well you can actually do it ,just play your movie using km player and when u go to dashboard u can see the video running !

You're missing the point. It's not about what we can do, it's about what Nokia should not be doing.

on general multi-tasking, from an answer in another thread, tracker indexing :

mmmmm
I would like it to index the new pictures/videos AFTER I've shot them, after LEAVING the application that made them. Not during...

In general, while I'm doing the creation, I would want as little other system activity as possible. Real multi-tasking on a limited resource device only goes that far ... Ask Apple and Google.

So while doing time critical stuff, I ideally want all non-critical stuff frozen.
That would help the stuttering while filming.

But that's asking too much I guess ...

vote has been casted! i was going to say as many as i want because if the device would handle it flawlessly i would probably do that but i think some of the apps that have been developed for the n900 are almost always meant to use a lot of its horse power! lol at least the really good ones do. but i think 4 to 6 apps are good. i think six more though. hopefully nokia is not looking to limit the user based on this amount we vote for. -_- you should always have the ability to make your device go for the gusto!! =)

-MASTER

I'd say I always have at least:
- xterminal (I start it as soon as I've booted to the desktop and keep it open),
- Media player (almost always open too),
- Conversation (at least 3 windows, on from facebook and two from Skype)

And depending on what I'm doing on the moment other apps add to this.

Although I am sure it's interesting to hear how many windows people keep open, I personally think it's more interesting how the device responds when people clearly have one window too many open.

This is an natural consequence of having one of very few phones with real multitasking. Yes, I believe the best multitasking available.

Multitasking means strained resources. That's just how it is. Sometimes a widget, app or whatnot can use a lot of resources, and the direct consequence is that an incoming phone call is unanswerable. This has happened to me repeatedly when I am sitting right next to the phone, waiting for an answer button to appear. It's not really a question of how many open windows, but a question of resource management.

I am sure you've heard it many times before, but I would like to suggest that you reserve a minimum of resources to the real-time communications apps. At least the phone application should have priority over browser/flash/games/anything that uses over 30% CPU or RAM.

I know this is a good idea. Just remember how it was to use a computer before multi core CPUs. If a program ate up 99% CPU, you couldn't even turn off the PC via software. It would hang over night and next morning you still couldn't manage to turn it off. If you have a 2nd core, even if it is a puny core that would count for 10% of the processing power, it would mean that some process could steal 89% cpu and you'd still be able to gracefully kill the process or turn off the computer. Or, if it was a cell phone, to answer the call before it goes to voice mail.

I don't expect Nokia to implement a hardware solution like making someone design a dual core mobile CPU to reserve resources for the phone UI. But I would think it'd be in their best interest to have a software handler that reserves or frees resources whenever an incoming call comes.

Why do I ask for this? At times, I have noticed the blinking blue led up to 5-8 seconds before the phone started to draw up a phone GUI. It would only happen on a multitasking device. But we want real multitasking. It's just that I don't believe it would be necessary to let the phone application compete on the same terms as the flash player.

4-6 is also for me the max,

Then i just use to much ram.. and i think everything is getting slower because of the swapping.

The coming MeeGo phone really needs at least 512MB of ram, currently i have 12 windows open, but 6 are sms/conversation windows so i count that a bit as one.. and now my memory usage is 166MB of 240 but with a swap usage of 206MB..

yes i also have this many times,
a phone call comes in, and i cant really get it, sometimes the screen just stays black for a while or it is switching between landscape/portrait mode and that is very slowly

this should really be fixed. Foreground applications should be top prio (and a incoming phone call makes the phone app as soon as possible a foreground app) all the rest should really be low prio background apps. They dont have to be completely suspended but should really get very little cpu cycles.

Same for incoming sms, it comes in, it takes a while to open it up. But this should also be almost instance, a new sms should be on the screen within a second.

Ah, I had it pegged for doing PIO. The CPU seems to slam to 100% every time it starts paging and generally ignores anything else going on in the system including user interaction. I suppose if it's ticking on a task it can't help but get stuck, but certainly that shouldn't force it to get stuck in one context and fail to service other, non-paged, processes?

I suppose it compounds that the swap algorithm is very poorly suited for such a small amount of RAM (that and swappiness is at 100, so even in-use things get pushed out.) Almost makes me wonder how we functioned not 10 years ago...

typically 4-6 as maximum count.right now its even 9 windows (mediaplayer, feedingIt newsreader, a couple of windows from the std browser, firefox too (only this one shows me the pictures required for registration at this site), E-mail (confirm registr)).
Additonally, some widgets, some daemons (netstory..) etc draw on the battery.. but then again allow for quick and unrestricted ease at use. =o).

talking about ease of use and multitasking: i often find myself wanting to jump from one window to another - much in the alt-tab style on PCs. Too many actions required here: move from keyboard to display - stylus?, attention to cables! - plus 3 klicks to end up in the desired window. i know, i know, there is CTRL BACKSPACE, but once done this - with the thumbs still resting on the excellent keyboard - I'd love to be able to move via arrows from the last window (focus) to the desired one (which maximises unless a key is hit for .7 seconds or so). ~ 3 klicks but no change of thumb position, hence done in less then a second. what do you think?

thanks
gs