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Multi-Tasking, advantage or disadvantage?

What do you think?

  • It's an advantage.

    Votes: 38 90.5%
  • It's a disadvantage.

    Votes: 4 9.5%

  • Total voters
    42

Joker

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We know that in the next fall ISO4 will come which Include new features for the iPad such as multi-tasking and the folders.. etc.

I just wanted to know, do you guys think of Multi-Tasking as a advantage or disadvantage?

I don't really think of it as a advantage because of the following reasons:

-I want the system to to concentrate on one working app so it gives the best performance.

-When working on an app, I'd like working without any distractions.

-When Closing the current app, I'd like to go to bed without any concerns wondering whether there are still some apps working in the background consuming the battery life

-Since most of the apps, when opening them they return you to the last status they were on, I don't really think I need it.

Also, once ISO comes out, is there an option to disable it?
 

gentlefury

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Disadvantage - Regardless of what Apple says it WILL lower battery life and will make the iPad run hotter.

Ummm, thats not true at all.

For starters the way apple is doing multitasking is not actually multitasking as we traditionally think of it. It is more like state saving with an NES emulator. You run an app then close it, when you close it it saves a file that says exactly where it was when you closed it (similar to sleep mode on a PC). When you go back to that app the saved state is loaded as opposed to the initial state...therefore the battery life will NOT be hindered at all! The only toll it will take is the addition of small state files taking up more space on the device.

Now on that note. I have been using Backgrounder since the jailbreak came out and that actually runs apps in the background. I have experienced no loss in battery life whatsoever.
 

Twiddles

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You don't Need an off switch. You don't want to use it close the previous app and switch to the new one. Now you have no multitasking, personally I prefer an app that can continue to function when I am not staring at it ( then when I am ready it's done thinking, everyones happy).
 

Bobleihy

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Multitasking

I am learning Spanish.

Normally I need a book, a dictionary, and a list of words to add to.

All this is on the iPad, but it is necessary to go through the home screen to switch between them.

Multitasking would be great for learning languages.
 

Digikid

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Disadvantage - Regardless of what Apple says it WILL lower battery life and will make the iPad run hotter.

Ummm, thats not true at all.

For starters the way apple is doing multitasking is not actually multitasking as we traditionally think of it. It is more like state saving with an NES emulator. You run an app then close it, when you close it it saves a file that says exactly where it was when you closed it (similar to sleep mode on a PC). When you go back to that app the saved state is loaded as opposed to the initial state...therefore the battery life will NOT be hindered at all! The only toll it will take is the addition of small state files taking up more space on the device.

Now on that note. I have been using Backgrounder since the jailbreak came out and that actually runs apps in the background. I have experienced no loss in battery life whatsoever.

Good to know.
 

NumbLock

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I've got ios4 on my iPhone, and yeah, it is an advantage. I wish they would get both top-shelf Apple devices on the same code base.
 

wrecklass

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Haven't got iOS4 on anything yet, but if Apple does it like Android it is a huge advantage because switching between Apps means they don't restart every time but load back up as if they had never exited. And you can switch directly between apps rather than going through the home screen.

Think about it, if single tasking were so great we'd still be on the first MacOS or DOS!!

The biggest problem for Apple multitasking is the limited memory. On Android a background App can keep running if it really needs to. The iDevices prior to iPhone 4 expect each App to get all of the memory for it's own use.
 

petermillard

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I don't see it as a disadvantage, but it just isn't something I need in a phone or iPad <shrug>

Pete
 

Hasty

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I'm surprised that I no longer care about multitasking.
At first I thought it was a serious omission, but with use I don,t miss it. That said I'm not into Twitter or facebook etc., as I find I can waste my time quite adequately without them......
 

Prasius

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It's the fast "hot switching" (which is how I will refer to iOS4 multitasking from now) that I'm missing not having on the iPad compared to my iOs4 3Gs. Some people complain about it not being "real" multitasking, which it obviously isn't, but few people actually use multitasking to its full potential on their desktop or multicore laptops (if anyone suggests multitasking on their netbook I'm going to slap them, then ask when they last did some 3D rendering whilst watching streaming HD video on their frickin netbook!).

Hot switching will make the iPad much more of a productivity tool, simply because it will be far faster and easier to flick between the web, pages, numbers, keynote, documents to go, drop box, etc, Instead of the slightly painful process I find it now.
 

pallentx

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I find myself wishing for it almost every day. If you dont want your iPad multitasking, just dont use it and close everything. Its very nice to have when you need it - it was one of the features I really liked about my old Windows Mobile phone.
 
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Joker

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Disadvantage - Regardless of what Apple says it WILL lower battery life and will make the iPad run hotter.

Ummm, thats not true at all.

For starters the way apple is doing multitasking is not actually multitasking as we traditionally think of it. It is more like state saving with an NES emulator. You run an app then close it, when you close it it saves a file that says exactly where it was when you closed it (similar to sleep mode on a PC). When you go back to that app the saved state is loaded as opposed to the initial state...therefore the battery life will NOT be hindered at all! The only toll it will take is the addition of small state files taking up more space on the device.

Now on that note. I have been using Backgrounder since the jailbreak came out and that actually runs apps in the background. I have experienced no loss in battery life whatsoever.


Even if there are no battery life, it will still eat up some ram.:D
 

Prasius

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Even if there are no battery life, it will still eat up some ram.:D

As I understand it, the program state is stored in the SSD, the actual RAM footprint is pretty small for most program which are 'frozen'. I think thats one of the reasons why Apple only provide a few multitasking capable Development modules.
 

wrecklass

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Even if there are no battery life, it will still eat up some ram.:D

As I understand it, the program state is stored in the SSD, the actual RAM footprint is pretty small for most program which are 'frozen'. I think thats one of the reasons why Apple only provide a few multitasking capable Development modules.
Still, this is a pretty big issue. The iPad has a mere 256MB of RAM for Apps, the same as the iPhone 3GS. The iPhone 4 has double that, 512MB.

This is a pretty big limitation while there are Android phones with up to 8GB (GB!!) of app RAM. This is one of the reasons iOS4 has had such poor performance on iPhone 3 devices. Apple is going to have to jump through some hoops to make this work on the iPad.

It is pretty inexcusable that Apple released iPad with so little RAM just months before releasing iOS4.
 

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