62 apps at once challenge
 

The Samsung i8910 HD runs 62 apps at once.

I'm guessing the N900 can better that, no?

The cynic in me was wondering if the N900 even had 62 apps, but watching the video, I see some of the apps are pretty trivial (I think I saw one called 'About'), and looking on my N900, I see close to 100 apps installed, so I'm sure there are 62 things to install and run that will show up in the task switcher.

However, it has to be said that the Sammy still remains remarkably responsive despite having so many apps to switch between. Perhaps this is a job for an overclocked N900?

Anyone tried?

Re: 62 apps at once challenge
 

i8910 HD is a little bit stronger

ha ha ha

Re: 62 apps at once challenge
 

hmm, clocked at 800MHz , but i have only 54 apps :) so i run them all (dos "settings ,phone" and other like this count ?)
Little lagish ,just nothink serious

Re: 62 apps at once challenge
 

I'll give it a try after PR1.2, at the moment some of the apps on the repos are not installable.

Re: 62 apps at once challenge
 

althought its nice to know that you have the horsepower to run 62 or 100 apps at the same time , its quite pointless . i never used more that 4 to 6 apps at the same time .

Re: 62 apps at once challenge
 

True enough (IMO) ... though there is a marketing opportunity, no?

Re: 62 apps at once challenge
 

I got to 46 but ran out of apps and was still running decently smooth but that was including media player playing mp3s, all games running if they could (Airport, bejeweled, mahjong, marbles, chess etc), drnoksnes, web, pdf reader, settings, app manager, file manager etc etc. You get the idea.

Re: 62 apps at once challenge
 

I've only tested 40 apps, i've not much more to test.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4yB_6E_uHg

But i'll try that test! :)

Re: 62 apps at once challenge
 

How about 100 conversation windows opened? Or 100 browser windows? That's about equal to 100 apps, right? :p (Is one browser window = one instance of the app, or is it just one app no matter how many browser windows opened?)

Re: 62 apps at once challenge
 

@JMacalinao - you'd never be able to get 62 browsers open on the N900 (and that is a challenge!)

With that many apps "open" the system would be running so slowly you'd be faster to have the apps open and close as you use them (i.e. normal behavior).

it's an interesting proof of concept though.

Re: 62 apps at once challenge
 

Hehe... Yeah, just tried it. I can't get past ~30 browser windows without the task switcher lagging so bad. But also take note that I visited sites that are pretty heavy in Javascript (like Twitter), so I can probably get about 40 of them if they're regular HTML pages. I've also tried opening all of my ~50 conversations, and I was able to, but when I added other apps, the task switcher stopped responding properly (e.g. clicks getting recognized as drags). I got past 62, but the task switcher froze so bad I had to close the apps through xterm.

By the way, my device is using the XLV/ideal kernel running at [500,850].

So, it's not that the N900 can't open 62+ apps, the task switcher just does a poor job handling them when there's a lot of them. Maybe if we have a different version of the task switcher (maybe a task switcher without the real-time app previews?), we can probably get 100 apps running without a hitch. :)

Re: 62 apps at once challenge
 

IMO its not fair to compare the Maemo5 task manger with Symbian , comon guys our task manger is a thumb nailed and a live one(Windows 7), when you play a movie or song or a website is being rendered it is shown LIVELY in the task manager. I bet if symbian had a live task manager like maemo did, it wouldn't be even possible to run 10 apps at once.

Just think abt this : with a thumbnailed live task manger we are able to run 40 apps ( as claimed by nokian-series ) if we had a tweak to disable the thumbnail and switch to icon based (like symbian) 62 apps would be just a piece of cake ;)

P.S: lol'ed when he showed 'about' app running :P

Re: 62 apps at once challenge
 

But that's Symbian's app switcher, which is just iPhone/PalmOS-style "fast app switching" and not really multitasking, right? As in the other apps are frozen or closed and only the active app is actually running.

Re: 62 apps at once challenge
 

Yeah I never use more than, say, six apps at once? ***** I don't even have that many apps installed!

I still love my N900 and Maemo. Pure bliss. Almost as good as coffee and donuts.

Re: 62 apps at once challenge
 

There's no reason to decline the challenge. However, it might be a wise move to wait for the soon-to-be released PR1.2 firmware update.

Re: 62 apps at once challenge
 

I don't think that's correct. Symbian has full multi-tasking.

Re: 62 apps at once challenge
 

On my N95 I would open a program & switch to another and background program continues to work... Maybe this does not apply to J2ME apps but native symbian apps seemed to multitask fine.

Re: 62 apps at once challenge
 

Yes s60 has true multitasking, no suspended animation crap lol, anyway running 62 apps is pointless, but on the otherhand its a great way to show how good the OS is, some people like eye candy and all the sparkly bits (not sure why?) and some like to be able to use there device how THEY want, for me? id pick the later option, i buy my devices to get the job done, not sit round watching the UI fade in and out lol.
Still a great read tho and shows a strong point of symbian OS.

Re: 62 apps at once challenge
 

I'm on 30 apps and the task manager is lagging pretty bad but I can still play angry birds perfectly fine and I can still use all of the apps as normal, lol just takes a bit longer in the task manager

Re: 62 apps at once challenge
 

34 open and it took so long I had to reboot.

Re: 62 apps at once challenge
 

Today i runned 45 apps, plus 5 than my youtube video..if i can run 50 and the phone still responding, i'll post : )

Re: 62 apps at once challenge
 

Are you using default CPU clock or a OC one?

Here are three of the apps that more heavy:

-ENNA
-PSX4ALL
-EasyDebian

Re: 62 apps at once challenge
 

I managed to get to about 45-50 but couldn't count exactly because the task manager was struggling badly. I also noticed that if you leave some time after starting a few apps, the system recovers and you can start more apps.

I forgot to mention that I'm running a stock kernel so no overclock at all.

Re: 62 apps at once challenge
 

Don't be silly, this depend on apps. I can easily start hundrends and sousands of apps and they will sleep in swap and will not use any system resources. The only thin place is task switcher, which draws them all.

Re: 62 apps at once challenge
 

i too also use less than 3 apps, though sometimes i have 4 - 5 web browser windows open at the same time. but that wont count to 7 or 8 apps

Re: 62 apps at once challenge
 

Applications which wait for an "OK" button to be pressed are not running. They are in an event loop at best, spend nothing of processor time, and are likely to be swapped out until they are activated by the Task Manager. You can easily skew videos like this showing only the nice parts -- now get them to reactivate all the apps, it will be slow to death. It's heavily biased and, as said here, do not include a "live" task manager with current, updating thumbnails of the graphic processes.

A good test for the N900 would be to run like 60 browser windows at the same time with different addresses, using a text file and a shell script loop with Phone Control to call the browser with a specific address. This is due to the nature of browsers; the code is not the heavy part, but the data, the caches, buffers, internal representation of pages, compiled javascript, running code and so on.

I really doubt any current phone would get more than, say, 30 windows with applications that are really really running. If not by speed (typical timeslice is 10 ms, 30 windows would take 300ms plus the task switching plus the live thumbnail... You get the idea), at least by memory (swap usage would slow it to the ground).

Re: 62 apps at once challenge
 

I got to 27. At which point it took >1 minute to open bejeweled. I gave up. Running 900 mhz. I think a non-live task switcher would be better. Maybe it could take a snap shot of the app when you switch out of it and then stop updating the screen for that app.

Re: 62 apps at once challenge
 

I got to 40 apps (and 41 "windows" since one of the apps was the browser which displays two windows) on the stock 600Mhz kernel, including some "heavy" programs like Open Office, Super Tux, and Angry Birds. Task switching was getting sluggish and was just usable, until I opened the 40th app, Tux Racer. That killed the task switcher.

Eventually a window opened allowing me to kill the programs not responding. After a long time (about 30 minutes) it did and everything was back to normal.

Re: 62 apps at once challenge
 

You know, you could just open many instances of a small app from the command line.

Example:

That will open 70 instances of leafpad. I had close to 30 open and the slowdown was less than any one app running in a Xephyr window. Did you know that once you open a certain number of apps, you can use kinetic scrolling in the task manager? So unfortunately you can't see all of them at once :D

EDIT: LOL tried opening 70 at once and got a bunch of error messages, only about 39 opened successfully. Opened one more and the desktop crashed :D It would probably be OK if you opened them one at a time.

Re: 62 apps at once challenge
 

Steps to do a hard test with your browser. Will not take too long and will force your N900 since each browser window typically uses resources similar to a different application (because of image data, running loops, controls, possibly javascript).

1. Get a random URL list in a text file, one by line. I've made one with 105 urls here.

2. Take the file to your N900, say, /home/user/MyDocs/urls.txt.

3. Decide how many windows you want open. Let's say, 40.

4. Make a shell loop to open one window for each address:


The command to open the window is taken from Phone control. I didn't test this, I don't want to stress my phone with unnecessary running apps, but it should work.

(OBS.: The "\" in the end of the line means the line goes on after the <enter>, it's like it was a long line. You can also use one long line beginning with "dbus" and ending with "$url" provided you remove the "\"s.)

Re: 62 apps at once challenge
 

I ran out of Apps to run on my N82 so the new world record stands at 66! :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2LR22RFFOA

Re: 62 apps at once challenge
 

What exactly is being tested here?? The amount of applications that can be launched and suspended (typically limited by RAM) or the number of applications that can actually RUN simultaneously (typically limited by CPU power and in a small way RAM).

Most applications are sitting waiting some sort of input so I would class them in test one - yes they are not suspended by the OS but since they are waiting for info they are suspended by themselves.

The best way to test scenario one is to run an application that actually does something all the time, then run another instance, the another, then another and so on.

I remember in the days of windows NT and windows 95 there was a simple bezier drawing test exe that microsoft used to flaunt, that showed you could run multiple instances of it. At the point where CPU bandwidth became an issue you would see all of them slowing down. We really need an application like this to show the performance of multitasking between the phones.

Re: 62 apps at once challenge
 

I think it is just to simply show what OS can have the most applications open at the sime time and still be usable. Symbian appears to be the OS to beat when it comes to multitasking stability. I have run instances of Quake and Quake 2 at the same time for active multitasking and S60 v3 handles that well. Since those are not native apps, they continue to run "live" in the background without pausing to the menu or anything from what I can tell. Same thing with the N900 just and a prettier scale on our mobile pc.

Re: 62 apps at once challenge
 

well if thats the case just do a

There you have it more than 60 processes running already and not even a single application running yet:)

Re: 62 apps at once challenge
 

what a show off arrogant phone.... its not fair to other phones that we even have a thread like this that is realistic. smh @ all the other smart phones i passed over.

Re: 62 apps at once challenge
 

LOL, what is a shame is how I didn't buy a new phone for 2 years because no other phone could top my N82 in features. I was dying to change phones by the time the N900 came out...took Nokia FOREVER to make better hardware than the N82/N95/E90 era. I passed over many an eycatching device to keep the usability and freedom that a Hardware Accelerated S60 device offered.....

*Takes off rose tinted hindsight glasses*

:D

Re: 62 apps at once challenge
 

The actual thing I guess is the application actually running in the background, isn't it? coz symbian's multitasking way is nothing real like n900, again isn't it? and I guess samsung is using the same way.. but I can be soo wrong :)...
My N900 running at 850 ulv kernel from titan gave up after opening 26 apps with actually running apps like - conky, media player playing music, bounce and angry birds playing its home screen things, maps and not sure about others - 3 web pags etc.. However, the cpu wasn't 850 all the time and had to manually restart the device i.e take the battery off :D

BTW ya the test is completely pointless as I dont think anyone will use that many apps at once not even in computer and not even in a week ;)