Re: Is this not real multitasking? [Android]
 

I remember this cool feature in my N8: let's say I was listening to music, then suddenly I get a call. The music pauses. Then, while being on a call, I can minimize the call window, and go back to music player and resume the music WHILE the call is still going on. Due to this, BOTH you and the other person can listen to the music through the receiver.. and it was high quality sound. I found this feature really amazing.

So far, I didn't see any other device do it, apart from my N8 and old N82. Which means.. Our old Symbian phones could do it.

Even the N9 can't do such a thing. Damn.

But yeah, this doesn't define true multitasking completely.. probably partly for one particular thing only. I just thought it was a cool feature, that's all.

Re: Is this not real multitasking? [Android]
 

Don't know.
I can watching the video and browsing the web at the same time at my galaxy note. My n900 can't do that, which to me is better than playing one song while watching video.

Always these same trade offs. Where is the device with everything ;)

Re: Is this not real multitasking? [Android]
 

I reckon it actually can, just not with the standard software. But perhaps, with some gstreamer-magic, it can be done. It's not that the device won't let you, but at most that it simply doesn't work.

Re: Is this not real multitasking? [Android]
 

@Dave999 I don't see the point of that. At any instant of time, you're either browsing or watching a video. No one does BOTH at the SAME time.

Unless your eyes are like this: http://www.thenakedscientists.com/fo...ach=7152;image

Then maybe, yeah :P

Re: Is this not real multitasking? [Android]
 

Not sure if it has a lot to do with multitasking, on meamo you'd just need to define sink(s) for the audio to get that. Unless it kills mic in such config, but audio 'controls' (yeah, not really controls, but you have the option to control how audio is/goes unlike in symbian or other os) are totally open. Check alsa-policy thread (http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=83447).

Re: Is this not real multitasking? [Android]
 

Yes, I figured that as well.. because when you're on a call and try to play music, it gives a pop-up saying "Can't play the song." So it looks like they prevented this feature on purpose. Which means that it's very much possible.

Re: Is this not real multitasking? [Android]
 

Yup, that pretty much sumps up the whole "multi-tasking" argument. In other devices.. you have to rely on the manufacturer or OS provider to come up with a "new" feature that allows "multitasking" so to speak.. where as in an open-source community, most likely we can just do it ourselves. In other words: Impossible is nothing here.

Re: Is this not real multitasking? [Android]
 

s/Where/Why/

Re: Is this not real multitasking? [Android]
 

I think you've stumbled upon a potential annoyance where you can override the pause feature of music on your Symbian based phone and called it multi-tasking. That's still task switching in my personal book but with an override of a control that's meant to stop media from playing.

A bunch of specialized apps that float above the main OS isn't really multi-tasking in my book. It's attempting to be desktop multi-tasking, which I'd love, but in a mobile OS, those apps are still clunky. And I own Overskreen Browser on my Android tablets.

I think we're still way away from true multi-tasking, and after much thought, the N900 got it mostly right since it didn't just halt the apps in the background - they could keep going, all but music, whereas other operating systems seem to halt the background apps in a state.

Re: Is this not real multitasking? [Android]
 

Most of you seem to fail to understand WHY iOS and Android enforce a very strict control over what runs in the background.

Just search this forum for misterious battery drains on the N900 and N9. There is a tradeoff here, they restricted background processes (you CAN run bakcground tasks like downloads/uploads, music player, anything), so that amateur programmers creating bad apps don't waste battery power.

On Maemo, it was easy for a badly written app to consume all the battery easily, because it could run in the background without any safeguards.