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

[pshrynk]

Originally Posted by carlobee

Same here. I even had to jailbreak one of my iPhones to be able to multitask and run backgrounds in the process.

I was also expecting the Flash for a web dedicated device.. even Java (if that's not too much to ask so I could play Farmville on the iPad )

You can't play Farmville on it? Forget it, then!

[Crowl]

Originally Posted by dmaul1114

Same here. I was expecting $800-1000 for the cheapest model, and around 6 hours of battery life.

So $500 and 10 hours set the bar much higher than I expected.

I don't think the price and battery life are that unexpected, netbooks have shaken things up for all portable computer-type things.

[dmaul1114]

Originally Posted by Crowl

I don't think the price and battery life are that unexpected, netbooks have shaken things up for all portable computer-type things.

Yeah, but touch screen devices tended to be pricey and have lower battery life vs a netbook.

And even more so since it can do HD video which most netbooks can't.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Crowl

I don't think the price and battery life are that unexpected, netbooks have shaken things up for all portable computer-type things.

The reason that the price is much lower than expected is because of the missing features. Rather than being the tablet Mac most people expected it is only a giant iPod. No magic here.

[Sonist]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

The reason that the price is much lower than expected is because of the missing features. Rather than being the tablet Mac most people expected it is only a giant iPod. No magic here.

I think, for its purpose, it has all the features it requires (except Flash.)

It's NOT a netbook. Which, IMO is a good thing: All the netbooks I've seen are cheap cr@p I personally would never use.

[kjk]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

The reason that the price is much lower than expected is because of the missing features. Rather than being the tablet Mac most people expected it is only a giant iPod. No magic here.

I wasn't expecting a tablet Mac. And even with the "missing features", I still think the price is much lower than expected. I just look at the current iPod Touch, and how much more you get with the iPad, and I'm pretty amazed.

But, obviously, not magic for everyone.

I'm just wondering why everyone who can find these other products that are comparable in features, price, and "magic" aren't out there buying them by the millions.

[dmaul1114]

Yeah I never expected a Tablet mac. Tablet PCs have been a failure--a very small niche item.

I expected something along the lines of a big iPod touch. Something for people needing something in between a smartphone/pda and a laptop/netbook.

Something like this is just what I want--just need full on stylus support and multitasking.

I don't need a full Tablet PC, I have abosolutely no use for a laptop/netbook with a touch/stylus screen. I want something small, thing and light that I can use to read and mark up documents with a stylus, do some web browsing and other random stuff.

I have a specific need for it in my academic research work, and that need doesn't involve tasks I currently do on a PC or laptop. Those will remain done on PC and Laptop. A tablet will replace reading and marking up printouts of PDFs, maybe some light web browsing that gets done on a laptop now and that's it.

For others, there will be full Tablet PCs, slate PCs etc. out for those that need a touch screen tablet with a full suit of PC functions. For a higher price of course.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by kjk

I wasn't expecting a tablet Mac. And even with the "missing features", I still think the price is much lower than expected. I just look at the current iPod Touch, and how much more you get with the iPad, and I'm pretty amazed.

But, obviously, not magic for everyone.

I'm just wondering why everyone who can find these other products that are comparable in features, price, and "magic" aren't out there buying them by the millions.

That is just it, IMO there is no tablet worth buying on the market at this time. The release of the iPad hasn't changed that.

[Yoshi 1080]

I have been using an iPhone 2G for 2 years and I recently recommended a Palm Pre to my mother. The Pre itself sucks, but WebOS is just gorgeous! It's certainly not better than iPhoneOS, but definitely well designed. And it has multitasking.

Now, usually I don't really need multitasking on a phone, at least as long as apps save their last state and start as quickly as on the iPhone (on the 3GS it's said to be even faster). But there are a few situations in which I'd like to have it. First of all, music streaming. Last.fm, Pandora, you name it. On the iPhone not all music is equal, so I can't do anything else while listening to streaming music. I understand that this would quickly drain the battery, but still.

Second, if I want to share information between two apps, I have to press Home in the first app, navigate to the right home screen, tap the other app I want, and do the same if I want to switch back to the former app. I don't necessarily have to have both apps running at the same time, I just want to switch directly between the two apps without hassling with the home screen.

WebOS lets me do both those things in a very elegantly manner. True, most WebOS apps are simple HTML/Javascript programs that don't use much power anyway, but nevertheless I'd kind of like to have that on the Phone too. If not, it should at least be included in the more powerful iPad. It's certainly not a dealbreaker for me, but it gives me a feeling that something is missing.

[thinkpad]

Originally Posted by kjk

Let me say this straight up: The iPad (and the iPhone) supports background processes. It supports multiple processes, and it can do this without any adverse effects on your battery life. This capability however, is reserved for built in applications, and not for third party applications

Thanks for pointing this out I was not aware of this.

[mjmcleod]

I have a particular use-case in mind where multitasking would a huge difference, and while I'm sure this specific example won't apply to a large number of possible buyers (relatively speaking) I find it hard to believe there aren't a whole bunch of other niche cases that together might be a bigger deal.

In my case, I'm a UNIX sysadmin. I get calls at all hours to go poke some system or other, often with a need to refer to a web page or email as part of the process. Unfortunately the nature of SSH/VNC/etc is that the network session has to stay open or you're jumping through reconnection hoops every time you switch apps.

A backgrounded SSH app should be very light on resources. Some sort of "I know what I'm doing, please disable the no-multitasking safety" feature would be nice though not really expected.

All this said, I have an iPhone and like it, I just don't use it for this sort of thing. An iPad would be a better fit for these tasks but without being able to switch to the mail client to grab some text then come back to my existing SSH session? Not really viable.

[kjk]

Originally Posted by mjmcleod

I have a particular use-case in mind where multitasking would a huge difference, and while I'm sure this specific example won't apply to a large number of possible buyers (relatively speaking) I find it hard to believe there aren't a whole bunch of other niche cases that together might be a bigger deal.

In my case, I'm a UNIX sysadmin. I get calls at all hours to go poke some system or other, often with a need to refer to a web page or email as part of the process. Unfortunately the nature of SSH/VNC/etc is that the network session has to stay open or you're jumping through reconnection hoops every time you switch apps.

A backgrounded SSH app should be very light on resources. Some sort of "I know what I'm doing, please disable the no-multitasking safety" feature would be nice though not really expected.

All this said, I have an iPhone and like it, I just don't use it for this sort of thing. An iPad would be a better fit for these tasks but without being able to switch to the mail client to grab some text then come back to my existing SSH session? Not really viable.

I can definitely see that as a great app for a portable slate device- I know a couple people who can't wait to get the iPad to do remote computing. Is there any way an SSH/VNC app can pause/suspend while you switch out, as opposed to closing/re-opening? Or does that not really work?

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by dmaul1114

I wouldn't need multitasking on a phone.

I would on a tablet as I want to be able to go back and forth between multiple windows open at the same time as I'd often be working on a paper in say Word, looking through research articles in PDF, searching websites for info related to the paper I was proofing etc.

Just too clunky to have to save work, close the program, open another program etc. vs. just switching between windows.

Same here. I originally got an iLiad and I was hoping to be able to do this kind of work on it. That never worked out. The iLiad was running a full version of linux, but had no way to easily switch between running applications. I eventually sold it.

Originally Posted by stustaff

Im not sure there is a app to cure irrational saving

If you havent had Apple stuff before it doesnt glitch or crash

Joke, right?

Originally Posted by Bremen Cole

If you are doing 30 pages of mark up, perhaps you should use a computer instead of an internet/media tablet.

No, a tablet is a much more comfortable form factor for this sort of work. I've tried both. The current tablets just don't work well enough (too heavy, not long enough battery life, Windows ) so I'm hoping the iPad or a later successor or competitor will eventually meet my needs.

Originally Posted by Bremen Cole

I bet within a year you will have several choices to choose from.

The good thing about the iPad for the marketplace is it has given all the Dell's, HP's, Toshiba's...etc.... something to copy and put their spin on. Lot's of good things coming.

Oh, definitely.

Originally Posted by carlobee

I was also expecting the Flash for a web dedicated device.. even Java (if that's not too much to ask so I could play Farmville on the iPad )

I'm not sure how much longer Java will last now that Oracle has bought Sun. As for Flash, the iP already has a YouTube-specific app, and YouTube delivers via Flash. I think Apple could extend this in a more general way if they decide to.

Originally Posted by kjk

I can definitely see that as a great app for a portable slate device- I know a couple people who can't wait to get the iPad to do remote computing. Is there any way an SSH/VNC app can pause/suspend while you switch out, as opposed to closing/re-opening? Or does that not really work?

Well, strictly speaking, all apps suspend and resume on a multitasking system, at least per CPU. And the underlying OS is still a form of unix, just as OSX is-- it's the GUI that's different, not the OS itself. Apple just has to open this feature up for App Store apps to be able to use it. That can create memory and power problems, though. I can see why Apple wants to be cautious about it-- opening this up would create more support calls, and that seems to be something Apple really wants to avoid on iP products at all costs.

[mjmcleod]

Originally Posted by kjk

I can definitely see that as a great app for a portable slate device- I know a couple people who can't wait to get the iPad to do remote computing. Is there any way an SSH/VNC app can pause/suspend while you switch out, as opposed to closing/re-opening? Or does that not really work?

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.)

[mjmcleod]

Originally Posted by nekokami

I'm not sure how much longer Java will last now that Oracle has bought Sun. As for Flash, the iP already has a YouTube-specific app, and YouTube delivers via Flash. I think Apple could extend this in a more general way if they decide to.

Java has plenty of steam, it's all over the place on the server end. It's always been a bit niche on the browser.

HTML5 makes Flash... not irrelevant, but far less important. YouTube at least has done a HTML5 version of the site and I would expect most other video sites to do so before long. That doesn't cover all uses of Flash but it does cover a fair bit of it.