There is real multitasking for Native apps like iPod, Mail, Phone, SMS, Safari, Clock, etc. Apple has chosen to not allow other apps to run in the background o

There is real multitasking for Native apps like iPod, Mail, Phone, SMS, Safari, Clock, etc. Apple has chosen to not allow other apps to run in the background on a permanent basis due to memory concerns. Indeed, the iPhone and especially the iPad runs out of memory shockingly easy. I have noticed that iOS 3.2 on my iPad is actually intelligent enough to start unloading backgrounded native apps from memory when I get low on RAM. I'm running SBSettings and Backgrounder on a jailbroken iPad and I can see that when I get down to about 10-20MB free apps will start getting closed. As long as these idevices only have 256MB of RAM this will be a problem. I think the approach Apple is taking is the right approach. An app like Pandora should be able to spin off a "stub" process that doesn't have any of the UI overhead but simply the network and audio code to continue playing an existing stream. These are all "hacks" that will hopefully be outdated in a couple years when we're hacking away on our A9 cortex 2 ghz. dual core iPads with 4GB of RAM.... (hey, I can dream right?)