04-12-2010, 01:00 PM
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Contributing Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 716
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The Windows Phone 7 Multitasking Story
"What's my take on this? Well, Windows Phone 7 is based on Windows Embedded CE. Without going into too much details on Windows CE, it is basically a real-time operating system and is not a trimmed down version of their desktop Windows OS. Windows CE is it's own full fledged real-time operating system and yes it can do multitasking. In all the years I've been developing Windows Phone and Windows CE software for customers, I have seen lots of applications that just go out and kill the battery, launch X number of threads or do things that are just not too smart and really kills the end user experience on the device. Think about it, when an app kills the battery in 1hr, the end user will usually say "this phone sucks" and returns it. In reality it's not the phones fault, it's the crappy app! This has always been a problem that has plagued Pocket PC/Windows Mobile/Windows Phone 5.x - 6.x for some time. Windows Phone 7 is about the end user and making sure their experience with the phone is top notch. This post on Windows Phone 7 and "Focus" by Charlie Kindel talks a bit more about the end user experience." 
If you're wondering where Windows Phone 7 stands on multitasking, especially in the wake of Apple's iPhone 4.0 OS, check out this blog post by Mark Arteaga!
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iPhone
Tmo Dash
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04-12-2010, 03:33 PM
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Magi
Join Date: Sep 2005
Posts: 2,341
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jason Dunn
Think about it, when an app kills the battery in 1hr, the end user will usually say "this phone sucks" and returns it............... check out this blog post by Mark Arteaga!</p>
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What an incredibly lousy reason to lock the OS down the way they have. There are some bad developers out there, so we MUST protect you from them......AAAAARRRRRGGGGGG!!
Microsoft, please stop telling me what is best for me, you're not my real mom anyway!
Dave
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04-12-2010, 04:55 PM
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Philosopher
Join Date: Oct 2006
Posts: 554
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There're better ways to protect the end user from lousy applications! For example, Apps. Market. I understand, submitted Apps. are examined there one way or another, so make sure they won't eat a battery in 1 hour!
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You create your opportunities by asking for them
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04-13-2010, 06:56 AM
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Philosopher
Join Date: Dec 2005
Posts: 541
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For a moment I hoped that there will be something in the article that would make me more optimistic about WP7 and multitasking. But at the end it basically confirms that WP7 doesn't have multitasking for third party applications.
So they are pretty much on par with the current iPhone OS, unfortunatelly by the time WP7 is actually released to market, Apple will have multitasking and Microsoft will still be stuck without.
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04-13-2010, 07:03 AM
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Contributing Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Sep 2006
Posts: 1,053
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Android's solution after 1.6 is to pop a message up that takes you to why your battery is low. No reason MSFT couldn't have done something similar. It would be easy for the OS to monitor for applications that are a heavy load and inform the user and let THEM decide to keep it or not.
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04-13-2010, 06:34 PM
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Pupil
Join Date: Jun 2007
Posts: 11
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Lame. I actually don't use that many apps on my current windows phone. But the ones I do use REQUIRE multitasking to be effective. I use sportsdo for example to track my exercise in the background via gps while I take calls and listen to music and sometimes use bing maps to make sure I know where I'm going while it's tracking me.
so so lame.
Looks like I'll get an HD2 after all and pass on Windows 7 until they regain their sanity.
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04-13-2010, 11:45 PM
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Philosopher
Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 555
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Paragon
What an incredibly lousy reason to lock the OS down the way they have. There are some bad developers out there, so we MUST protect you from them......AAAAARRRRRGGGGGG!!
Microsoft, please stop telling me what is best for me, you're not my real mom anyway!
Dave
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One OS developer used to do that. They eventually had to yield, and in a way they don't even exist now.
Palm.
"Our users don't care about multimedia. Our user want work devices that do work and does it quickly and with good battery life"
"Our users don't care about multitasking. They want speed and multitasking kills it"
"Our users don't care about UI. They want speed"
Now...look at WebOS
The silver lining though, is that according to the blog post, the situation doesn't look as destitute as being told outright "this phone can only do one thing at a time!!!"
Last edited by felixdd; 04-13-2010 at 11:48 PM..
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04-15-2010, 09:09 PM
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Editorial Contributor
Join Date: Jun 2007
Posts: 5,411
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Quote:
Originally Posted by alese
So they are pretty much on par with the current iPhone OS, unfortunatelly by the time WP7 is actually released to market, Apple will have multitasking and Microsoft will still be stuck without.
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The future iPhone will have multitasking as defined by Steve Jobs. I don't think the user evident capability is going to be that drastically different. Both companies are shy of wide open access to te OS by third party applications but understand that there are many scenarios that demand that processes operate in the background, and not just their own. Consider for a moment what you have seen on te WP7 main screen. Multiple tiles, all accessing different social networks, e-mail, weather, etc in real time. That certainly implies some level of 'multi-tasking.' Obviously even the current iPhone system can 'multi-task' as I am sure many of you have had iPod runing with any number of other apps, and goton a text or e-mail alert as that was happening. The question is really how much freedom is either company going to give to third party developers to play in that game, and what restrictions are they going to impose for the right.
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Sometimes you are the anteater, sometimes you are the ant.
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04-16-2010, 06:54 AM
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Philosopher
Join Date: Dec 2005
Posts: 541
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sven
The future iPhone will have multitasking as defined by Steve Jobs. I don't think the user evident capability is going to be that drastically different. Both companies are shy of wide open access to te OS by third party applications but understand that there are many scenarios that demand that processes operate in the background, and not just their own. Consider for a moment what you have seen on te WP7 main screen. Multiple tiles, all accessing different social networks, e-mail, weather, etc in real time. That certainly implies some level of 'multi-tasking.' Obviously even the current iPhone system can 'multi-task' as I am sure many of you have had iPod runing with any number of other apps, and goton a text or e-mail alert as that was happening. The question is really how much freedom is either company going to give to third party developers to play in that game, and what restrictions are they going to impose for the right.
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Yes, both sistems can multitask allready if you look at native applications, but that's not the point. At the moment multitasking on iPhone, with third party applications doesn't work, you can't listen to Pandora in the background or take a call (or switch to any other app) while using navigation and still get navigation notifications. And the same goes for WP7, while this is not a problem on WM or Android.
I know full well, that Apple's new "multitasking" in 4.0 is not "true" multitasking as we have it on desktops. But it does allow for certain degree of multitasking (running in the background, fast switching) for third party applications, Microsoft on the other hand was quite clear that third party applications on WP7 will pause/suspend if you switch to another app.
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04-16-2010, 07:37 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Nov 2003
Posts: 122
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Protect Us From Our Ignorance!
I think the takeaways here are:
1.) WP7S can indeed mutitask, but it has been restricted to core applications to protect the consumer from lazy developers.
2.) This policy is going to create problems even among the dumb consumers it is designed to protect.
3.) MS doesn't want to vet properly written applications that do no go into a suspended state. Obviously, the developers or somebody needs to fund a board certification process that will check and approve with a seal that said 3rd party application won't leak the device into the abyss of dead battery consumption. At least ours are field replaceable!
You know, in the old days of WM, the presumably more sophisticated users would just uninstall the application that was faulty. Let's clink phones to that!
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