My first developed (arcade) game "Ski" has had 357 bytes in Assembly, for Sinclair ZX-81 family in the 80's, the player could spend many minutes playing this game. In this context, it is nonsense to see today "Clock" in modile OS taking 15 MB of RAM.

gerbick, I agree with anyone who thinks Android, iOS, Series 40, etc, is good to each one needs.

But it is totally non-technical to say that the OS multi-tasking of Android, iOS, WP7 is better than Maemo/MeeGo/Linux/QNX/Symbian/EPOC. One totally different thing is the speed and smoothness of the combination hardware + mobile OS + GUI + softwares.

Take an Android smartphone with 4 Cortex A15 and 2GB of RAM and it will still be worse in multitasking than a EPOC OS (on a Psion Revo+) from 14 years ago.

IMHO, Android is the worst mobile OS I have ever experienced (I own an excellent hardware, Asus Transformer TF101 with Eee Dock). Many Android hardwares (smartphones and tablets) are fantastic, many Android softwares are great. But Android OS is a PITA.

I really hope Sailfish OS and Ubuntu Phone OS will succeed so in 2014 I will have some choice of smartphone with real Linux inside to buy.

We'll have to agree that code now is bloated. A lot of things we could attribute that to, but I'll just remain reticent on why I truly think that is...

**cough**lazier programmers now**cough**

Either your opinion blows or you've never experienced iOS or any MS mobile OS. But vanilla Android multitasking does suck.

The multitasking on QNX = WebOS = Maego > Android.
The multitasking on Android > iOS.
The multiasking on NOTE > Android.

To me the multitasking on the NOTE is not as rigid as, let's say, QNX but its close enough. With all the advantages of the NOTE (better performance, radios, form factor, 3rd party support and Apps)... its enough to be my "n900 successor".

The NOTE 2 is definitely better, but not by a HUGE margin... so I'm waiting impatiently for NOTE 3 to upgrade to it. And possibly dualboot UFone (UbuntuForphone).

Vanilla WebOS leaves much to be desired in regards to multitasking with the default browser. Android is a better browsing experience.

Nope, unfortunately not. But what i have seen an Android device doing instead:

- waking me up reliably, instead of deciding an alarm tone is unnecessary right now and i should enjoy my sleep

- can transfer / accept files over BT (ok that's debatable because it affects only certain N900 configs - but then you have to decide: IrMC/PBAP support, or BT file transfer)

- syncing multiple(!) calendars without a hiss, instead of having to perform some occult ritual on convoluted syncconfigs in order to be able to do so, and even then dropping out randomly

- on that particular topic: many alternate calendars available

- a multitude of stable mailclients, instead of having only two where one of them (the actual usable one, with needed features, let's call it 'claws-mail') crashes (un)predictably in every available version, and the other one - modest - is crap anyway

- talking via Skype when the other party is not on a laptop / desktop using LAN or WiFi, but instead UMTS, and you still can hear them after some minutes without noise bursts or dropped connections (it's a known issue with the N900, i hated it so much that i solely used the Touchpad for Skype after i got it - same connection / same endpoint was trouble-free)

- instantly alerting calls / the caller UI is fast enough, so that you don't miss them because the other party has already hang up in the meantime

- up2date browsers that don't have issues with certain encryption standards / setups, with functional Opera Link (both related to Opera) or are dog-slow (Fennec)

I guess it's a decision to be made what you have to rely on more... good task / process management, or being able to use the device truly for PIM

I accept any kind of multitasking that does the following things
1. Make absolutely sure that when I leave the app to go look or copy something, it will come back in the exact state it was before, to the last char.

2. If I background the application while doing something (loading, downloading, computing) it continues to do so while I read the web or something.

I don't really care if the above is caused by real or very well done fake multitasking but this is what I want, and I have found that maemo-like multitasking fits the description because, while both of the above can be done on android, on maemo the os takes care of that instead of relying on the application developer (more consistency)

So my understanding is this: Most people who prefer "real" multitasking have some similar requirements and have seen that maemo works as it should (with the added bonus that the switcher is nearer to the user than the launcher or the desktop at any given time) and try to put the difference with android into words.

The difference however at a first glance is not so obvious. Thumbnails here, thumbnails there. Switcher here, switcher there (on 3.0+ switcher is one click away). What seems to be the difference is whether the thumbnails are live, which as a sideffect guarantees my above two points. Live thumbnail means that the gui is still there in memory so it makes sure nothing has changed to the app interface (1) and that operations that change something in the thumbnail continue to run while in the background (2).

So while I agree that watching stellarium alternate day and night through the thumbnail is pointless, it's pretty adequate to prove that multitasking as I need it is in fact there and working.

Android is the worst mobile OS within a device which I own. My mobile OS history : EPOC 16 & 32, Symbian S60v1 / S80v1 / S80v2 / S60v3, Maemo 4, Maemo 5, MeeGo Harmattan, Android.

After using iOS and Windows Phone, they were discarded in the first minutes.

Thank you for this thread.

I use Android (4.0) daily on my HP Touchpad, just for the browser (one thing crippling the - otherwise smooth - webOS) and using it is a pain. You can do all the tasks you need, but there's no joy in using the system. For me, it kinda feels like the system is a problem, stepping between me and the app.

It is no way multitasking OS - I cannot play Youtube (music) video while doing something else - I cannot even switch to other browser's tab without killing the playback in the first one. I am never sure if I am going to lose progress on what I am currently doing when I switch to another app.

Imagine a situation when you're watching a movie in the Video player (or VLC) and a friend sends you a message over chat. You need to reply quickly, but you can be almost sure you will need to find the position in the movie again. Same situation with searching a text and receiving an e-mail. I always rather open the e-mail on my N900, just to prevent confusion.

I wish there was a an image of Plasma Active for HP Touchpad, so I could get rid of Android alltogether.

Yeah, the problem with the webOS browser is that whilst it was ok 2years ago, it has never ever been updated and the system cache appears to be very low as opening multiple windows can really slow the OS down.

That said though, even with the "unable to open mime type" messages in the browser and the odd mis-placed button, it will always try to open the desktop web page, unlike the Android browser which appears to actively sniff out mobile web pages. Even when selecting the desktop view, Andriod will often still want to load mobile web pages. (They are my personal peeve)


Now I agree with many that the multi tasking is superior on harmattan and when it comes to browsing it is essential because the browsing experience sucks big time. The stock browser fails too load many of pages, way more than the other browsers that we have to resort to having multiple programs open at once just to view your desired web content.