Answering The Question – Can Windows Phone Multitask

When Microsoft shared the developer story for Windows Phone 7 at MIX, there was a lot of talk about multitasking and if it was even an option in Windows Phone 7. Microsoft has been very careful in what they say when it comes to multitasking. There’s been no official yes or no answer and because of this, the public has pretty much ruled that Windows Phone 7 does not multitask.

Enter Mark Arteaga, a fellow Windows Mobile MVP. Mark’s recent post takes an in-depth look at multitasking on Windows Phone 7. He talks about the 4 different application states and how they impact applications. He goes on to create a sample application that simply increments a counter as time goes by. With the sample application deployed to the emulator, Mark launches the Start Menu, opened another application called EnergizeIT Mobile, launched the Start Menu again, selected the sample application and it returns to the foreground showing that the counter value has incremented while the process was in the background. For all the developers in the crowd, Mark even provides you the code he used to run the threads.

End result is that Windows Phone 7 does support multitasking and from the looks of what Mark did, it supports more than the 7 simple situations that Apple has exposed in version 4 of their iPhone OS.

You can check out all the details and even the sample code that Mark provides, over on his blog.

Apple Announces Multitasking in iPhone OS 4.0

Yesterday was Apple’s big announcement – iPhone OS 4.0. There was a bunch of new features announced, including the long awaited – multitasking. If you want to follow the announcement, check out live.gdgt.com.

There’s a lot of focus on multitasking these days, so I wanted to run through what Apple announced and what it means for developers and the applications you use every day. Apple’s focus was to find a way to allow multitasking but without allowing background processes that end up killing your performance and battery life.

“How are we adding multitasking while preserving battery life and performance. We looked at tens of thousands of apps in the app store, and we’ve distilled the services those apps need to run in the background. So we implemented those services, and we’re providing those services as APIs to developers so they can add multitasking while preserving battery life.” – Scott Forstall, SVP of iPhone Software via live.gdgt.com

The announcement goes on to define the seven (7) background services they are providing – Background audio, Voice over IP, Background location, Push notifications, Local notifications, Task completion, and Fast app switching. These are the only multitasking services exposed to the developer. Let’s quickly run down what each one of these can do for you:

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Multitasking in Windows Phone 7 Series; How Crucial?

Windows Phone 7 Series is set to storm into the market later this year but many are concerned about recent news, most notably the lack of multitasking. Let’s take a look at what that may mean for end users.

(The information in this article is not based on materials from Microsoft directly but rather a mixture of released and assumed information reported throughout the internet)

You would have to admit that Microsoft has been very brave with its decisions for WP7S. While they certainly did need to make a shift away from Windows Mobile 6.X no one thought they would do so in such a dramatic way. The UI is completely different and innovative, legacy apps will not work with it, it is locked down with apps only being installed from the Marketplace, it’s an all new development environment (sorta) and there will be no multitasking.

Ok, there will be multitasking of sorts, but in a limited fashion. I don’t know all the ins and outs but most likely some core apps like music, email and such should be able to run in the background. WP7S will then use notifications much like the iPhone to alert you of a changed state with apps in the background.

With all the noise many iPhone users have been making about the need for multitasking how is that Microsoft thinks it can get away with leaving it out? It really looks like Apple is about to add multitasking to the iPhone in 4.0, so is this going to be a real misstep by the Redmond gang?

I have said in the past that iPhone could address the need for multitasking without actually doing it if they supported, or made ‘remembered state’ mandatory in apps. If an app can open up almost instantly right to where it was the last time you were in it you probably wouldn’t care that it was not actually running in the background.

Of course, some apps will need either to actually run in the background of use notifications to alert users as needed. This is where the juggling act comes in, and this is where Microsoft needs to get it right. If they can balance these two and do notifications very well the OS will actually feel like it is a multitasked environment.

I can’t say I am happy about the lack of multitasking, but doing the above would certainly go a long way to helping and may assuage my fears. It doesn’t really matter though…I’m getting a Windows Phone 7 Series phone either way! Can’t wait!

Simple Solution Apple Should Have Used

One of the shortcomings that many feel was not addressed with the iPhone 3.0 update was multitasking. Apple made a decision to forgo multitasking in order to ensure optimal performance and battery life. Instead they opted to add Notifications that let you know when there has been a server change to the information you were accessing. This can certainly be handy for things such as IM clients, twitter, facebook and other services but it doesn’t address more basic advantages of multitasking. The crazy thing about this lack of multitasking is that Apple could have simulated multitasking quite easily on the iPhone/iPod Touch.

With multitasking environments you can have multiple programs running at the same time. Many mobile OS’ have been doing this for a while now and it makes so much sense to have. We are continually becoming more used to multitasking ourselves; especially while on the go. Having a multitasked OS means you can be in the middle of writing an email or editing a contact and jump over to the calendar to check on an appointment. When you jump back to the email or contact you are right where you left off, mid-edit; your cursor is in the same place and ready for you to continue. It makes for a MUCH more powerful and productive use of on-the-go time.

Apple could have easily simulated this without breaking from their decision to opt out of multitasking the iPhone. They could have had applications open up to exactly the state they were in when last closed, especially if you were mid-edit. That would mean you could be editing a contact and go to a webpage to copy their address and jump back to the contact to paste it in.

By combining notifications with this little change to applications Apple would have a sort-of-multitasking environment without any of the performance hit they are worried about. With the new iPhone 3Gs being so fast this makes even more sense, as switching between apps is much faster.

I also think they should have a quick pop-up menu that shows the last 3 or 5 apps used so that you can jump to those apps quickly rather than having to go back to the application launcher every time.

Anyway, now that my idea is on the intertubes I can sue Apple if they implement it. Kthxbai