“The technology, detailed by people familiar with Apple’s plans for the new firmware, will finally allow users to launch multiple apps in the background and quickly switch between them, as AppleInsider exclusively reported earlier this month. Currently, a running app must be quit when the user returns to the Home screen,” Jade and McLean report.
“Apple initially avoided an app model supporting multiple apps running at once to help preserve battery life and simplify the user experience. Other platforms that do support the launching of multiple apps, including Android and Windows Mobile, require users to manually manage system resources and kill off performance robbing background tasks,” Jade and McLean report. “Today’s iPhone 3.x firmware is a fully preemptive multitasking operating system, but it artificially restricts apps (other than specific ones bundled with the system by Apple) from running in the background.”
Jade and McLean report, “Those familiar with the design of iPhone 4.0 said that the user interface will resemble Apple’s desktop Expose feature, in that a key combination — reportedly hitting the Home button twice — will trigger an expose-like interface that brings up a series of icons representing the currently running apps, allowing users to quickly select the one they want to switch to directly. When a selection is made, the iPhone OS zooms out of the Expose task manager and transitions to that app.”
Much more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Andrew W.” for the heads up.]
