Multi-tasking does make life easier
Coming from the PalmOS platform, one didn’t really miss multi-tasking – initially anyway. You were so used to task switching but as we try to use PDA phones to juggle our lives and looking up so many things at once, I think multi-tasking is becoming quite essential.
A basic aspect is the ability to look up information on your PDA while on a phone call. If the PDA phone cannot do that, it’s not a very smart phone. Quite often I get calls from hospital or colleagues and I have to look up some contact information, drug reference etc. Actually even my humble Centro can do this – just hit the Home button while in a call and you can access other applications.
However if you are looking up a contact, and then want to switch to another application, it’s a pain having to search for the contact again when you go back to the Contact application. PalmOS owners will know what I mean.
I was reminded about this when I read the review on the Joslin Chest Atlas for the iPhone. This application look-up links to Wikipedia and Google but this is where a single-tasking OS fails:
The Wikipedia and Google links open in Safari, not within the app, so you have to open up the app again and scroll to your previous selection (not ideal).
This would mean that authors will have to parse data obtained from the web directly into their app if they want to avoid this problem. In a multi-tasking device like the Palm Pre however, it should not matter as your existing application is still running in the same state after a call to open up the browser application. Windows mobile is also another multi-tasking OS but unfortunately it suffers from a laggy performance and a tendency to hang. WebOS on the other hand lets you “see” what apps are running in the form of “cards” which you can easily select. Will WebOS, the new Palm operating system set the new standards for a modern multi-tasking mobile OS?
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About the author, Alan: Alan Teh is a Malaysian Physician who specialises in Hematology-Oncology & Stem cell Transplantation. He has been using Palm PDAs since 1997 and is absolutely reliant on them. His current PDA is a Palm Pre and is a strong advocate of the webOS platform, Palm's latest operating system. Caught the blogging bug in 2004 and has been addicted ever since… |
Actually, the issue described in the review is probably more of a failing of the app rather than the OS. Ideally, when you exit an app like that and then return, the users should not have to scroll to where they were before or re-enter data. Providing a link to launch a web browser is easy. Getting the user to the state where they left the app is a little harder.
The iPhone OS does multitask, however, Apple is currently only allowing the native apps to run in background like the music player, email sending, downloading. The iPhone is still geared towards simplicity while medical and other power users are trying to get more complex functionality out of it.
We now have five smartphone platforms that docs want to use: Palm OS, Blackberry, iPhone, Windows Mobile, and WebOS (forget about Android?).
Lack of true multi-tasking is a major disappointment for me with the iPod Touch. This has deterred me from getting an iPhone 3GS despite the plethora of apps available. Eventually it will get very cumbersome having to close one app and switch to another. Not all apps retain their “state” which is the problem.
Even the music player does not play in the background for all apps. My wife complains that she can’t listen to music while playing Scrabble on the iPod Touch!