iPad Understanding Multi-tasking on the iPad: What is it really?

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by mjmcleod

Not really, no, as it needs to maintain a persistent TCP connection to the SSH server. Suspend the app, connection is lost.

A friend has pointed out that one can get TouchTerm to automatically run screen on login, and to automatically log in to a particular machine on startup, so it's kinda-sorta possible in a fairly bodgy kind of way. I've not been satisfied with that on my iPhone 3G, but the iPad should be a lot faster so... maybe.

(The other appeal for me? Decent sized screen, can run just about any ebook app so one can buy whatever's the best deal at the time. That alone is going to tempt me.)

But even if TouchTerm logs you back in, you aren't still in the same directory and your processes may be killed (unless you backgrounded them). This is one of the cases where true traditional multitasking will probably be required. The question is whether Apple will consider the use case common enough for them to decide to allow an appropriate app to use the existing multitasking capabilities.

The "any ebook app" is certainly attractive. Hopefully it will work out that way.

[kilron]

a couple thoughts... i know a lot of folks wish it had multi-tasking support across the board. i'm in the other camp that finds it unnecessary for this type of device. which leads me to ask the question: "what multitasking would you do on an iPad if you had support for it?"

secondly, with regards to flash, i'm in the camp where i would be LESS likely to buy it if it had flash support. can't stand flash. adobe has gone so far down hill from a major innovator to a company that just complains and bitches if they don't get their way and they constantly blame their own shortfalls on other companies. very very poor...

the writing is on the wall. the web wants to move away from flash. the only way for adobe to save it is to open up flash and make it open source so anyone can code their own flash players. flash is currently the ONLY ubiquitous web protocol that is NOT an open standard. that's a BAD thing. anyway you cut it. HTML 5 is the way to go.

[dmaul1114]

Originally Posted by kilron

which leads me to ask the question: "what multitasking would you do on an iPad if you had support for it?"

Some of us have already answered that.

I'd be using it for work for academic research. Searching for and downloading pdfs of research articles, reading and marking them up, e-mailing colleagues, looking at word documents etc.

Currently I read and mark up printouts of the PDFs in front of a PC so I can search for other articles, send e-mails to colleagues, etc. etc.

So on the tablet I'd ideally like to have all those programs open at once and able to switch between nearly instantaneously, vs having to close out an app and open another every time I need to do something else.

[kilron]

Originally Posted by dmaul1114

Some of us have already answered that.

I'd be using it for work for academic research. Searching for and downloading pdfs of research articles, reading and marking them up, e-mailing colleagues, looking at word documents etc.

Currently I read and mark up printouts of the PDFs in front of a PC so I can search for other articles, send e-mails to colleagues, etc. etc.

So on the tablet I'd ideally like to have all those programs open at once and able to switch between nearly instantaneously, vs having to close out an app and open another every time I need to do something else.

but what you're explaining isn't multi-tasking. that's just going from one task to the next. sounds like a 2 button press on an iPad. is that really all that much to complain about?

[kjk]

Originally Posted by dmaul1114

Some of us have already answered that.

I'd be using it for work for academic research. Searching for and downloading pdfs of research articles, reading and marking them up, e-mailing colleagues, looking at word documents etc.

Currently I read and mark up printouts of the PDFs in front of a PC so I can search for other articles, send e-mails to colleagues, etc. etc.

So on the tablet I'd ideally like to have all those programs open at once and able to switch between nearly instantaneously, vs having to close out an app and open another every time I need to do something else.

dmaul, have you tried an iPhone? Jumping from app to app (i.e. from a book or webpage to the mail program and back) is pretty frictionless even without multitasking (although, I have to say the 3GS is MUCH snappier than the original iPhone). Certainly isn't the same as opening and closing applications on Windows or a Mac to switch between them.


I wonder if it might be usable in your scenario moreso than mjmcleod's need to have something actually streaming.

[dmaul1114]

Originally Posted by kilron

but what you're explaining isn't multi-tasking. that's just going from one task to the next. sounds like a 2 button press on an iPad. is that really all that much to complain about?

Yeah, it's pretty minor as long as closing the app automatically saves progress.

I do have some need for more true multitasking. Music playing while working (which the iPad can do), instant messenger programs working--always chatting with people off and on while working, e-mail notification to pop up when I have new message as I'm always getting e-mails from students and colleagues.

But the bigger draw backs keeping me from buying day 1 are:

-Not being designed around a stylus and having full handwriting support. Thus I have to wait and see how a capacitive stylus works on it (vs. a wacom stylus touch screen) and what kind of support we get in apps for marking up PDFs, word documents, books etc. since that's my main need for a tablet.

Maybe it will end up working for me on that front, maybe I'll have to wait for a more business oriented tablet build from the ground up around stylus use and document markup.

-Lack of flash, as I watch a lot of TV on hulu, network websites etc. when traveling, and would be taking a tablet in place of my laptop on shorter trips.

[kjk]

Originally Posted by dmaul1114

But the bigger draw backs keeping me from buying day 1 are:
-Not being designed around a stylus and having full handwriting support.
-Lack of flash, as I watch a lot of TV on hulu, network websites etc. when traveling, and would be taking a tablet in place of my laptop on shorter trips.

Yeah, can't see either of those coming, at least in iPad 1.0

[kilron]

the stylus for sure isn't coming, but that's a very niche thing. mass consumers don't want a stylus interface, its slow and clunky to use. now that doesn't mean you can't have apps designed around a stylus for input and so forth. in fact i would wager a guess that there could easily be many apps designed around stylus input and some nice third-party styli avatilable as well, just nothing made by apple. my guess is it won't be nearly as super accurate as a wacom tablet, but it'll be plenty close enough for the majority of folks that might want to go this route.

but as for the OS itself being built around a stylus, i really think that's something that won't happen for any mass consumer product like an iPad or any other modern tablet aimed at the mass consumer market. IMO, that's related to the primary reason why Windows 7 (or vista or XP for that matter) will never be a good choice for a good mass consumer tablet. that is, they are designed specifically for precise mouse input and don't translate well to touch-only input. android to me has the most potential in this area, though it might be a while before its there, top-to-bottom as a complete tablet OS.

[dmaul1114]

It is a niche thing--but it's a big niche.

I mean you have the whole student market there you could really sell on a device like this by showing all the cool multimedia features, but also that they can buy their textbooks in cheaper e versions and highlight and scribble on them just like they do their textbooks currently.

As well as being useful for anyone that has to read and mark up documents in their work, be it researchers, teachers grading/proofing papers etc.

But yeah, I don't expect to get what I want in mass market tablet like the iPad. I need a tablet that's build mainly as a document reader and mark up and doesn't use a slow, clunky e-ink display like the Que or iRex etc.

[kjk]

Originally Posted by dmaul1114

It is a niche thing--but it's a big niche.

I mean you have the whole student market there you could really sell on a device like this by showing all the cool multimedia features, but also that they can buy their textbooks in cheaper e versions and highlight and scribble on them just like they do their textbooks currently.

As well as being useful for anyone that has to read and mark up documents in their work, be it researchers, teachers grading/proofing papers etc.

But yeah, I don't expect to get what I want in mass market tablet like the iPad. I need a tablet that's build mainly as a document reader and mark up and doesn't use a slow, clunky e-ink display like the Que or iRex etc.

Yes. That is why it annoys me when companies just rush to copy the perceived market leader, and tend to focus on the checklist stuff (ours is faster! has more ports! 20% more battery life!) rather than taking the time and discovering at what valuable niches there are available to be filled, and addressing those markets. Seems to me, just by reading boards like this one, that there are some small but potentially lucrative niches just waiting for someone to satisfy.

[kilron]

Originally Posted by dmaul1114

It is a niche thing--but it's a big niche.

I mean you have the whole student market there you could really sell on a device like this by showing all the cool multimedia features, but also that they can buy their textbooks in cheaper e versions and highlight and scribble on them just like they do their textbooks currently.

As well as being useful for anyone that has to read and mark up documents in their work, be it researchers, teachers grading/proofing papers etc.

great ideas, especially for the academic market. but who's to say you can't do all of that without a stylus and without handwriting recognition? apple's already implemented the most intuitive cut/copy/paste for touch devices (or almost any device). don't you think they could modify this with greater capabilities or some third party could make some apps where you can do that and simply type in notes via the virtual keyboard as opposed to sribbling? just a thought...

[mjmcleod]

Originally Posted by nekokami

But even if TouchTerm logs you back in, you aren't still in the same directory and your processes may be killed (unless you backgrounded them). This is one of the cases where true traditional multitasking will probably be required. The question is whether Apple will consider the use case common enough for them to decide to allow an appropriate app to use the existing multitasking capabilities.

The "any ebook app" is certainly attractive. Hopefully it will work out that way.

I'm not going to assume anything about that, but I don't believe that the alarmist stuff going around is warranted just yet. Kindle and eReader apps are already on the platform, pulling them would be a PR disaster. Apple doesn't like those very much.

The trick with TouchTerm is to have it run screen as soon as it logs in. screen makes all your sessions on the other end persistent even when the connection is lost and lets you re-attach. It's one of those things people like me who've been doing this stuff for 15+ years and who remember 2400bps modems and frequent connection loss still use reflexively, but the GUI generation may never even notice.

Anyway, at that point the bottleneck is time taken to launch TouchTerm and restart the session.

[dmaul1114]

Originally Posted by kilron

great ideas, especially for the academic market. but who's to say you can't do all of that without a stylus and without handwriting recognition? apple's already implemented the most intuitive cut/copy/paste for touch devices (or almost any device). don't you think they could modify this with greater capabilities or some third party could make some apps where you can do that and simply type in notes via the virtual keyboard as opposed to sribbling? just a thought...

Personally I don't need hand writing recognition as I'd never do much text entry on a tablet--that's what my PC and laptop are for.

But I need to be able to highlight/underline and scribble notes in the margins of PDFs of research articles, academic books, textbooks I'm reading to write my lectures etc.

Virtual keyboard suck to use IMO. And for markup I don't even like highlighting with the mouse and typing notes with a real keyboard. It's slow and clunky and I'll keep killing trees and printing stuff out on the universities dime until there's a tablet that lets me mark up my documents with a stylus just as quickly and efficiently as I can with printouts/real books now.

So yeah, maybe some of the options you mention would work for a lot of people. Just not me. As you noted in this thread or another, you care about discussing things from a mass market standpoint and what the average user needs.

I have no interest in that, my only interest with tech gadgets is whether they fit my own very specific needs. I don't care if the tablet I end up getting sells 100,000 units or 10 million units as long as it fits my needs perfectly.

[nekokami]

I was in class tonight wishing I had something with the form factor of the iPad, but decent stylus input. The professor had distributed slide handouts electronically, and I hate printing. I had the slides on my MacBookPro screen, and I was using Acrobat Pro to add a few comments, but typing during class is pretty distracting (for me as well as everyone else). I would have liked to have a split screen with the slide showing in the upper half and a note area at the bottom with stylus input, to sync to Evernote. I don't really need HWR (and it would be tough in this advanced stats class anyway). But I do often need to view an article and take notes at the same time. I'm more comfortable doing this while slouched on the couch, so a tablet would just be a nicer form factor than a laptop, which requires a limited range of postures for typing.

[stustaff]

I really think many of you are maybe underestimating how good the iPad will be with a stylus.

Firstly the operating system is designed to be used with one finger, so using a stylus in the os will work 100% fine and be easy.

assuming you then choose apps which(assuming they are created) allow for notes to be written on screen with the finger(which your stylus will replace) then your good to go.(Bear in mind such apps already exist for iPhone)

So for example when viewing a PDF, or writing in text then use your stylus.

the only place you would struggle is in entering sat a URL in safari, but my experience actually suggests im better of using an on screen keyboard as the handwriting recognition can struggle with URL's on any system I have used.