AppleInsider is reporting that they are hearing from reliable sources to expect multitasking in Apple's iPhone 4.0 software. This is not the first time we've heard about multitasking being included in 4.0 but if it does hold up to be true it should silence many of the iPhone haters out there while making all iPhone owners jump for joy.
The iPhone currently does do some very minimal multitasking with apps such as email and iPod, but those of you with jailbroken devices are well aware that the iPhone can handle full blown multitasking with ease. Apple has just been shy to enable it since day one claiming it would bring poor battery performance along with various security threats.
The sources also claim the 4.0 software is still a long way off from being finished (this summer) so show some patience as good things come to those who wait.
Anyone else excited for some iPhone 4.0?
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]
Reader comments
Multitasking Support to be Included in Apple's iPhone 4.0 Software
i love this phone :)
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I believe this one feature should be from the first version.. Though I hope its not a rumor..
That's the funny part they are supported. Steve Jobs says that that's the type of company he is running and another fact that helps is that he doesn't like Flash player cause it can screw with thing that's why they are working on there own player with HTML5. How do I sound ten beats me! Oh probley cause I'm not b**chin as much as you guys are Is why!
What's this! Apple reinventing the wheel again and charging double for it. Bah! I shall not be returning anytime soon!
@Josh, stop stating your unsupported claims as facts, they aren't. I thought you were like ten years old when you decided to call JS dumb because you disagreed with him.
@Vinnie, there are things that WM does bad at, but multitasking is actually done pretty well. The crashes don't occur that often, and they are due to the programs themselves, not a problem with WM's multitasking. WM offers freedom, something that iPhone, though being enjoyable lacks, even with JB.
hey guys, i just realized, it was so understandable for apple to sue HTC for copying it! i mean, how could GOOGLE, possibly make A PHONE, i mean that wasSOOOOOO apple's idea..right? but of course, if apple realizes (because of android) that it needs a better hd screen and multitasking and better notifications, and takes those ideas, it is SOOOOO original, right guys!!!!!!
just pointing out some obvious irony, dont take it too seriously..(let the iTROLLING begin!)
To be honest I don't mind not having multitasking inthe iPhone.... I mean on all the windows phones that do they do it very poorly... I hope that apple has made a way possible to do it seemlessy and also limit crashes as windows phones do while multitasking....
@ Scott what are u?? A winny little bitch?? Then don't us the phone dumb@$$ no one is making u use it with a gun to ur head now are they!! And how is stating a fact about the company make someone twelve. What are u a retard?
Regardless if you multitask or not, it is needed. At the very least, it should be enabled or have the ability to be enabled in more apps. This would be especially useful in those apps that would benefit from not being interrupted (just because you don't use them doesn't mean they do not exist!).
@ Michael, I do carry my laptop most places but it'd be nice to do most of what I need to do throughout the day from my phone. If implemented correctly, I don't see how this affects you? Why does the iPhone have to keep being "what it is"? Apple has been able to continually innovate or at least refine existing ideas. Their products always evolve and stay competitive. Why stop now? Clearly there are many ways to enhance areas the iPhone is lacking in while maintaining ease of usability. You can see them in other mobile operating systems such as android, webos, and even apps for JB iPhones.
@josh.....what are you?? 12??
@lady kaede...."obviously" you are a little slow on the up-take. I have had my 3G since day 1, and my wife has a 3GS, and I am not impressed. YES it is faster. YES it has video. BUT, my 2 year old Bold will run circles around it. THAT was my point, that if all they do is another "mild" upgrade, like last time, we are in trouble. The last "upgrade" gave us what?? Copy / paste?? Bold did it 2 years ago. Bluetooth?? Bold will out-Bluetooth this thing all day. My camera had a zoom, and a flash. Guess we will have to wait for 5.0 or maybe 6.0 for that. By then, the "the other game changing smart phones" will probably be thought controlled, and Apple will STILL be hiding behind "there's an app for that". Right now, they are just giving us what other phone can already do, and are acting like this is something sooooo new we should all be impressed. If this continues, the phone will wither and die. Apple started this, and now seems to be stalling. As I said in my other post, I really hope I am wrong. I like the phone. Just getting tired of friends asking me to do something THEIR phone can do that mine can't.
@Jerry G..
I dunnot if you were an iPhone user when the 3G first came out but Apple reeeeaaally screwed up the 2.0 firmware.
Hey guys i thought i would share this, sorry that its nothing to do with this subject, i have a jailbroken iphone3g 3.2, got snappy installed, i was at work yesterday and i locked my phone as you would when u press the power button, went to press the button again nuthing happened then pressed again quickly after and the camera app opened, but it was the 3gs camera, i was flicking the switch from camera to video, but the screen was black and couldht shoot, iv been on all my camera and recorder apps and none of them looks like the 3gs camera that i had up, any one reckon something is gonna happen for us 3g users in an update or do you think its a glitch????
I'm calling fake on this.
Who is this JS person. They're dum. Why leave the GPS on while on a call. U wouldn't have any battery left after u got off the call if Isis that. From talking and navigating . Apple is doing what they intended the company to do. Make the best products around and make it easy for the user to use. They have always been known for this and that's why people buy their products and the people complaining about should have done there research before buying Apple knowing what their intentions are in the eletronic world. Which is to have the most reliable product in the world and easiest to use at the same time. And i don't care who u are if u know ur stuff apple has always made the best graphics and hardware. You can't beat a macs graphics when it comes to computer and now they are getting even more gaming companies involved with there product so u can enjoy it even more. They just like to make things right the first time and take it slow. In the end the turtis won the race remember.
I hope you'll let us know when the update will be out. I simply can't live without my iPhone the better it gets the more addicted I get! I can't say it enough... I love my iPhone!
@Lady Kaede
"abstracting"
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
The iPhone "abstracted away" task managers in the same way decapitation cures acne.
As far as multitasking, I would like to see some background services enabled for the texting function. I actually use my iPhone 3GS with the Kindle app to read books and it is annoying to have the Kindle app close just to type a quick reply to a text and then have to re-open it. Same thing with a telephone call, however the app will usually restart after ending the call...so only mildly annoying. Also, allowing a GPS navigation to stay on during a phone call would be great. I don't usually use any kind of a navigation app, but I can certainly see the benefits of it staying active!
Hurry up and get here 4.0!!
http://www.diverse-group.com/menu/blog.html
I wonder when we will hear it from apple?
I hope that the system settings allow me to turn it off. Nice feature though.
Woo hoo!!
omg!! this is the f***king reason i j/b !!! i use backgrounder and proswitcher everytime i use mu ipt 3g and it handles it perfectly...but being the speed king of the iphone family..thats to be expected....
@Lady Kaede,
Correction - "Most people don't even know what 'multitasking' is" - Correct. However most people do understand that they can't play their Internet streaming radio/music while checking their email.
@Scott - so obviously the 'less game-changing smartphone' is for you. The iPhone will never be for everyone. Just a good alternative for most people. And most people don't even know what 'multitasking' is, much less consider it's absence an affront to nature.
But I thought Push notifications was all we needed? /sarcasm
Not that big of a deal to me. Everyone I know that's had backgrounder and pro switcher. Have crashed and had to restore anyway. Not worth it to me. Not leaving my operating system on my $560 iPhone up to some teenager. I've had all 3 iPhones and have never missed it.
The Nexus One got all of this hype and in cell phone years, which is almost month to month. The Nexus is "ahead" of the iPhone. When in reality the screen and the graphics processor have been compared in testing to the 3G[S] and have still come up short. And for the person complaining about the camera. The current iPhone has one of the best cameras on the market. Besting phones with twice the Megapixels.
@Michael,
Well if the rumor is true, someone at Apple disagrees with your definition of what an iPhone is or should be. All modern smartphone OS'es support some variation of multitasking. While the iPhone OS does supper it now, it needs to be opened up to 3rd party apps for reasons stated above.
The key is, as I mentioned above, is the implementation of task management. I firmly believ Apple will knock it out of the park, as it did with cut/paste.
And your comment about using a PC, more people use mobile devices to access the web than PC's which says that more and more people are using mobile devices in lieu of a PC type device. The more people use these devices, the more powerful they need to become. Being able to run concurrent processes (apps) becomes much more than just reading your mail client and listening to music. Heck a low end Nokia s40 device can do that.
Well maybe for you the iPhone meets all your needs, but for some of us, the iPhone is still lacking. For example, why do I have to or forced to exit out of a third party app just to reply to a text message or accept a phone call? I don't want my UNO online multiplayer games to be interrupted when an incoming/outgoing call or text message is made.
My iPhone already multitasks as much as I require. I can listen to music while checking email and reading my server logs; all the while I'm getting hockey scores and tweets pushed to me.... It's a phone. I can't honestly think of any reason to have any level of multitasking beyond that. I don't need or want all of my apps running in the background. The apps launch fast enough that leaving them isn't an issue.
I recognize it's something people want, but I think that comes from not knowing what the iPhone really is. Steve has us all so worked up that it's God's own brain that now we want it to do more than it should. You want to multitask? Use a PC...
I use ProSwitcher everyday.
More of the same. We will have to wait until 4.0 (3.1.3 now) just to catch up with the less "game changing" phones. I find it impossible to beleive that Apple has no answer for this. I see the "new" phone coming....it will have a flash for the-still-sucking camera, and be offered in red, and "allow" mulit-tasking, and still won't do everything else all the other smart phones can do, and the fanboys will complain that anyone that does not love it are "anti-Apple", and Apple will sell another 10 million, and Jobs will sit back laughing while counting his money, and....and....and we have done this all before. I said it the other day that I thought the iPad is this years boom. They have rolled out 3.2 because that is what the iPad runs, and they need that ready soon. March is when the "new" OS is suposed to be announced, and 4.0 has not even been seen yet, and we are almost half way thru March. So, it is not looking good my fellow iPhone-ites. I really hope I am wrong, and we will get some major "boom boom" later. Just not getting all that worked up about it.
I'll believe it when I see it. The same rumor was banded around before the 3.0 release last year.
Still, while I don't think full on multi-tasking is necessary on a resource constrained device such as a mobile phone, it would be nice if audio apps like Pandora could slip into the background while playing and have the same controls as the iPod app, and GPS navigation apps kept announcing turns over a phone call, and if VOIP apps could be backgrounded during a call in the same way as the built-in phone app.
In fact if these are common use cases then Apple could open some of their APIs to certain classes of apps (namely audio, GPS, and VOIP) to allow a minimal part of the app to slip into the background automatically and behave in the same way as the native apps do. That way it should be easy for users to manage and with clear audio and visual cues that something is running in the background there should be no complaints of unexpected battery life drops or slowdowns (well in theory!)
im pretty sure when os 4.0 comes around i wont be updating.
3.1.2 and my current setup is perfect. Like most have already said, backgrounder and proswitcher are already perfect.
It's true that Android is beginning to look very appealing, especially to power users like myself. I truly do appreciate the simplicity and wonderful experience of the iphone, but I feel I am looking for something new, something better. If iphone fails to give us better hardware and software this summer, then Nexus One it is.
I'll believe it when I see it. These rumors rarely turn out to be true.
Thanks for sharing your opinion on something you have no interest in, especially in a product that isn't available to the general public yet.
@Jack,
I disagree with the comment "Apple will screw it up". Quite the opposite, Apple will wait until they know they got it right before releasing it to the public. Even though Cut/paste was late and the whole smartphone world had it since whenever, you would be hard pressed to find a nicer implementation of the functionality. Smartphones since then have "copied" Apple's implementation. I used WM for a long time prior to the iPhone and there is a difference.
I don't beleive in apple rumors, the novelty of being in the club of rumors has wore off, since ipad is a failure in the making. Good job apple, but sooner or later your tactics will fail of the veiled curtin, all apple is a overpaid bunch of unix developers. I won't put my money in the apple bucket any more.
Basically agree with Jerry G. But this isn't good news to me unless it's ultra-easy for non-technical users to understand and use. I've been professionally involved with PCs for decades, and one of the great advantages and differentiating factors of the iPhone OS is it abstracts and hides from users all those PC conventions like task management (and file systems, etc.) -- I would prefer to think Apple would not need to reintroduce them . . .
Any thoughts if 4.0 will be available to 3G owners or does it seem likely it'll only be for 3GS (or possibly) brand new generation of phone?
I've got a Palm Pre. While I don't use multi-tasking a lot, I find it useful to have when I need it, and I use it often enough that I think I'd have a hard time getting by without it.
I find it most useful when I'm on a call and have to open up my calendar or contacts to make a new appointment or update information. Of course, listening to online radio while browsing the web is great too!
I've been multitasking on my (old) Blackberry for years...
@Jack
that's why if anyone wants to give Android a shot, should grab Nexus One. Nothing else. It offers the experience Google intended for their OS.
For me it will be race between Nexus One entering Canada and Apple releasing 4.0 with wow factor to keep me aboard (although Apple didn't wow me in 2-3 years).
Hells ya!!!
At this pace, we should expect theme support around 7.0 release lol
I mean damn 4.0 for such a feature? While other platforms have it at 1.0?
And of course Apple will manage to screw it in the beginning and we have to wait even longer for a proper fix!!!
Bring it on. Anyone who has J/B (and installed Backgrounder) knows that this OS in its current form is perfectly capable of performing multitasking. Now the question is how to manage it in a way that doesn't make the OS cumbersome to use. Apple does not want to get into a situation where the iPhone OS becomes like WM. WebOS has the card system which there is a jb app that mimics that to some degree (forgot the name of the app).
As for the comment about Android, that platform is experiencing a major cross road problem that could affect it very similarly to what happend to Windows Mobile - segmentation. While Android's popularity is increasing, it has not become the "smartphone for all of us", due to it's varying user interface inconsistencies (OEM shells aka Sense UI), lack and timing of common OS updates (for devices that are customized), and applications that run on one version of the OS and not on another. People who like to tinker and customize will find the Android platform appealing. I was once like that, owning and customizing WM devices for years. I grew tired of that and now I am enjoying the consistency, ease-of-use, and stablity that the iPhone OS offers.
The challenge that Apple faces is how to offer multitasking management in a way that does not degrade the user experience and offer it in a way that does not destroy battery life.
With great power comes great responsibility.
They have to announce it soon...remember, 3.0 had 6 or 7 betas, before being ready....so, for it to be ready around the time of the 4G launch, they have to release the new SDK soon
Agree with the multitasking. Proswitcher is nice but I don't really use it. Backgrounder is key for Pandora, particularly on weekends when texting and listening to music are happening together
I have Backgrounder and Proswitcher now on my iPhone. Although it works great, I've only used it occasionally... but I can't say I've ever really needed it. it only eliminates a few taps here and there (and the 'Pandora Complex' baffles me when the iPod already runs in the background). In fact, I've been planning on not even jailbreaking again once 4.0 is out regardless of whether it multitasks or not.
A lot of people are going to be surprised how rarely these use it when they finally have it.
So, a big "meh" to this.
A long way off from being finished???....that sucks....hopefully we will get it by June!!!
The way I see it, this won't silence the critics. There will always be somethig to bitch about.
I will still keep my jailbreak thank you though. Mywi FTW!!!
Too little too late... Android becomes more appealing by the day. When will Apple learn that being Big Brother sucks for customers and for business?
One less reason for me to jailbreak.
Right now I do it for multitasking, tethering, 5 icon dock, and SBSettings (and a little bit of winterboarding).