minutes drains the battery in 4 hours.

I am saying no WM phone is as bad as that, and that therefore WM power management is better than the touted “advanced” power management of the iPhone.

Surur

It’s not email every 15 min. It’s email (ME + GM + YM + ?) + IM (AIM + WM + GT + ?) + XML (Twitter + Jaiku + Facebook + LinkedIn + ?) + next big wannabes (corelocation dating, social wine tasting, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.)

Turn everything on continuously on any device (much less WinMob!) and you don’t have any management to do of the power. You just have constant drain.

So far Apple seems to be the only OS maker who remembers it’s a mobile phone

Are you seriously telling me your WM phone would die in 4 hours if you set it to poll e-mail every 5 minute?

Apple is very good with illusions. They gave the illusion of having good power management, but when exposed the harsh reality it proves rather the poorer. Doesn’t the e-mail client only poll every 15 minutes at the minimum? Now they want developers to give the illusion of multi-tasking when thats far from the case.

Surur

And I think Hockenberry is referring to multitasking in the sense of background services hitting the radios.

The fact that the iPhone can (for me) run for more than a day with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and media running as background apps means that OS X mobile has some serious power management chops. (I had to turn off Bluetooth all the time on my Treo for it to last a day, and that didn’t even have Wi-Fi or decent media).

What Hockenberry is pointing out is that 3rd parties, who unlike Apple do not have an OS-centric or UE-centric view, but an individual app-centric view, may not manage power as well or judiciously as Apple, especially when you have multiple 3rd party apps trying to hit all those services all at once (or staggered).

So far I’m appreciating Apple’s conservative approach on that score.

It’s funny when you think about it – Windows Mobile DEFAULTS to leaving stuff OPEN in the background unless you explicitly close it….

As usual people blame the technology vs the iPhones poor implementation for the problems.

Multi-tasking is fine. The iPhone needs brain surgery.

Surur