iPhone OS 4

[Barnes]

Originally Posted by Phaneuf3

I was talking more generally about Microsoft's reputation at using certain tactics to get more revenue sometimes at the expense of the user, not specifically about an advertising platform.

Parallels of similar behavior could be drawn between apple wanting to fill it's app store with ad filled apps or making all of the iphone's early adopters update to the latest incremental revision of their hardware to get what should have been a pretty basic software feature like multi-tasking.

Apps in the store currently use advertising. This is just a new platform in which devs can monetize their apps. Devs make money, Apple makes money. Makes sense. The only people who should be upset are competing ad platforms.

The iPhone 3g is almost 2 years old and the iPhone is almost 3. I don't think that it is unreasonable to limit it to the 3gs as the 3g and 2g probably would not offer a great UX. Tonnes of features =/= good UX. If it wears the battery and bogs the phone down that has a far greater negative UX impact than the positive you get from lots of features and a slick UI.

The most basic, important requirements for multitasking is to be easy to use, fast, stable, and not battery intensive. It fails 2 of the 4 on the 3g> so she doesn't ship.

[Yeah_Baby]

So if say my two year iPhone anniversary was in August, and I waited till then to upgrade would I be looking at a 3Gs or as yet unannounced iPhone 4th Gen.

[Buzzard]

This is probably a dumb question...maybe...I dunno. Will we have to pay to upgrade to OS4?

[Yeah_Baby]

Originally Posted by Buzzard

This is probably a dumb question...maybe...I dunno. Will we have to pay to upgrade to OS4?

iPhone firmware upgrades are always free. iPod touch however have to pay. This is because of the difference in the 'real' costs of the actual devices.

[hmmhmmcamo]

Originally Posted by Buzzard

This is probably a dumb question...maybe...I dunno. Will we have to pay to upgrade to OS4?

not a dumb question (I hope)...I was wondering the same thing

[Russic]

Originally Posted by Barnes

Apps in the store currently use advertising. This is just a new platform in which devs can monetize their apps. Devs make money, Apple makes money. Makes sense. The only people who should be upset are competing ad platforms.

The iPhone 3g is almost 2 years old and the iPhone is almost 3. I don't think that it is unreasonable to limit it to the 3gs as the 3g and 2g probably would not offer a great UX. Tonnes of features =/= good UX. If it wears the battery and bogs the phone down that has a far greater negative UX impact than the positive you get from lots of features and a slick UI.

The most basic, important requirements for multitasking is to be easy to use, fast, stable, and not battery intensive. It fails 2 of the 4 on the 3g> so she doesn't ship.

Absolutely. Apple has shown time and time again that if something detracts from the user experience then it doesn't get released. Doesn't seem to matter how basic of a function it is (cut and paste for example), if they aren't happy with it they just won't let it out into the wild.

Of course many will just say that it's a cash grab to get more people to upgrade. I truly think it would have been too much for the 3g to handle, but I also think Steve would love for you to upgrade. Actually I don't even need to think it:

Well, a lot of these products that are out there are the most recent products. The old devices will get the update, but they'll miss some of these features like multitasking. If that's an incentive for them to upgrade to a new device... terrific.

I also thought this quote was interesting:

Q: How do you close applications when multitasking?
A: (Scott Forstall) You don't have to. The user just uses things and doesn't ever have to worry about it.
A: (Steve Jobs) It's like we said on the iPad, if you see a stylus, they blew it. In multitasking, if you see a task manager... they blew it. Users shouldn't ever have to think about it.

Is this to say that all apps are always "running"? I was a little unclear on that part.

[Yeah_Baby]

Originally Posted by Russic

Is this to say that all apps are always "running"? I was a little unclear on that part.

And this doesn't kill battery life?

[Russic]

Originally Posted by Yeah_Baby

And this doesn't kill battery life?

It doesn't make sense to me how you could have something like skype always ready to receive a call and not be hammering on the battery.

[kermitology]

Originally Posted by Russic

How about this: I know you want GPS to run when the phone is locked, and I notice they didn't mention that ... Can I assume the gps still turns off when the phone is locked?

Yeah, I can't answer that properly.

[kermitology]

Originally Posted by Russic

It doesn't make sense to me how you could have something like skype always ready to receive a call and not be hammering on the battery.

This confused me as well, and I understand a little bit more, but I still don't get how I tell Skype to STFO (O = off).

[You Need a Thneed]

I don't think it means that apps are always running, what I got out of it was that the OS shuts down apps that aren't being used by itself. Probably related to the fast app switching. It'll save the information from the app - it remembers exactly what you were doing - then shut down the app.

In reality, there will only ever be one app running, plus a few services from other apps, except that it'll feel exactly like multitasking.

For example - Skype. If you are logged in, but not in the skype app, it'll have to monitor for incoming calls. However, if you log out, and then go to a different app, Skype will probably shut down automatically.

If an app is not currently active and has no running services, it won't be running.

Thats my interpretation.

[Barnes]

It looks like when you launch an app, its icon goes into that bottom dock thingy so it's 'running' in the BG. When you want to 'quit' it, touch and hold an icon in the dock thingy and you get the wiggle and the delete icon.

Not all that nice...

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by Russic

It doesn't make sense to me how you could have something like skype always ready to receive a call and not be hammering on the battery.

Easy - you register a callback in your app with the OS, that basically says, if something triggers on incoming port X, please call function Y in my app so I can handle it and start processing. Then, until the OS runs the callback, your app is not using CPU, and in fact, that callback routine does not even have to be loaded in RAM, so the app isn’t even consuming memory.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by kermitology

This confused me as well, and I understand a little bit more, but I still don't get how I tell Skype to STFO (O = off).

Easy, when you sign out of Skype, and navigate away from the Skype screen, the app will cease to run.

If you don’t sign out of Skype, but instead navigate away from it, see my post above for what happens.


You guys need to stop getting hung up on the notion of “quitting” apps. If an app has no work to do, and is not actively displayed on the screen, it is, for all intents and purposes, “quit”...if it is doing background work, like playing music, and you navigate away from it, it is still running..but stop the music playing and navigate away from the app, and its done, and out of the system memory.

This is what Apple means when they say you don’t need a task manager - you don’t need a task manager because apps with no work to do, are no longer tasks consuming resources. Apps that might have work to do, are registered with the system, and until they are needed to do their work, they aren’t tasks either.

It’s quite elegant, and once you stop thinking of apps as monolithic tasks, but as a collection of states and tasks, it makes much more sense to understand how this works.

[Barnes]

^Except that's not how it works. I turn on my phone, unlock, and launch the calculator. I don't do anything in the calculator, just hit the home button and launch mail. Immediatly I hit the home button without touch anything in mail and launch settings and I double tap the home button to show the dock of running applications and Calc and mail are both showing as running applications.

In order to quit them or get them out of the dock, I hold my finger down on each icon to get the wiggle and delete them.

[Flames0910]

Originally Posted by Barnes

In order to quit them or get them out of the dock, I hold my finger down on each icon to get the wiggle and delete them.

why do you have to get them out of the dock? if you're doing that it's a task manager by another name...? i think the design is that you never have to worry about it. just let the OS do its job.


anyway, if anybody finds a vid of the event, let me know. i love steve jobs presentations. the guy's a stud.

[silentsim]

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/keynote/

Link for the keynote today

[Barnes]

Originally Posted by Flames0910

why do you have to get them out of the dock? if you're doing that it's a task manager by another name...? i think the design is that you never have to worry about it. just let the OS do its job.

My thoughts exactly. Not very nice Apple.

[Flames0910]

Originally Posted by Barnes

My thoughts exactly. Not very nice Apple.

huh? not having to worry about it and letting the OS do is the point. it's a good thing.

that would be like being mad if somebody did your taxes for free and you got a big phat rebate. man, i hate when i don't have to worry about .

silentsim, i found that link but whenever i click it just says 'loading quicktime' and nothing happens.
nm. tried safari and it worked.
damn you firefox! you used to be so awesome, what happened?

[Barnes]

Originally Posted by Flames0910

huh? not having to worry about it and letting the OS do is the point. it's a good thing.

that would be like being mad if somebody did your taxes for free and you got a big phat rebate. man, i hate when i don't have to worry about .

Read my post again. The os IS NOT doing anything special like described by silentsim.