"apples iphone OS 4.0 no threat to android"

[JGR4444]

in my top stories today for my news and weather widget that is new to the 2.1 update i saw a thread about apples new platform they will be running on that will allow some customization and mulitasking... but my thoughts were the same as the topic of the story that android users are laughing at this "new" development for apple. Like the story says apple is simply trying to catch up with android... not get ahead.... The way i see it, when our motorola droid came out apple iphone sales plummeted and now that people are realizing what great platforms we are running on apple will be a thing of the past... that is unless they can come out with something more superior

just a rant on something else that makes me LOVE my droid

 

[GenericMessage]

Oh its no longer a "iPhone killer" world......its now a "Droid killer" world.

And its gonna take a whopper to take it out.

 

[doogald]

I've said it before, I'll say it again: I like Android, but, man, I wish we had multitasking like the iPhone OS 4 will have. I'm sick and tired of phone lag because apps that I don't need running in the background are there anyway. Steve Jobs is right: if you need a task management app on your OS, you blew it.

 

[Andrew Ruffolo]

I've said it before, I'll say it again: I like Android, but, man, I wish we had multitasking like the iPhone OS 4 will have. I'm sick and tired of phone lag because apps that I don't need running in the background are there anyway. Steve Jobs is right: if you need a task management app on your OS, you blew it.

Exactly... YOU DON'T NEED ONE ON ANDROID.
What phone do you have? What OS and is it a custom ROM?
I had 1.5 on my hero, lagged, Gumbo 1.5c cured that, now the stock 2.1 with sense and everything doesn't have lag and its not even optimized.

 

[doogald]

I have stock 1.5 on an Eris (I will not root a phone that is still under warranty). Running Sense and it lags every once in a while. Normal home is better, but it is not perfect. I do not use a task manager. The phone still lags occasionally (and of course, especially when I really need to make a call and it takes forever to do so.)

Walk into any Verizon Wireless store, tell them you have an Android phone, they ask you "Did you install a task manager? It makes it run much better." Four different stores when going in to buy accessories, look at other phones, etc. They are obviously trained to do this.

I do not need Shazam to keep running in the background. I do not need a game to keep running in the background. I do not need Footprints to keep running in the background. I do not need Barcode Scanner to keep running in the background.

Maybe you want this stuff running in the background, but I'd be happy if they saved state when I left the app and picked up where I left off when I return to them.

 

[TvTechGuru]

I saw an article on Engadget noting how iPhone 4.0 will have the capability to directly search the web. Hmmm, reminds me of my Google search widget or search button right on my Droid. Haha, feels great to see they are copying off of Android! I love it! Sweet victory for Android OS! They were just too jealous of our search capabilities!

There's nothing like seeing iPhone OS being second to a feature on Android! Hahaaha!

 

[Romple]

I think some people may be confused as to what's happening in the background. Your apps are not running in the background. They are not going crazy, out of sight, draining your battery.

There are two major types of "programs" on Android. "Activities" and "Services". (there are other things like content providers, broadcast receivers etc... but trying to keep this simple.. i know some things aren't 100% technically correct in terminology but trying to make this understandable to someone who isn't a programmer)

An Activity is an object in a class written in Java. When you're looking at a list of text messages, that is an Activity. When you click a message and it opens up a conversation, you are now in another Activity. One App can and normally does have multiple Activities associated with it.

A Service is something that runs out of sight in the background. Pandora radio playing songs is a service. The Droid media player playing songs is a service. Services can run in the background, but don't always. When Pandora's not playing music, the service is stopped.

When you exit out of an app, maybe by pressing the home button, a method is called such as onPause() or onStop(). These are functions inside the java code that dictates what happens when an Activity is no longer in the foreground. Usually, the state is saved - what's happening in the app at that moment - so if the Activity is started again or resumed (by perhaps holding down Home and selecting a recently run App) the program can pick up where it left off.

Services have a slightly different life cycle since they're intended to be active and performing tasks in the background.

Now these all come down to Processes in the Android system. There's a few types, but the ones we care about here are Background Processes. These occur when an Activity's "onStop()" method is called and the Activity is no longer visible to the user. These processes can be ,and are often, killed by Android, in order of least used to most currently used, whenever it decides it needs more resources.

It's transparent though. It's very hard to get to a point where you are demanding more resources than Android can free up.

All phones have some sort of task management. It's necessary for any system. OS3 does now. There's just no visible app for it. It just kills whatever task is running when you switch to another one since it doesn't run anything in the background.

I haven't looked at the SDK, but I imagine Apple will have specific services that developers can tap into that will run in the background. So where in Android a developer can design their own services to run in the background, Apple will dictate what these services are.

And switching between apps will no doubt work similarly. The state of the app will be saved, and when it's resumed it will pick up where it left off.

People that wish they had OS4's multitasking have to realize they do, it's just not as controlled as Apple's (since Steve Jobs wouldn't sell anything he didn't have complete control over). If he thinks that having access to an App to view and control what tasks are running at accessible is "blowing it" than fine. It's his company and he can decide that.

That does not mean it's universal fact. (although it doesn't mean you need some third party app manager on Droid. You don't.)

 

[GenericMessage]

Do we have to go over why task-managers are bad AGAIN!?

 

[Duvi]

These threads is the biggest reason it will always be "iPhone Killer" (as well as a WebOS & BlackBerry device). I have both platforms and realize both are very different from each other, with some similarities.

How many times will you go to an iPhone forum and see "Android released Xxxxx, they trying to be like the iPhone"?

Yet every non iPhone forum, Android, BlackBerry & others still create threads like this... almost trying to make their device feel superior or feel better about their device decision.

I know it's a rant, but I rather people concentrate on the improvements of their OS of choice.

I actually prefer the Android OS over the iPhone OS, but these "reassurance" threads are getting boring. No disrespect to the OP, just my rant.

 

[bbrosen]

Exactly... YOU DON'T NEED ONE ON ANDROID.
What phone do you have? What OS and is it a custom ROM?
I had 1.5 on my hero, lagged, Gumbo 1.5c cured that, now the stock 2.1 with sense and everything doesn't have lag and its not even optimized.

By the same token, if one has to root, to make a phone work, then also big fail. I cannot root my phone, no one has been able to root the version we have on ours, so it is not even an option. My hero can barely do 2 things without gasping and choking to a halt..my iphone 3gs could run circles around this hero, and yes, it can multitask native apps, till the cows come home and now soon, 3rd party apps too. And without battery drain!

 

[iamtone]

im excited all i need to leave android is a apple and verizon marriage and im OUT!

sorry

 

[Andrew Ruffolo]

By the same token, if one has to root, to make a phone work, then also big fail. I cannot root my phone, no one has been able to root the version we have on ours, so it is not even an option. My hero can barely do 2 things without gasping and choking to a halt..my iphone 3gs could run circles around this hero, and yes, it can multitask native apps, till the cows come home and now soon, 3rd party apps too. And without battery drain!

Last I checked, people JAILBREAK iphones to get them to do what they want. And Apple appears to be cracking down on that. I don't multi-task all the time, but its nice feature to have for all apps when you need it. I don't know what version hero you have, but to my knowledge, every form has been rooted. GSM unlocked, Sprint, Cellular South and probably Bluegrass.
Multi-task native apps... so Itunes and something... not Pandora and something. No thanks, I'll keep my Hero. Runs great and has more functionality than any Iphone or Palm product. I use my phone as a GPS unit. I can use moozone to listen to music and GPS nav, or Trapster if I'd like. Music stops to tell me what to do, or if there is a possible trap in the area, then starts the music exactly as it was. And since I'm not stuck on a crappy GSM network, I have 3G service wherever I go, meaning I have my map wherever I go, and I can stream my music as well. You can't tell me you can do this on an Iphone, cause I know it isn't possible.
By the way, my hero is running a stock 2.1 ROM without adjusted memory kill settings and has no problem doing more than 2 things at once.

 

[Complex Pants]

Even though I will most likely be switching to an EVO once it is released, I will miss WebOS's card multitasking. The major fault of original Pre is that it only has 256MB of RAM. The Pre+ 512MB has virtually no memory errors, and it was easy to see what you had open and to close apps without a task manager. But no OS is without problems. It is really a matter of deciding what is important to you and what isn't and then picking the mobile OS that suits you best.

 

[JadynV]

of course i will go for the latest one. aside from you can multi-task, your apps are also updated.