iPhone 4 beta 1 jailbreak on iPhone 3G - multitasking included

Apple has not been shy in stating that the original iPhone 3G will not support multitasking but iPhone hacker cdevwill has proved them wrong - sort of. After the break you can see a YouTube video of an iPhone 3G running iPhone OS 4 jailbroken with functional multitasking.

While this all seems like a bed of roses stop and think about it for a minute: the only apps someone could test currently are those built in the iPhone OS 4 software (many of which have always multitasked) - no 3rd party apps. You'll notice in the video the amount of time it takes to open the clock application. Now imagine trying to play a game like Plants vs. Zombies and checking your Twitter all while streaming Pandora.

So while multitasking on an iPhone 3G appears to work, don't expect a very smooth experience. This is more than likely the reason Apple claims it will not work (even if they'd rather you upgraded your hardware).

If you want to learn more about jailbreaking in general stop by our forum dedicated to the topic and be sure to check out the video after the break!

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37 Comments

No doubt it would be choppy. A lot of apps on the 3G iPhone are choppy WITHOUT multitasking
My clock app always takes that long to open so it's not because of the multitasking.
I have a 3GS, so it doesn't really bother me. But Apple should really allow the app switcher, and save state on the 3G. Sure keep the actual background processes for the 3GS and newer, but how many resources does save state really use?
@ J Danny
Your clock app always takes that long to open?!
I have a 3G and it's sloow wit out the JB
I agree with frog. Even though I am buying a 4th gen when it comes out, my sister is getting my 3g and I'm sure she would like the added functionality.
listen apple is a business..this means that sure it might be able to run multitasking on the 3G but they want people to upgrade their phones soo it extends their contract with at&t. they want to give customers a REASON to upgrade. if it was the exact same thing from iphone 3G to iphone 3GS do u think people will upgrade..probably not. and another thing is that the 3GS has a video camera but the 3G doesnt...does this mean the 3G isnt capable of video camera?...NO apple wants to give customers a REASON to upgrade! thats exactly what they are doing with multitasking.
Really ? :)))) Guys, how the heck can an iphone 3G open calculator/settings so darn fast ?
For the guy who made the video: dude, go get a girlfriend... It helps sometimes ;)
what most people are overlooking is the fact that he's not even running any apps that use a lot of memory, I mean calc and settings, really? run safari and something else and then we'll talk.
@John ur an I diot. Don't get mad cause u don't have the knowledge to do hacks on an iPhone ur what we call a follower so shove it and stop critizing ppl that are trying to prove a point dat apple is full of it when it doesn't wanna make all da new functions across da board.
The 1st gen iPhone was able to record video, mms, background, all via jb might not be 100% effective but atleast u have something instead of nothing!
@Matt
On my jailbroken iPod Touch 2G I have run NOVA and Safari at the same time with proswitcher, it handles it fine.
Why does tipb post jailbreak articles if in them you guys are so biased... Jeremy writes the article like in pain, as if he was forced to do so, and its super late btw.
J.Danny:
My clock app always takes that long to open so it’s not because of the multitasking.
Exactly my thoughts. My 3G clock always takes a 3 count to open (One thousand one, one thousand two...).
There may be more performance issues Apple knows about, but this video doesn't show any of them.
I suspect Jeremy is just used to his 3GS and can't remember how slow his 3G was normally.
@JOHN HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
@Go Android, So I guess if you were running Apple, you'd just give the people what they want, it doesn't matter if it doesn't do a great job of it, as long as they have the option right?
Thinking like this is why Adobe is in the boat they're in, the iPhone is so successful because of the seamless user experience, I don't want a phone that will randomly close apps if I get too low on RAM.
@Go Android, are you sure I dont have knowledge to do hacks ? mmm... I'm going to stop typing here because its a waste of time and ... whatever... I like young peoples like geohot being so talented, but this one ... oh boy...
Look at you, it seems your are making the wrong person an idiot !
proswitcher is the best, i wont upgrade to 4.0
It's just another point of what happen does. It IS better to have it than not to have it at all. I'm on my iPhone 3Gs btw so shut it fanboys.
What apple does to make you upgrade*
@ John n Matt pretty obvious so why bother and ask if u trolls r fanboys or not. Better yet u r lost little sheep n apple is your guide. Grow up!
@Matt(sZ) There is something called people who can't upgrade. I'm on a subsidized 3G iPhone that I got in 2008. I can't upgrade yet without penalties. If Apple is willing to pay my penalties, fine I'll upgrade.
I'm also an iPhone developer so... you would think we would get some sort of special treatment. I would love a sandbox mode where we can try everything on any phone and do testing. :)
Hmm yeah I noticed how slow my 3G was compared to my 3GS the day I got it. I can't imagine them putting full fledged multi tasking on thr 3G. However they could limit the amount of apps that can be multitasked. But apple wants ppl who've now had their contract with AT&T to now have a reason to stay with AT&T and with apple.
How bout letting the consumer decide if the system is too slow so then maybe we'd be ae to convince ourselves to upgrade.
They allowed opera on iPhone because apple saw how crappy it was. Should be the sand 3g vs 3gs.
I said it before, but would be nice for the customer to choose what they want from 4.0, and be able to download that. Has any developers tested the beta on the 3G or the 2Gen iPod Touch to really see if multi task can work? I wish I could just get multi task, and folders. I do not need the rest.
Other sites indicate 2Gen is running samsung arm 533MHz and 3Gen is running samsung arm 800MHz on the 32G and 64G. Can that be a big enough difference where multi task will not work on 2Gen? Just hate to put out another 300 bucks just to get features.
I just saw the video, how can we know for sure that the kids iphone was a 3g not a 3gs?
One word: ProSwitcher!!! For those who are ignorant to JailBreaking SHUT THE ................. UP!!!
Wow. I can't believe this was even posted. 56k modems took long to load too. Should we have been forced to wait for dsl and cable modems to experience the Internet? What a joke. If you have a 3g and think it's too laggy you won't use the feature. But I think we can handle having the option.
You guys aren't getting it, Apple's user base isn't heavily populated with tech savvy users like many of us who frequent tipb, so when Jill the Soccer mom's phone is running slower than normal she's not gonna accept the fact that her phone doesn't have enough RAM to keep up, she's gonna ask the guy at the genius bar why Apple is adding features that the phone isn't capable of handling without slowing down to a crawl.
Most people here take the iPhone experience for granted until they go to another platform just to see their 1Ghz snapdragons struggle to handle basic functions..
N1 FTW! (just wanted to see who was paying attention...) And as a matter of fact I love my snapdragon. I never have problems with it struggling. However I am planning to get the next iPhone. It will complete my ecosystem with my iPad and MacBook Pro. Those of you with the 3G model bought last year Im sure Apple will have an "early upgrade" price like last time. Plus hopefully most of you only spent $99 bucks to get it anyways. Oh, and if anyone who is upgrading wants to sell their old 3G to me for 100 bucks so it will be like you never bought the 3G in the first place, hit me up :D
@Renkman Yep. Probably all my jb stuff and perhaps it's a lil bit faster than the one shown on the video but it's still pretty slow.
@Go Android, please tell me(you are apparently super smart, but ... you're are stupid, really stupid)
How in the world the guy from the video opens those two apps so fast on a 3G phone ?
Answer to this question, and lets see who's right or not !
So if it is a 3g on os4.0 how would we get the multitasking?? I currently have os 4.0 installed and have no multitasking!!!! Any answers please???
Does anyone realize how confused people would be if they had the task switcher, but not actually background APIs enabled (Voip, sound, GPS)? The simple thing is you have a 2 year old phone (by the time 4.0 comes out) that can't do everything the new model can, get over it.
OS4.0 does not do multitasking, it does fast-task switching. You can't run Plants vs Zombies and check your Twitter at the same time, it just isn't possible. This is no different than you going to the home screen and launching a different app.
What OS4.0 does is enables developers to utilize background processes for a few key functions. Obviously, since no developer-updated apps utilizing this have hit the App Store yet, this doesn't exist for anyone yet.
Keep that in mind, as the resources being consumed are not used for an entire application, but rather for a small, confined task which runs in the background
@Glen Absolutely!!! A 300Mhz difference in processor speed can have a HUGE impact on performance good or bad depending on which side of the processor speed fence you live on.
In the Android world, they're used to seeing pre-release code being demo'd so they're more forgiving on videos like this. So I'd just say, cut him/the phone some slack. It does say beta
i have 3G only :( i did JB and evrything working fine but i have very slow phone new so how can i disable multitask to be back poor phone ..

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