[Chalvy]

For those of you that have played with the HTC One, is the multitasking similar to the way it was on Sense 4.x devices like the One X, where the apps are arranged in the card like list, or is it more similar to the stock Android layout where the recent apps appear in a vertical list where they can be swiped away?

Further, has anyone experienced apps having to "reload" after switching back to them from the multitasking list? as this was a great annoyance I experienced on my at&t One X and one of the main reasons I returned it for a GSIII.

[oehrensperger]

I think there was some guy on gamefaqs that works for HTC who mentioned/implied that the recent apps screen is a 3x3 grid.

[Chalvy]

I think there was some guy on gamefaqs that works for HTC who mentioned/implied that the recent apps screen is a 3x3 grid.

Yes I read that forum but I was not able to understand what he meant and in none of the videos I have watched have I seen multitasking used...

[pgood4]

Many of the videos on youtube show the multitasking. It's in a 3x3 grid and you just tap the card to switch or swipe the card up or down to close it out.

[Chalvy]

Many of the videos on youtube show the multitasking. It's in a 3x3 grid and you just tap the card to switch or swipe the card up or down to close it out.

If you could post a link that would be much appreciated.

[jiggyb21]

I found this one which shows it briefly at the 3:20 mark.

[Chalvy]

I found this one which shows it briefly at the 3:20 mark.

Great thanks!

[jiggyb21]

Here you go......perfect shot at 8:00 mark. This was the best walk through video I saw as a whole. I can't wait for this thing.

[Chalvy]

Here you go......perfect shot at 8:00 mark. This was the best walk through video I saw as a whole. I can't wait for this thing.

Thanks and ya I know I am so stoked. Have to find a way to convince AT&T to let me upgrade early though... Any suggestions haha?

[teletraan1]

For those of you that have played with the HTC One, is the multitasking similar to the way it was on Sense 4.x devices like the One X, where the apps are arranged in the card like list, or is it more similar to the stock Android layout where the recent apps appear in a vertical list where they can be swiped away?

Further, has anyone experienced apps having to "reload" after switching back to them from the multitasking list? as this was a great annoyance I experienced on my at&t One X and one of the main reasons I returned it for a GSIII.

Haven't seen a proper response on this yet on any thread. Has anyone seen video of the multitasking in action - not just the recent apps grid but actually switching between apps. For example: Twitter on the One X would always have to reload when switching to it from the recent apps screen.

[Chalvy]

Haven't seen a proper response on this yet on any thread. Has anyone seen video of the multitasking in action - not just the recent apps grid but actually switching between apps. For example: Twitter on the One X would always have to reload when switching to it from the recent apps screen.

Yes that is also what I was asking in my original post. I have done A LOT of searching and have not seen the multitasking in action as you describe.

[bitek]

For those of you that have played with the HTC One, is the multitasking similar to the way it was on Sense 4.x devices like the One X, where the apps are arranged in the card like list, or is it more similar to the stock Android layout where the recent apps appear in a vertical list where they can be swiped away?

Further, has anyone experienced apps having to "reload" after switching back to them from the multitasking list? as this was a great annoyance I experienced on my at&t One X and one of the main reasons I returned it for a GSIII.

there is no such thing as multitasking on android phones. this is just glorified version of app switching. if you want true multitasking i would recommend to go with the only phones that can do that. Blackberry Z10 or Q10. This is true multitasking. I bought Z10 few weeks ago and multitasking on Z10 is just priceless. I can browse the internet, listen to the music, download torrent and post comments on forums etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. all at the same time.

[StealthTH]

there is no such thing as multitasking on android phones. this is just glorified version of app switching. if you want true multitasking i would recommend to go with the only phones that can do that. Blackberry Z10 or Q10. This is true multitasking. I bought Z10 few weeks ago and multitasking on Z10 is just priceless. I can browse the internet, listen to the music, download torrent and post comments on forums etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. all at the same time.

pretty sure i've done those same things on android at the same time too...

[teletraan1]

pretty sure i've done those same things on android at the same time too...

Yeah bitek has been misinformed. My Nexus has multitasking.

[bitek]

pretty sure i've done those same things on android at the same time too...

Yeah bitek has been misinformed. My Nexus has multitasking.

There is no true multitasking on any Android devices.

This is true multitasking.




More on Android "multitasking"

Android: Multitask like a boss

Google made some fairly significant changes to the way multitasking is accessed on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. In the new recent apps list, you can swipe apps away like cards to remove them from the list. Just like in the case of iOS, this tends to give users the feeling that they are managing tasks; freeing up memory even. However, that is just as wrong here as it is on Apple’s platform.

The recent apps list is just that, a list of recent apps with thumbnails. There is no guarantee that the apps are actually running any code just because they are in the list. When a user hits the home button, an app does not immediately enter some thing akin to Suspended mode on iOS. The process associated with an Android app remains in the background and is allowed to do any work it needs to. Apps on Android might use multiple processes, and multiple apps can share a single process.

When users want to return to an app they have left, the process is restored as a foreground app almost instantly. In a perfect world, an Android device would never run out of memory, and all these processes could live in RAM forever. This being the real world, your device will probably run short of RAM at some point. When that happens, it’s much the same as iOS. The system kills the process and the kernel reclaims the resources. The next time a user opens that app, it has to completely reloaded. This app could still be in the recent apps list, which has no bearing on whether or not its process is still running in the background.

Android MultitaskingIn more recent iterations of Android, the platform has gotten much smarter about managing tasks for you. There is simply no reason to use a task manager to keep the system running smoothly. In fact, this could interfere with Android’s automatic process monitoring. Developers have two ways to explicitly run code in the background and prevent it from being stopped unexpectedly. A manual task manager would interfere.

The ways Android apps avoid being killed in the background has a parallel on iOS with the limited Background APIs. The BroadcastReceivers component lets apps wake up for a short time to run some task or another, and then shunts it back to a background state. This is useful for location check-ins or file syncing.

The other way to forcibly maintain an app in the background is the Service component. An app that is running as a Service can run indefinitely and should almost never be killed by the system. This is what makes Android multitasking unique. Regular processes will be ended before a service, and a developer can further indicate a Service’s importance by running it as “foreground,” but this requires a notification icon to be persistently visible in the notification bar. You will see this behavior with automation apps like Locale as well as with music playback.

source:

[StealthTH]

Hmm, lookee here! I am browsing the forums, music is playing, and utorrent is downloading all at the same time. Android Central forums is under the notification shade. I also had a heavy webpage load in the background, would have to make a video to show you that but trolls aren't worth the effort.

[bitek]

Hmm, lookee here! I am browsing the forums, music is playing, and utorrent is downloading all at the same time. Android Central forums is under the notification shade. I also had a heavy webpage load in the background, would have to make a video to show you that but trolls aren't worth the effort.

This is good summary of differences between android and qnx

" Android does multi-task but it puts the control out of the user's hands. It's difficult to figure out whether something is actually running. For instance, Skype video call can run in the background if there's enough RAM, but if you start doing other stuff, Android will shut the app down. That's the biggest advantage the BB10 over Android."

So no it is not the same. Android "Multitasking" is not true multitasking
Sent from my Z10 using Tapatalk 2

[fernandez21]

*sigh*

[Puzzlegal]

I miss WebOS, too. Shame it never got good hardware on Sprint.

[Sifat Sayeed]

D U know how 2make 3G video call in android without using mobile network(direct video call via 3G network as like apple,symbian,java)? I can't finding ny video call option in android, even I can't find ny app 4video call in google play store.

[Matthew Merkle]

There is no true multitasking on any Android devices.

This is true multitasking.



More on Android "multitasking"

source:

Actually, you are misinformed, or misunderstand. Just because it has that functionality you quoted (which is great for battery life, and is partly why the new Blackberry suffers in that department), does not mean it is incapable of true multitasking.

Android has a tiered system for applications:

1. Foreground app (the app you're currently using)
2. Persistent apps (usually your launcher, as you never want that to get killed, as well as Google services)
3. Visible services (apps that keep an icon in the notification tray)
4. Background services (apps that have asked to stay active to perform services, but not in the notification tray, such as Dropbox's Camera Upload feature).
5. Normal applications.

Android as default will keep as many apps as it can in its memory. Normal apps do not use any CPU (none at all, not even a little) when they are stored in RAM without being used. This isn't multitasking, but then again, those apps have told Android they don't want to be or need to be multitasked. Good examples are apps like Angry Birds. There's no reason for it to stay active in the background, so it suspends it in RAM until you need it again. Once you bring it to the foreground again, it resumes instantly, so there's no reason to keep it running.

However, no phone has infinite RAM, so Android has to make tough choices. This means, as RAM fills up, it is forced to kill off apps to make room for new ones. Android uses the above tiered system to decide what is killed off. It starts from the bottom, and goes up until it has the RAM it needs. Under severe RAM shortages, Android will even kill off your launcher to get more RAM (common when playing graphically intensive games on older devices), if it has to.

Android isn't stupid though, it knows that services should be kept running, so it keeps track of what it killed, and can restart them when RAM is available. This functionality is up to the app, some apps don't care about being relaunched.

Now, what does this mean for "multitasking"? See that list up there? 1-4 are ALL multitasking applications. True multitasking, not the iOS style. This is how Android has functioned pretty much from the beginning. Those apps are capable, and do perform functions at will. As long as there's RAM available to run them (which applies to ANY OS), they'll run. Android 4.0 didn't change this, it just works more aggressively to page non-service programs out when they're not needed (since if they're not services, they have no business running anyway).

This is good summary of differences between android and qnx

" Android does multi-task but it puts the control out of the user's hands. It's difficult to figure out whether something is actually running. For instance, Skype video call can run in the background if there's enough RAM, but if you start doing other stuff, Android will shut the app down. That's the biggest advantage the BB10 over Android."

So no it is not the same. Android "Multitasking" is not true multitasking

I'd also like to go further into this, since this is the basis of your misunderstanding:

Android AND QNX cannot perform miracles. If there isn't enough RAM to run an application, it's not going to run. This holds true for any OS since the dawn of time.

Android will kill off Skype in the background if it doesn't have enough RAM to run the app you're currently using. However, as my tiered explanation above states, while it will kill it if it has to, it's one of the last things it will attempt to kill.

You say QNX doesn't do this, but here's the problem. QNX only has two options:

1. Kill off Skype to run the app you're using.
2. Refuse to run your app and maintain your background services (Skype).

#2 is a really, really bad idea, because it confuses the user. The average user doesn't understand how memory works, so they're not going to know they need to kill off apps to make room. Even more importantly, they're not going to know what app(s) to kill. Finally, unlike Android, the user will have to manually reopen those apps to restore their functionality.

It's a really terrible idea (and there's more reasons than those I listed), and although I don't know enough about QNX to be sure, I can say I would be surprised if they would go that route. It's far more likely that they would use a system similar to Android, iOS, and others. Based on the fact that I haven't seen many complaints about "out of memory errors" on BB10, I am willing to bet they use a system similar to Android.

[Puzzlegal]

I preferred the WebOS "out of memory, please close something to open this" message to Android's just killing something, often something I didn't want killed.

ymmv.

[Matthew Merkle]

I preferred the WebOS "out of memory, please close something to open this" message to Android's just killing something, often something I didn't want killed.

ymmv.

In webOS, closing an application was more devastating than Android killing an app off. When Android kills an app, it's suspended, so as long as it follows standard development guidelines, it should resume right where it left off (just some loading time). And like I said, Android also has the capability to restart services that were killed, if the RAM becomes available again.

It's not a perfect system, but there's no such thing as such. webOS also had the downside that due to it maintaining most applications actively, it meant that it couldn't actually run as many applications at once, and running multiple apps simultaneously could dramatically reduce performance. I loved webOS as well, but it did have flaws.

[return_0]

there is no such thing as multitasking on android phones. this is just glorified version of app switching. if you want true multitasking i would recommend to go with the only phones that can do that. Blackberry Z10 or Q10. This is true multitasking. I bought Z10 few weeks ago and multitasking on Z10 is just priceless. I can browse the internet, listen to the music, download torrent and post comments on forums etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. all at the same time.

Actually, you're thinking of iOS which doesn't have true multitasking. Android does.

[Kevin O'Quinn]

I preferred the WebOS "out of memory, please close something to open this" message to Android's just killing something, often something I didn't want killed.

ymmv.

It also ran contrary to how Linux was designed to do it. webOS my have been cool for the user, but it technically broke functionality that was baked in by Linux. No wonder it ran terrible lol.