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This guy is just wrong: Apple OS has turned off multitasking for 3rd party apps to maintain battery life. It fully supports it. This is a control situation, wh

by gte910h 17y ago

This guy is just wrong: Apple OS has turned off multitasking for 3rd party apps to maintain battery life. It fully supports it. This is a control situation, where Apple has decided "We want our devices to have good battery life more than we want to allow multitasking".

jm4 17y ago
Source?
- gte910h 17y ago
  Do you hear music in the background while doing other things? Do you see your mail being checked while doing other things? Do you get background notifications while doing other things? Do you get appstore apps downloaded while doing other things? The iphone is fundamentally built on a mach kernel, which supports multitasking. Taking it out, when they already needed to use it for multitasking for the above tasks, is a silly idea. Here is a rundown of other parts of the iPhoneOS kernel: http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2007/07/13/iphone-os-x-architecture-the-mach-kernel-and-ram/ http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2007/07/13/iphone-os-x-archite...
buster 17y ago
Best thing about those excuses are: Every other mobile OS supports multitasking and all the smartphones i know have similar battery life. Symbian, Windows, Android, all have multitasking and yet people try to convince me that it, "not needed", "not possible", "makes the device unstable", "drains battery too much" which is just not true. My Android phone lasts at least as long as an iphone and i use multitasking all the day. It's just that the OS was truly made for this and it does it quite well.
- tumult 17y ago
  If I leave an app running in the background that keeps the net connection open on my Nexus One, the battery goes from 100 to 0 in about 5 hours.
  - orangecat 17y ago
    I'd bet that app was poorly written and doing something else in the background. An app that is just listening for data from an open connection should be using roughly zero CPU. But we'll try science; I've signed into AIM on my Nexus One and left it running in the background. The battery is at 81% now, I'll report back in an hour.
    - kreneskyp 17y ago
      If you keep a connection open it drains battery life because the chip can't power down.
      - theBobMcCormick 17y ago
        Sort of. In tumult's case he's got a connection that's actively downloading data and playing music. I would assume that'd keep the radio chipset (either wifi or cell, whichever he's using) and the CPU both from being able to switch to a lower power standby mode. However, you can have an open but idle connection open in the background with only minimal battery drain. That's how pretty much every kind of push notification or IM system works, even on cell phones.
    - orangecat 17y ago
      77% after an hour.
      - tumult 17y ago
        Sign in with the connection currently using WiFi instead of GPRS/3G, and it will keep the WiFi hardware on, which is what kills it. There is no way for a normal user to know that they need to open new, persistent connections over a connection type that uses the cellular modem instead of the WiFi. And Android defaults to using WiFi for new connections if the WiFi hardware is powered on and connected to a network. The best way to save battery on an Android phone is to turn off WiFi unless you need it at some point during the day. iPhone will stop attempting to do push notifications and the background Apple apps will disconnect if the only available connection is WiFi. I'd also like to point out that "I bet the app was poorly written" is exactly the situation Apple is currently avoiding until they are confident they have a reasonable technical solution to it.
- gte910h 17y ago
  Android is just now getting reasonable battery life with 2.x when heavy multitasking is in use. Many people need to have process cleaning apps to have zippy performance without rebooting the phone every few days. (And the fact not all android phones are upgradeable to 2.x is an issue meaning many still have crappy multitasking battery life).

by gte910h 17y ago

jm4 17y ago

Source?

gte910h 17y ago
Do you hear music in the background while doing other things? Do you see your mail being checked while doing other things? Do you get background notifications while doing other things? Do you get appstore apps downloaded while doing other things? The iphone is fundamentally built on a mach kernel, which supports multitasking. Taking it out, when they already needed to use it for multitasking for the above tasks, is a silly idea. Here is a rundown of other parts of the iPhoneOS kernel: http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2007/07/13/iphone-os-x-architecture-the-mach-kernel-and-ram/ http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2007/07/13/iphone-os-x-archite...

buster 17y ago

Best thing about those excuses are: Every other mobile OS supports multitasking and all the smartphones i know have similar battery life. Symbian, Windows, Android, all have multitasking and yet people try to convince me that it, "not needed", "not possible", "makes the device unstable", "drains battery too much" which is just not true. My Android phone lasts at least as long as an iphone and i use multitasking all the day. It's just that the OS was truly made for this and it does it quite well.

tumult 17y ago
If I leave an app running in the background that keeps the net connection open on my Nexus One, the battery goes from 100 to 0 in about 5 hours.
- orangecat 17y ago
  I'd bet that app was poorly written and doing something else in the background. An app that is just listening for data from an open connection should be using roughly zero CPU. But we'll try science; I've signed into AIM on my Nexus One and left it running in the background. The battery is at 81% now, I'll report back in an hour.
  - kreneskyp 17y ago
    If you keep a connection open it drains battery life because the chip can't power down.
    - theBobMcCormick 17y ago
      Sort of. In tumult's case he's got a connection that's actively downloading data and playing music. I would assume that'd keep the radio chipset (either wifi or cell, whichever he's using) and the CPU both from being able to switch to a lower power standby mode. However, you can have an open but idle connection open in the background with only minimal battery drain. That's how pretty much every kind of push notification or IM system works, even on cell phones.
  - orangecat 17y ago
    77% after an hour.
    - tumult 17y ago
      Sign in with the connection currently using WiFi instead of GPRS/3G, and it will keep the WiFi hardware on, which is what kills it. There is no way for a normal user to know that they need to open new, persistent connections over a connection type that uses the cellular modem instead of the WiFi. And Android defaults to using WiFi for new connections if the WiFi hardware is powered on and connected to a network. The best way to save battery on an Android phone is to turn off WiFi unless you need it at some point during the day. iPhone will stop attempting to do push notifications and the background Apple apps will disconnect if the only available connection is WiFi. I'd also like to point out that "I bet the app was poorly written" is exactly the situation Apple is currently avoiding until they are confident they have a reasonable technical solution to it.
gte910h 17y ago
Android is just now getting reasonable battery life with 2.x when heavy multitasking is in use. Many people need to have process cleaning apps to have zippy performance without rebooting the phone every few days. (And the fact not all android phones are upgradeable to 2.x is an issue meaning many still have crappy multitasking battery life).