Re: Is this not real multitasking? [Android]
 

@gerbick I think the term "multitasking" is commercialized and destroyed by manufactures. Everyone is using it in advertising and promotion without actually providing the REAL thing. So yeah, we are pretty far from that on a a mobile device for an end user.

Re: Is this not real multitasking? [Android]
 

herp: You seem to fail to understand that iOS appstore has QA that should prevent that vs devel here. They don't have a choice afaik. No friendly popup: would you like multitasking (dangers include our QA doing a shitty job...) or do you prefer dumbos?

Re: Is this not real multitasking? [Android]
 

@herpderp maybe that's true, but I don't see any significant numbers in battery lives of Android or iPhones in general. I don't see how it's a plus point.

Re: Is this not real multitasking? [Android]
 

There's always jailbreak. There's more than just a few ways to multi-task on iOS.

Re: Is this not real multitasking? [Android]
 

How does jailbreaking make iOS multitasking OS? Serious question. Just allows you to run programs that didn't pass QA and they are not killed in background??? One could write task-switcher for jailbroken iOS like in maemo with running apps having small auto-refreshing mini-windows?

Re: Is this not real multitasking? [Android]
 

The decision originally to limit multi-tasking to serial tasking was mainly because of RAM limitations on the iPhone 3GS. But after the jailbreak, the OS can handle simultaneous - it could if Apple turned it on, but didn't due to how they cannot control how third party apps regard memory usage and start/stop/resume commands (I'm sorta paraphrasing a **** ton of dev notes and observations here) from the OS.

There was the one I had used without issue on the 3GS - CardSwitcher which brought WebOS-like multi-tasking and switching to the iPhone. I did so without issue until Skype came out, that thing would lock your machine upon switch.

It's not that jailbreaking adds multi-tasking. It actually allows multi-tasking and in a manner that Apple doesn't tend to allow since they cannot promise a (and now I'm using Apple speak here) uniform user experience. Thus, jailbreak removes that limitation.

Sad, but true.

I hope that answers your question.

Re: Is this not real multitasking? [Android]
 

Thanks, very informative. Actually seems like if devs had strict rules on developing background running apps with QA they have in place for istore this should be a very good os for real multitasking. Not sure what they cannot promise if on under-specced N900 running 10 apps simultaneously doesn't seem to cause a problem (ok, not flash-playing apps at the same time, but having calc/notes/sms/phone/reader/rss/xterm/mc/htop/photos and few more open at the same time has insignificant impact on N900 performance for me, maybe they idle properly, no idea)

Re: Is this not real multitasking? [Android]
 

Remember that whole issue with the EULA change disregarding non-Objective C built applications (think Unity3D, Adobe AIR, PhoneGap, et al) because they didn't regard the proper OS calls - the ones they wouldn't let third party apps get to because they didn't want (and I'm adding my own commentary here) to take the time to grant those frameworks access to all of the API's, document those API's and then test access and success on those API's.

Anyway, I find Apple's QA restrictive because it allows them to avoid dealing with too many variables. Something that the N900 and so forth deal with differently and (honestly) way better than Apple.

Dunno. I have a lot of opinions, but not sure if any one system gets it more right than the other. Just go with the one that does what you want. Or, see if there's an alternative within that OS and hack/tweak/jailbreak as you see fit. That's what I did with my Android tablets (custom ROM's that gave me what I wanted), iOS phones (past tense) and jailbreak them to do what I wanted, N9 tweaks that added the functions I thought should have been there all along.

Again, my take. Apple could, but they seem lazy. Just like Microsoft in that regard. Capable OS's, but they limit it because that's easier.

Re: Is this not real multitasking? [Android]
 

Just out of curiosity, do you know what wp8 multitasking is like? Is it only c# apps? And totally out of a different bucket, is android ndk just like compiling on maemo? Wondering just in case Jolla doesn't deliver, 920 seems tempting for the phone/photo features, but I doubt I'll be able to run/compile progs on it. Also no idea on how to get native libux apps on android, after maemo expecting it to be nightmare. Sorry all for offtopic...

Re: Is this not real multitasking? [Android]
 

Erm... I actually don't know yet. I just accepted delivery of a Win8 machine (not WP8) and have yet to start looking into the development, multi-tasking and what not. I'm having to come back up to speed on the newest version of Visual Studio.

But with the differences in WP8 going all the way down to the kernel, I just don't know yet. There's a few devs on these boards that will probably be better at answering this right now. When I find out more, I'll gladly update you. I just don't know enough - tackling BB Playbook via Adobe AIR and Tizen development at the same time to see if it's worth my time while biding my time for Qt 5 (final) and seeing if that's my path or not going forward - or even if I'll continue development, might switch to UI/UX and back to graphics and use that degree instead.

Anyway, I'm sorry for contributing to the off-topic nature of these talks too all.

Ignore us?