Comment by buster | Hacker News Reader

Comment by buster | Hacker News Reader

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When you say "Multitasking was not an afterthought in this UNIX based OS" you implicate that iOS multitasking has something to do with the multitasking done on UNIX, which as far as i can tell is really not the case.

So, in this regard, iOS was released without multitasking which was baked in some versions later. it's not like they only needed to switch the underlying OS features on.

Also: I don't see how this saves battery life if done properly, years before iOS and Android other mobile OS' did multitasking with a similar battery life then the iPhone.

The only point that stands is that Apple (may be) didn't want to confuse users with multiple running apps, but then again.. why did they implement it in the end anyway?

My opinion: It was obvious that the iphone will have multitasking (and copy&paste and wallpapers, and what not) at _some_ point in the future. Imagine Steve's presentations in the coming years (while announcing a new iPhone/iOS version) without those "big improvements". You keep those things hidden to have some new features to throw at your customers. Android just happened to be first on some of those..

iOS had multitasking since day one. How do you imagine iPhone was able to get call when iPod app was playing? It was just not available for the third party apps, that's all.

Ohhh, that's stupid, of course it had multitasking, but if you didn't understand what I am talking about you probably shouldn't reply.

Also, in your sense every phone on the planet had multitasking because I can speak and listen at the same time.it was obvious that I was talking about multitasking for apps

The phone feature is implemented as an app.

What does it matter when other apps didn't have access to it?

So in the end everyone seems to agree that Apple, although easily possible, didn't want to give multitasking to its customers. Sounds even worse to me..

Android fanboys probably agree with that. But they're not everyone.

Let's just agree that multitasking as far as the argument in the article is concerned, is a UI/UX thing and has nothing to do with threading and processes.

That's incorrect, the author's argument goes way further than that, claiming that Apple's "sloppy implementation" is due to it being bolted on as an afterthought, having not thought of the concept of multitasking until after Android.

In reality, Apple's implementation consciously limits what apps can do in the background to stop apps from draining battery life or generally doing things that the user is unaware of.

You're saying their lack of feature was a feature. It's like saying my Nokia 5100 is so power efficient than your smartphone that it's better. Different intentions.

That comparison isn't even apples and oranges, that's apples and spaceships.

They deliberately limited functionality to provide a feature. They then provided more functionality which removed some of those original limitations.

Power efficiency has nothing to do with it in the slightest.

A lack of features is a feature of any Apple product. It's what makes them great, and accessible for the large public. It's the reason I absolutely love to USE my phone and iPad, and love to mess around with an Android device.

It's a lot harder to leave out features than adding. You have to be carefull about what you leave out, make sure you don't touch core-functionality, and make sure the features that are present are done brilliantly, because they will be in the spotlight, all the time. I'm not saying Apple does this flawlessly, I'm not a blind fanboy, they have serious misses (notifications pre-IOS5, Calendar app, IOS folders, ...) - but they do this a lot better than anyone else.

To be honest, I never had problems with "missing" features (except calendar/call overview in the lock screen), but more problems with the implementation of features that were present, but not executed well enough.

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