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Comment by coderdude | Hacker News Reader

What's to agree on? You either have multiple, concurrent tasks or you do not.

To a consumer, having interleaved tasks might appear like multi-tasking while it technically isn't (which you point out).

False dichotomy.

You clearly have the ability to receive phonecalls at all times, so the phone is running so you have multiple concurrent tasks so there's no argument.

Except there is an argument, so that isn't what's really being discussed even if the discussion is framed by that term.

I'm sorry but there isn't a false dichotomy between multi- vs. single-tasking, or did you mean to imply something else? I know the operating system is a multitasking environment, but that aspect of it is not exposed in any kind of useful way outside of Apple's pre-chosen features.

As a technical description maybe there isn't, but at user level there is; one or the other or somewhere in between. This is what people are arguing about that you unhelpfully dismissed.

I guess the disagreement is about whether multiple, concurrent tasks are necessary or not.

I think most people are used to their computers being able to play music and browse the Web at the same time. If Apple wants to push the iPad as a computing device, they might hit a snag with consumers.

Edit: Whoops. I'll leave the comment but I do realize this isn't an iPad thread.

In any case, you can browse and use the iPod app at the same time.

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