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Comment by sambeau | Hacker News Reader

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sambeau

OSX, like the Linux core of Android both support pre-emptive multitasking.

The problem to be solved is how to support background processing of 3rd-party Apps without draining the battery.

Thus we are trying combinations of call-backs and App hibernation techniques.

Battery life is more important to me and I suspect most other smartphone users.

What is your evidence for OS4's multitasking being Poorly Implemented?

I recall reading an article linked from HK a few months back written by an Android OS developer who seemed to think it was a fairly solid crack at the problem.

What would you do differently?

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> I recall reading an article linked from HK a few months back written by an Android OS developer who seemed to think it was a fairly solid crack at the problem.

And if they missed a use case (always possible) but still decide against general-purpose background threads (à la android/webos) they can always add a service or two for what they missed.

> What would you do differently?

I'm guessing he'd just go with desktop-type multitasking, not considering the resources exhaustion issues inherent to a mobile platform.

Not really. I am not nearly ignorant enough to imply that any of the various aspects of desktop multitasking will be viable or well suited for a mobile platform any time in the future, nor would I want it to be.

The fact that Apple doesn't support proper background services outside of the very basic 3 things they let an app do in the background, only support for bg notifications through a timer or their own push notification server.

I mean, I understand the power assumptions that Apple is making and claiming as benefits, but it just seems limited. I think of several applications I use that would not be implementable on iOS, certainly not without many major modifications including some weird use of the iOS push note-server.

What sorts of apps can you think of that wouldn't be implementable on iOS?

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