Edit: Seriously? This gets down voted? How would this NOT be a helpful feature? It works wonderfully on my Android devices. Would love to see it on my iOS devices. Wow, Just wow. Bunch of fanboiz or something?
Take a step back and a nice deep breath and consider why you might have been downvoted. It may have more to do with the tone of your delivery than the actual content of your message.
Lashing out at those who disagree with you with baseless accusations is counterproductive.
People are very happy to exercise their ability to punish others when given that power. It's gotten out of hand here.
Edit: here being HN, not necessarily this thread.
What you're saying doesn't match what I typically observe on HN, which is (a) that most downvoted comments have something wrong with them, not just an unpopular opinion, and (b) inappropriate downvotes usually get canceled out be users who see a good comment faded faded and give it a corrective upvote.
EDIT: Apple kind of added some similar functionality with background app refresh, but the fact that the system tries really hard to "guess" which apps you want updated and which you don't doesn't work so well - I am constantly having to launch SyncSolver to get it to post my Apple Watch steps to fitbit. Just let the apps I set to refresh run on a regular schedule, I can control what I don't want to update.
That said, there is probably a good case for the case of background uploads to be added to the existing backgrounding framework as an additional use case, with its own set of governing rules (another user brought up: Wi-Fi only, while charging, while battery is high, while reception is good, etc).
The solution to inconvenient background syncing IMO isn't opening the floodgates to everyone running their own daemons and sucking down battery power like it's their last day on Earth. It's a valuable use case, but not a good reason to "loosen the grips" so to speak.
RE: Background services. It's a pocket computer. I want my devices to do more for me. When I set them down, I want them to continue to work for me so I can be productive. Just because something runs in the background doesn't automatically make it a battery suck nor does it make it a security risk.
It's not (per Apple). It's an appliance, and they use that as guidance in the decisions they make. It may be capable of acting like a computer, technically it obviously IS a computer, but Apple treats it as an appliance.
I think the relevant distinction between iOS and OS X is that, with iOS, there is sort of an understanding that the user is granted less direct control, in exchange for a near-guarantee that they won’t have to worry about certain things (like malware, or to a certain extent, battery life) anymore.
But it's pretty clear to me that that Apple is not selling the iPhone as a general purpose computer, and that's fine with me.
Android has allowed things (widgets, alternate keyboards, different launchers/lock screens, background processes) that expose more power but rely on the 3rd party developer to ensure the experience still works well without wasting resources or crashing.
Apple only provides such things after careful study and lockdown (such as keyboards). Much more careful, much more sealed up unmodifiable box.