Multi Tasking in iPhone & iPod Touch

1.) You can launch iTunes and choose your playlist and then drop the application to background and return to the ‘desktop’ while you are listening to your music. This is Multi Tasking!

2.) While you are listening to your music you can go to your ‘desktop’ and launch any application and work with it, while itunes is running int he background. This is Multi tasking!

3.) In the case of iPhone, while you can be listening to your iTunes playing your favorite playlist, and you are running one of your application, your Cell phone side of the device is fully functional and being monitored at all times. When you receive a phone call, the OS suspends the Music – Pushes the front task application to the background and activates the phone GUI. This also, is multi tasking.

What we are expecting from the upcoming Apple OS 4.0 is the ability to launch multi application and switch between them, while they can be running as an active task in the background and can be brought forth by a task switching UI element (hardware or software). But I find it to be very rare for most people, to want to run several active tasks in the background at all times and use the device as a phone as well. I certainly hope that Apple provides full multi tasking in the OS 4.0 when it comes to iPad and at least a simplified version of it on the iPhone. It is possible that the next rendition of iPhone could be as powerful as an iPad, in which case, the full multi tasking option could be activated on that device. I also think that Apple should provide a preference pain that the users can actually activate / deactivate part or all aspects of multi tasking. This option will enable the legacy iPhone be able to upgrade to OS 4.0 and enjoy some of it’s new innovations. Let’s hope Apple provides these functionalities – or at least – activates them in the next version of the OS 4.