iPhone OS 4

[Maikeru-sama]

Even though I wouldn't use it, the new "folder creation" feature is very cool. Where you drag an app icon on top of another and a new folder with both apps inside of it is created.

I haven't noticed any substantial changes in the battery life, this is was a fantastic update.

 

[YosemiteSam]

I'm a Software Developer by trade, I understand what multi-tasking/multi-threaded applications are and how they work, I have written quite a few of them, although none on a mobile device.

You ask any Software Engineer about multithreaded applications, they will tell you by their nature, they consume more resources but the difference between a good and a great developer is how much resources it will use.

Thanks though

The point I was making is you app only consumes what it is made to consume. Meaning, if you have a Solitaire game running in the background, but its doing nothing (ie sleeping until you do something). Then it is hardly consuming processor cycles or battery. My email (and other connections) is checked every 10 minutes. The app that checks it consumes no battery or CPU between checks. It's made to sleep until it's process it awoken to preform that task then returns to sleep. It literally *IS* multi-tasking and yet consumes only what I ask it too when I set it to check every 10 minutes.

Now, you cranked up a HD movie in the background and the app doesn't know to pause it (save resources) when it's not in the foreground. Thats a piss poor application that will hog your resources. I just had to disable an Active Wallpaper due to that issue.

 

[Maikeru-sama]

First, if you look at my initial comment, I never said the new feature was going to use a lot more of the battery, I just said I wanted to "see" what effect the new multitasking features would have on the battery.

Any knowledgeable developer will tell you that when you introduce multitasking, that application by its very nature will consume more systems resource and an entire new layer of complexity has been introduced, how much depends on architecture and the what's between the "chair and the keyboard".

My specialty is not Mobile Development but I know for a fact the theory is the same as if writing apps on an N-Tier environment.

Furthermore, the makers of any Operating System can allow 3rd party applications to run in the background (which is what multi-tasking is, in .Net they even have a "Background Worker Control") all they want but those applications are still going to consume OS resources.

Also, just because you have a "service" running in the background that checks email in intervals throughout the day, if you can fire that application up without it reloading into the OS memory, that application is draining OS resources, regardless.

 

[YosemiteSam]

First, if you look at my initial comment, I never said the new feature was going to use a lot more of the battery, I just said I wanted to "see" what effect the new multitasking features would have on the battery.

Any knowledgeable developer will tell you that when you introduce multitasking, that application by its very nature will consume more systems resource and an entire new layer of complexity has been introduced, how much depends on architecture and the what's between the "chair and the keyboard".

My specialty is not Mobile Development but I know for a fact the theory is the same as if writing apps on an N-Tier environment.

Furthermore, the makers of any Operating System can allow 3rd party applications to run in the background (which is what multi-tasking is, in .Net they even have a "Background Worker Control") all they want but those applications are still going to consume OS resources.

Also, just because you have a "service" running in the background that checks email in intervals throughout the day, if you can fire that application up without it reloading into the OS memory, that application is draining OS resources, regardless.

I won't argue with you. btw, it's not reloaded into memory. It remains in memory. The only battery usage is memory refreshing when the app's thread is asleep. (were talking Java here) That happens no matter what.

 

[Maikeru-sama]

If that app's thread(s) are sleep, waiting, joined etc etc, it is still consuming resources. Threads consume resources, that's just the bottom line, that is why there are ton of different ways to implement multi-threaded applications (creating threads manunally, background worker, thread pools, using monitors, mutex etc etc) because they consume resources and introduce another layer of complexity and more complexity means more code and more code, generally means more resources, this is C#, I haven't done Java since college but C# took a lot of its ideas from C++ and Java.


Applications that only runs on one thread doesn't consume as much resources as applications that run multiple threads.

 

[Tusan_Homichi]

Multitasking is nice. Though, I still say the WebOS implementation of multitasking is the best in the mobile business. I ended up trading my Palm device for an Android device, but I do miss the feel of WebOS. It's too bad the hardware just doesn't hold up in comparison.

 

[Concord]

The multitasking bar is more like a recently used bar.

Disappointing.

Hopefully all the apps will eventually be upgraded so you can truly have multitasking.

 

[YosemiteSam]

Multitasking is nice. Though, I still say the WebOS implementation of multitasking is the best in the mobile business. I ended up trading my Palm device for an Android device, but I do miss the feel of WebOS. It's too bad the hardware just doesn't hold up in comparison.

HP is making a lot of rumbling noises about WebOS. You might very well get what you want soon enough.

With Blackberry failing so miserably in their attempt to play catch up, it will be nice to see at least three top players in the game. (Windows mobile just doesn't cut it. I guess thats why they have started working on an entirely new mobile OS)

 

[Tusan_Homichi]

HP is making a lot of rumbling noises about WebOS. You might very well get what you want soon enough.

With Blackberry failing so miserably in their attempt to play catch up, it will be nice to see at least three top players in the game. (Windows mobile just doesn't cut it. I guess thats why they have started working on an entirely new mobile OS)

That's true. HP is making a little bit of noise about WebOS based tablets. Now, I don't give two craps about the iPad, but a WebOS based tablet? Now I'm startin to get a bit interested...

Plus, it was just a build quality issue with the Pre. It was all plastic, the keyboard was cramped and not very responsive, and the screen size was just too small. I've since gotten a Motorola Droid. This thing is a tank and is perfect size. If you gave me something like a Motorola Droid running WebOS? That'd be good stuff.

 

[Maikeru-sama]

Has anyone had any issues with their iPhone freezing up after installing OS 4?

My iPhone froze on me today and I am starting to think it is due to the multitasking because I probably had over 10 applications running in multitask.

What's interesting is when I shutdown the phone and brought it back up (to clear all apps), the apps were still running.

I don't think every app that you close via the "home" button should go into the background. It is almost like they need to add another button, that the user pushes to denote that it closes completely and of course, still use the home button to denote that the app run in the background.

I'm hoping they don't have any memory management issues like the Blackberry Storm did when it first came out.