Apple to preview iPhone OS 4 this Thursday at Apple HQ

http://www.edibleapple.com/apple-to-preview-iphone-os-4-this-thursday-at-apple-hq/

by anderzole • 16 years ago

57 93 16 years ago

If they announce multitasking for 3rd party apps, it's gonna put a really entertaining new twist on this discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1240171 :-)

martythemaniak2• 16 years ago

Obvious Prediction: All the people that have been vehemently defending Apple's lack of multitasking will very smoothly switch to extolling the virtues of this new feature, and how its way better than Android/BB/whatever.

mcav2• 16 years ago

People who defend single-tasking do so because multitasking can cause problems w/r/t memory, performance, and battery life. If Apple releases a solution that doesn't suffer from those issues, there's absolutely nothing wrong with "extolling the virtues" of multitasking.

My money's on some sort of limited form of multitasking, where apps can launch background processes or something like that.

bmalicoat2• 16 years ago

Could be like copy & paste, I didn't know what I was missing really. Didn't think I'd use it and I find myself using it a lot now that it's there.

roc2• 16 years ago

Obvious Prediction: people who can't see the difference between a claimed feature and a feature that is designed and works well will continue to be mystified by people who reject claimed features and acknowledge only features that are designed and work well.

wtallis2• 16 years ago

And as long as the multitasking doesn't introduce undue complexity or any new lag into the UI, there's nothing wrong or hypocritical about that.

It's clear from the range of smartphones out there that multitasking is hard to get right. Palm seems to have the best UI for multitasking, but their performance is far below Apple standards.

Multitasking is also somewhat of a long-tail feature. The mainstream, non-nerd majority is what Apple's been targeting with the iPhone and the iPad, and to them the lack of multitasking is at worst a nuisance that is usually offset by the platform's other strengths. The nerds who really badly want multitasking are a significant and vocal minority, but still a minority.

Apple's established a clear pattern of not releasing a feature until it is done to their satisfaction (see copy and paste), and this feature is easy to get wrong and hard to get right, and it's not a dealbreaker for too much of their market, so it stands to reason that it would be a long time coming. So long as whatever multitasking system Apple releases raises the bar for ease of use, the wait is justified.

jsz0• 16 years ago

I don't see those as being incompatible positions. Lots of people don't like the BB/WinMo/Android style of multi-tasking. My single biggest frustration with my Android phone is every few days it slows down to a crawl which reminds me to go open Advanced Task Killer and kill off all my background tasks. Some apps run in the background, some quit. Some apps are impossible to quit once started without a third party task manager installed. The GUI for switching apps is a simple alt-tab style switcher. Even something a simple as having thumbnails of the active windows or a taskbar/dock would be a big improvement.

DannoHung2• 16 years ago

Personally, I just dislike the existing phone UI's for multitasking. If they can make that awesome and battery life doesn't take a nose dive, I'm all for it.

bmalicoat2• 16 years ago

It's a shame they couldn't release the iPads with 4.0 on them because many of the non-technical people won't realize there's an update or no how to update it. Though I guess last time they did an update along with a major device release (iPhone 3G) it was pretty disastrous because of all the hits on their OS and activation servers. Maybe they should have not required iPads to activate via iTunes.

karipatila2• 16 years ago

This is just the announcement, isn't it? The OS probably comes out with the next phone around June.

jonknee2• 16 years ago

The iPad requires iTunes (you can't even turn it on without iTunes). iTunes lets you know when there's an update and what to do.

karipatila2• 16 years ago

You mean it requires iTunes for the first sync. After that you only need it for backing up.

kulkarnic3• 16 years ago

Well, not everyone agrees on the definition of multi-tasking. As a consumer, interleaving of processes seems quite adequate to me (i.e. no apps running in the background; apps are suspended on minimize), but an app developer may not agree.

I suspect that multitasking support, if introduced will be of the interleaved type- Apple's stance on true background apps being battery killers seems sensible to me.

But then, you never know: with the newer iPad style batteries, they might even pull it off! (I still doubt it, though, since that sort of OS update won't work on older iPhones)

coderdude3• 16 years ago

What's to agree on? You either have multiple, concurrent tasks or you do not.

ugh• 16 years ago

I guess the disagreement is about whether multiple, concurrent tasks are necessary or not.

kulkarnic3• 16 years ago

To a consumer, having interleaved tasks might appear like multi-tasking while it technically isn't (which you point out).

jodrellblank3• 16 years ago

False dichotomy.

You clearly have the ability to receive phonecalls at all times, so the phone is running so you have multiple concurrent tasks so there's no argument.

Except there is an argument, so that isn't what's really being discussed even if the discussion is framed by that term.

travisp• 16 years ago

I think many non-developers would agree that if you can't leave Pandora playing music while you go check your email, you don't have multi-tasking.

budu3• 16 years ago

Sorry I accidentally downvoted you. I agree with you. From a consumer point of view not being able to play music in the background makes the iPhone OS seem incomplete.

kulkarnic3• 16 years ago

Yeah, you're right. Streams are tricky- music and network too. I think Android solves it using services; would be interesting if Apple comes up with something different (I don't like daemons on my phone personally; but maybe it doesn't matter to most people.)

gojomo3• 16 years ago

Even more significant to me (and some large competing industries): can you receive a VOIP call while using another app?

Skype on the iPhone/iPad is great, except for the need to pre-arrange simultaneous launch.

ajaimk• 16 years ago

What do you mean non-developers. Developers too.

snprbob86• 16 years ago

You absolutely do not need multi-tasking (for 3rd party apps) to have background music. You simply need to expose the system media player as a service. I'd actually much prefer that solution. In fact, _most_ backgrounding needs would be better as a sensible system service call. Services could be provided for scheduling jobs, callbacks for location awareness events, etc.

tibbon2• 16 years ago

Those non-developers apparently never used DOS or other non multi-tasking OSs.

gcheong2• 16 years ago

I just released an app that uses a timer for a main feature of the application. The first (and so far only) user e-mail I received was this:

"Is there a way to shut off the iPod Touch while the countdown timer is working and the iPod Touch will wake up when the alarm goes off"

rcoder2• 16 years ago

I wonder if some sort of hybrid of the current push notifications and GCD might prove a workable stopgap? I.e., apps can register asynchronous event listeners while running, and push notifications can trigger those to give the appearance of multitasking.

If the background listeners/workers are heavily resource-constrained and subjected to limited API access, you might be able to maintain most of the battery life and performance advantages of the current single-task model, while still allowing apps to perform some amount of background processing. Any "heavy lifting" involving a full app UI, the GPU, or outbound network access could still require user confirmation and a task swtich.

KirinDave• 16 years ago

It's funny, because when I heard the original description of the iPhone push notifications at WWDC, that's exactly how I thought it worked.

That'd be a fairly good compromise.

theBobMcCormick10• 16 years ago

Sounds a lot like how background workers are handled in Android. http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/fundamentals.html#...

superjohan• 16 years ago

As someone who doesn't live in the US, I'm excited way more by this than any iPad news.

brettnak• 16 years ago

As someone who does, I'm still way more excited about this than any iPad news.

mcav2• 16 years ago

This is iPad news.

gojomo3• 16 years ago

I wonder: will iPad owners have to pay for OS updates?

For the iPhone, their price has been considered-included, as an accounting matter, in the ongoing revenue Apple shares from the mobile operators. But, for the iPod Touch, upgrade fees have applied to get new features -- with the stated rationale being accounting requirements.

The iPad(Wifi only) is clearly more like an iPod Touch. But even the iPad(Wifi+3G), with no long-term contracts and buy-as-you-need-it service, may not have any ongoing Apple revenue share.

All iPad owners may be on the hook for a fee when iPhoneOS4.0 arrives.

rcoder2• 16 years ago

Given that iPad app pricing has been substantially higher than it is for the iPhone, I can't imagine too many iPad buyers balking at a reasonable OS upgrade fee. Here I define "reasonable" loosely as "cheaper than a desktop OS upgrade", which would put the price cap somewhere in the $20-25 range.

nixme• 16 years ago

The accounting rules were changed after lobbying by Apple and other corps. See http://www.9to5mac.com/FASB-accounting-change-iPhone-AppleTV. More info at Ars: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/09/accounting-rules-c...

Hopefully this should mean free updates.

m_eiman• 16 years ago

There was an article about that somewhere (can't find it right now) where they say that according to the EULA the 4.x upgrades are included in the iPad price.

chrisbolt• 16 years ago

The iPad software EULA actually mentions this. http://www.tuaw.com/2010/03/30/apple-to-charge-for-future-ip...

From that, it sounds like they will be charging for updates every two major versions, so not as often as the iPod touch.

roc2• 16 years ago

I can't quite decide how to interpret that myself. (I admit I never considered they might be going to an every-other policy.) My theories were:

Pessimistic -- They knew 4.0 was right around the corner and that charging people $20 or so for 4.0 would go over like a turd in the punchbowl. So they're covering 4.0 but it'll be back to business-as-usual with 5.0.

Optimistic -- They're trying out not-charging for major releases but are reserving the right to change their minds again.

masterj• 16 years ago

http://www.tuaw.com/2010/03/30/apple-to-charge-for-future-ip...

>The common interpretation is that the next major OS update (iPad 4.0) will be available to iPad owners for free, but that Apple reserves the right to charge for iPad 5.0 and beyond.

ezy2• 16 years ago

You bought a minimum $500 device and you're going to complain about a nominal upgrade fee? Why do people bitch about this? You have even less excuse if you're using a 3G version which costs $700 and charges you a min of $15 a month (assuming you use the 3G).

_pius• 16 years ago

Unfortunately you can use the same logic to argue the opposite point:

You just sold someone a minimum $500 device and you're going to charge a nominal upgrade fee on top of it? Why do companies do that?

jodrellblank3• 16 years ago

I see no complaining or bitching going on in the parent comment. Would you point it out, please?

tibbon2• 16 years ago

Do we have any actual proof or justification to think that they will add unfettered multitasking or that most consumers are actually demanding such? Seems to be largely speculation.

khelloworld• 16 years ago

I wonder if Apple could drop the bomb and say they're bringing flash to the platform (since so many people are whining day and night about it)

I hope not.

On a more positive note, I hope they have multi-tasking and some kind of dashboard feature.

As a developer, I really hope they have some kind of CoreImage support.

rimantas2• 16 years ago

Bringing flash would be only half of the solution. The usual use cases mentioned are video and games. Well, some video providers already are updating to include non-flash alternatives, but let's say this is valid point. Then we have games, and I am wondering: what's the use of Flash games, which are designed either with keyboard or mouse in mind. How many would be playable with multitouch at all?

WildUtah• 16 years ago

>>bringing flash >>I hope not

Me, too. Mobile Webkit is the key to rationalizing the web. All that information-free flash app garbage is finally starting to clear up as clients realize they're missing the most lucrative corner of the market (those who pay more for Apple).

The best argument for dynamic HTML sites and HTML 5 is iPhone compatibility. Let's keep Android and iPhone Silverlight- and Flash-free. Okay, mobile vendors?

Apple to preview iPhone OS 4 this Thursday at Apple HQ

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