Android Vs iPhone 4.0: Multitasking
Multitasking is the next battleground in the mobile operating systems war, already available on Android, Palm and Nokia Maemo 5. The iPhone 4.0 OS will bring multitasking for third party apps to the iPhone but the news and hype that Apple has managed to create are making customers believe that this is something, which is coming only with iPhone 4.0.
Here is how the Android and iPhone 4.0 uses multitasking features:
Android: Google is more lenient in allowing third party apps to use the multitasking feature of Android OS and unlike Apple has little restrictions on resource. When android user switches to another app, the OS takes care of the previous app and makes it completely invisible to the user. The background app on the Android phone is not frozen or killed but stays open, invisible, but as soon as the phone memory reaches its limit the OS kills the app. Before killing the app it is allowed to save its running state. When the user restarts the app he gets it back as if it was running all along.
The apps running in the background are restricted to use only listen for any incoming service command and when it receive one it is allowed to act on it. The Gmail app is the best example where it is allowed to listen for new email but cannot ping the mail server on its own.
iPhone 4.0: The iPhone 4.0 has a set of seven multitasking service which the third party apps can utilize. According to Apple’s website these seven services include:
1. Background audio
2. Voice over IP
3. Background location
4. Push notifications
5. Local notifications
6. Task finishing
7. Fast app switching
When a user switches app on iPhone 4.0 the operating system takes control and manages the app in the background in the same way as Android. However, the iPhone 4.0 freezes the app sent to background unlike Android, which kills the app. This allows a user to reload the app from where he left and this feature definitely improves the loading time of the app switched. When the total number of apps in the background reaches the threshold then iPhone 4.0 also kills the apps to release the memory. According to the sixth service of multitasking the iPhone 4.0 allows the app to run in the background if it is in the mid of some operation and needs to finish.
iPhone 4.0 allows apps in the background only limited set of operation if not froze. The set of things that an app can perform in the background is only through the services mentioned in the list above. The background apps can do things like making and receiving calls via Skype or other Voip, listen to Pandora, Rhapsody and Slacker in the background, and background location, that includes cell tower location checking and full GPS tracking for navigation apps.
“When a user switches app on iPhone 4.0 the operating system takes control and manages the app in the background in the same way as Android. However, the iPhone 4.0 freezes the app sent to background unlike Android, which kills the app.”
This is incorrect. Android leaves the app running, rather than freezing it. Android does not kill apps sent to the background unless it runs out of resources, just as iOS4 does.
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