Great article on the platforms multitasking.
iPad competitors: Will the true multitasking please stand up? | TiPb
iPad competitors: Will the true multitasking please stand up? | TiPb
That's not the same with Android and WebOS. When apps are tossed into the background, they are (usually) still kept in an active state. The only time this differs is when Android's memory management kicks in and begins to prioritize tasks for better memory usage.
The confusion comes from the generic use of the word application. I was speaking specifically about an Activity, which is one of several things that can be distributed with an apk. An Activity is the interactive UI that usually has a launcher in the App drawer (Music, Pandora, Maps). For navigation the apk has a background Service (ie it does not interact directly with the user and is memory resident, there are no windows to maintain focus or visibility) and an Activity (ie the interactive map view that shows your position and outlines the route on the map). Activities are what users interface with and generally refer to as applications. They are no more multi-tasking enabled than on iOS. When they are not visible, they save their state to memory and the process goes away. Start a game of Angry Birds, get into one of the levels, hit Home, and then hit Menu -> Settings -> Applications -> Manage Applications -> Running, no Angry Birds. Start Angry Birds again and it should resume at the level you were in, with your current progress maintained. (At least that's what I see on my Nexus S). A background service (like the music player, or pandora, or the navigation service playing audio driving directions) stays memory resident in the background but you never interact with it directly. You use an Activity like Music to tell the background service what to do. Or the Map Activity to tell the Navigation Service to load up a route, monitor your GPS and speak directions to you. I should have clarified that distinction. Apps do not get "tossed into the background". If an apk needs to continue processing without a visible Activity window they include a Service. A running "application" can be made of a stack of Activities and Services from a plethora of different apks, so the notion of a single application somewhat breaks down in this respect. Telenav could have their navigation Service advertise itself and the Google Map Activity could then be made to let you select from all advertised navigations Services.
The way that iOS and Android handle multitasking really isn't all that difference under the hood except on iOS you have to be really special to get to write your own background service but on Android anybody can play. So yes, in the end, there is more multi-tasking allowed on Android. But technically speaking, it doesn't really have a better implementation.
I personally don't like the fact that I can't listen to music while browsing the web on Android. I'm sure one day this will be a possibility.
I personally don't like the fact that I can't listen to music while browsing the web on Android. I'm sure one day this will be a possibility.