Love my wifes new iPhone 4. Thought I would like
the multitask feature but not really. Ideally I would like to close an app without openning the task tray.
Maybe one quick tap on the home button to close app, hold home button for 2 seconds and watch app drop on multitask tray.
95 % of my apps I don't want to keep open. Simplify common processes.
You don't have to actually close a lot of the apps. They don't consume battery life being "multitasked". Most apps will just save their state and sit dormant. If memory is needed, the multitasker also removes dormant apps from memory on a semi FIFO basis, it's fairly decent at handling this.
It's only apps that are actually performing functions in the background, including GPS software, audio streaming (Pandora, for example) and Skype that actually continue to use battery life.
I agree there seems to be quite a bit of mis-understanding out there about what multi-tasking in iOS is actually doing, other than a small number of API's (background music, voip calling, location, etc) most programs ARE NOT RUNNING in the background AT ALL.
There is no need to remove them from the task tray, the difference is that now an app can save it's state when closing rather than having to start from the beginning again when you relaunch it. This is somewhat akin to pressing pause on a video rather than stop... you can come back later right at the same spot you were at rather than starting from the beginning again. For the most part the task tray is just a list of most recently used apps that have a saved state to return to.
Actually, multitasking apps are not actually "running" in the background on any mobile system, Apple, Android or whatever. And why would they? Why use up precious memory and battery power if you don't need to? The OS takes a snapshot of where you were when you left it and returns you there when you resume. The exception, as has been said, are music apps and GPS-reliant apps. There is no need to close the apps, as Steve Jobs has explained—just use it the way it was intended, with the status bar/task tray showing you your most recently-used apps in order. Pretty handy, I've found. Folders in iOS 4 are great, too.
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Multitask seems to work fine on the iPhone 4. In fact iOS 4 looks like it works very well with the iPhone 4. But it totally sucks on the 3GS. Too many problems with iOS 4 on older iPhones, and it doesn't look like Apple is about to fix any of it. All updates and fixes for iOS 4.x.x have been for the iPhone 4.
Probably Apple's way of "forcing" everyone to upgrade to the iPhone 4.
Multitask seems to work fine on the iPhone 4. In fact iOS 4 looks like it works very well with the iPhone 4. But it totally sucks on the 3GS. Too many problems with iOS 4 on older iPhones, and it doesn't look like Apple is about to fix any of it. All updates and fixes for iOS 4.x.x have been for the iPhone 4.
Probably Apple's way of "forcing" everyone to upgrade to the iPhone 4.
I don't understand this. My old 3GS, my girlfriend's 3GS and my sister's 3GS all "multi-task" just fine. What is the issue that makes it suck so much?
When I have a bunch of apps 'open' in the task tray, my phone gets dog slow and the only way to speed things back up is the 'close' most of the apps that are in there. None of them are apps that would run in the background either. So somehow, this 'feature' is using up resources.
When I have a bunch of apps 'open' in the task tray, my phone gets dog slow and the only way to speed things back up is the 'close' most of the apps that are in there. None of them are apps that would run in the background either. So somehow, this 'feature' is using up resources.
Honestly, I've never seen this issue on any of the 3GS I have iOS4 installed on.
This may be unrelated, but when I have a lot of apps open, I see problems with notifications. For instance, Facebook, if it is running, the home screen icon will incorrectly display the number of notifications. I see this with the Mail app as well. If I launch the task bar and terminate the app and then go back in, the notification alerts are gone.
This will likely be addressed with a software update, I have no fear of that, however, it would be nice to be able to turn "Multitasking" until it is fixed.
__________________ Apple Stuff: 27 Inch Intel Core i7 iMac, 13 Inch i5 MacBook Air, iPhone 4 32GB, iPad 2 (32GB + 3G), Apple TV 2.
I find I can't live without multitasking. I love being able to bounce from one app to another seamlessly. I find that since I've used multitasking previously on my jailbroken 2G I tend to be vigilant about memory management. I rarely let the phone run more then 3 or 4 apps, otherwise I prune it down.
Though with the iP4 I was quite amazed at how many apps you could have open on it. At Best Buy I was trying out a demo unit and I looked at the multitasking bar and every app had to be open on the thing. I had to have closed 9 pages of apps on the thing. All the same the phone was still snappy and responsive.
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