maemo.org - Talk - Is this not real multitasking? [Android]

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- - Is this not real multitasking? [Android] (https://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=87193)

Re: Is this not real multitasking? [Android]

Quote:

Originally Posted by flopjoke (Post 1275577)

@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

And what about multi-user , multitasking? One browsing the web, while the other watching video?
Limiting usage scenario's has no end until you are back at the starting point only making simple phone calls.

Re: Is this not real multitasking? [Android]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gerbick (Post 1275590)

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.

Symbian has been a full multitasking OS since day one. Its predecessors EPOC32 and EPOC16 (SIBO) were also full multitasking OSes - this was back in the days when Windows had trouble singletasking (nowadays Windows has improved to the point where it can run multiple trojans/malware/viruses at the same time as well as whatever program you're running in the foreground). Even in allowing full multitasking, Symbian phones still have the best battery life on the market.

Quote:

Originally Posted by gerbick (Post 1275647)

The programmers then knew how to code without so much bloat. Efficiency isn't practiced any longer by no means - why do it because the fast GPU, CPU and RAM combo can allow bad programmers to look halfway decent.

Very true. Unfortunately (or fortunately) hardware development has been improving much faster than software development. Hence it doesn't make commercial sense to spend a year or two to optimise your software to run on current hardware when by that time your software will "automatically" run twice as fast on the newer hardware.

Quote:

Nor did your Psion (I SO wanted one!) have to deal with the same number of systems, 3D graphics, colors and what not that people expect now.

Neither does the iphone ...?

Quote:

Still... that device was so ahead of its time man. People could learn so much from those "simpler" times.

I blame the Americans ;) Whilst Psion did fairly well in Europe with their fully multitasking, decent screen/keyboard/applications & expandable PDAs, Americans were happy with the Palm Pilots with their tiny screens and no keyboards and limited storage. And history is repeating itself.

Re: Is this not real multitasking? [Android]

Funny how the "superior" tech just keeps on losing and how the Americans get blamed each and every time.

Oh well. Do better next time perhaps? We'll love the next great tech perhaps.

Re: Is this not real multitasking? [Android]

Well I know that this "multitasking" is copied from first wiindows 95..or xp.

Re: Is this not real multitasking? [Android]

Quote:

Originally Posted by flopjoke (Post 1275577)

@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.

I do.

I do when I watch TV (browse wikipedia to look up things they talk about on TV).

I do on my PC (keep surfing while watching a video that isn't exactly about quantum mechanics).

I used to on a tablet even though it didn't display both the browser an the video at the same time. It was good that I could listen to the video while switching to the browser only for a few seconds.

The worst thing in UI design is to assume what people won't do.

Re: Is this not real multitasking? [Android]

Quote:

Originally Posted by herpderp (Post 1275592)

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.

Isn't it a bit snotty to assume we fail to understand?

It may well be that performance and battery issues are the reasons why some popular OSs don't allow real user-controlled multi-tasking.

On the other hand, some users may prefer having total control. Control always includes risks. I can deal with such risks. I know what to do when suddenly, after I installed an application, battery life goes down significantly. I know what to do when my device slows down more and more because of the many applications running in the background.

Still, I want to be able to keep them running if I have a reason to. I want to be able to decide for myself what's more important to me at the moment, battery life or the output of one special application that keeps crunching numbers in the background.

Re: Is this not real multitasking? [Android]

There is one thing more to consider. When computers gets more and more advanced users tend to run more and more things. At some point you lose visibility of the list anyway. Don't think a driver of a car or a pilot in a plain want be able to check processes running, but expect subsystem handle that and only show the user the relevant data or information. While the mobile devices aren't their yet. It's not long until they could run, controlled lots of things at the same time and the user must get help to handle processes and memory and tasks.

Re: Is this not real multitasking? [Android]

Quote:

Originally Posted by benny1967 (Post 1277524)

I didn't say nobody understood.

I respect your choices, and I understand that you (as most people here) are power users. But when designing a piece of hardware + software, one has to make compromises - in this case either you do the full multitasking thing, or you do the android-ios thing, doing both is not economically feasible (plus average users will get confused).
And choosing the more fail-safe solution is better when you consider a huge (and mostly non-tech savvy) userbase.

Re: Is this not real multitasking? [Android]

Quote:

Originally Posted by imo (Post 1275563)

Where you can play audio and videos together other than maemo5 through media player and km player ,two songs for example ,together ??? i really dont know about n9 but does it happen on any other device other than N900 ?

You can do it on a Symbian S60v3 device. I had a Nokia N73 and I used to play 2 songs simultaneously :D One using the default media player and another one using the app - Xplore :D

Re: Is this not real multitasking? [Android]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ste-phan (Post 1276706)

Well, the whole idea about owning a personal device is so you can use it to help you in life. And yes, a mobile PHONE is supposed to make phone CALLS. That was the whole point of it.

Those features are pretty good, yes, but not for a device that is around 4.5" in length. Those features would be pretty great on a tablet or laptop.. which they are and that is why they were invented. Those are the portable devices which should allow multi-user scenario - doing it on a tiny mobile phone might be "cool", but that's about it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by benny1967 (Post 1277517)

EXACTLY. A TV.. a laptop.. a tablet.. all devices are meant to do that. As I said above, features like those are a nice addition in a mobile phone, but it makes more sense on a larger screen than on a handheld device.

Even if you do watch a video while browsing the internet, you're wasting screen area for the browser and it makes it harder for you to navigate. But making the screen larger isn't the answer; now you're just compromising between a tablet and a phone. A handheld device that makes phone calls shouldn't be so huge that it looks like you stuck a book to your face. Sure, people will get used to it eventually, but it's just silly.

Make calls and do the essential things on the move using a phone, use a laptop for other things. If you want to do both, use a tablet - that's what they're created for. Personally, I think trying to fit all these features into a small device and compromising battery life, more harmful radiation, interaction with the REAL world, marketing it as the best device.. these are all just commercial stuff to get people buying a device which probably is only extremely useful to 0.001% of the "rich" population.