Can a Palm Pre multitask better than an iPhone? | Hacker News Reader

Can a Palm Pre multitask better than an iPhone?

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6 pointsCorrado13 comments

Good grief. If I read one more article based on 'X multitasks better than the iPhone', I think I am going to scream.

None of the iPhone competitors pack much more under the bonnet than the iPhone, at least when talking about Mb and MHz. The iPhone already has trouble just running a computationally intensive task (such as a 3D game) with the background system tasks running. It also has problems with battery life as these apps go through the juice. Hands up everyone that has put the iPhone in sleep mode whilst there is a 3rd party app running, which decides to not actually stop running? You go back and find that you have barely any battery left. How often do you think that is going to happen to people when they are running multiple apps?

I have not seen anywhere any indication whatsoever that Palm has solved these limitations. If a user truly does decide to run several apps in the background, we have every reason to believe that they will have a dog of an experience, in terms of responsiveness of the system, and battery life. Unless, as I have already said, Palm has found a way to build a system that is an order of magnitude more lightweight than iPhone OS, and nobody seems to be saying that.

I think that Palm made all applications, even the system ones, web apps and as such everything is running in the background all the time. This pretty much means that they have to get background apps working correctly or the phone wont function at all. :)

Agreed. Keeping in mind that what we know of WebOS suggests it's just a presentation layer on top of webkit and making the assumption that palm's "core apps" that provide services to lesser apps are of the same scope and resource usage as iPhone's background tasks, it seems we ought to be able to get a performance ballpark just by opening multiple pages in Mobile Safari.

For those who haven't tried it, this doesn't work so well after 5 pages or so. And that's with static pages. Imagine if those pages were IM apps constantly polling the server for updates or youtube apps trying to stream movies? Certainly, I would assume palm's spent a lot of time optimizing this path that's (comparatively) unimportant to Apple. But I can't figure how that would buy anything more than incremental improvements. I've yet to see anything magic or revolutionary in their approach that leads me to believe they've cracked this basic limitation.

>WebOS applications will be created with standard Web development tools such as CSS, JavaScript, and HTML that run on a version of the Webkit engine. This doesn't mean they are "Web applications," which require a connection to the Internet to work. It does, however, mean they are (in general) more lightweight and less-resource intensive than iPhone applications, which are developed using the Objective-C programming language.

This is the first I've heard of that. I'm not saying it's not true, but Objective-C I wouldn't call Objective-C more resourceful than something running in a browser without having numbers to back me up. Anyone know if this is true?

My guess is that the reverse is likely more true.

What matters most to me in my decision to get a Pre or stick with the iPhone is carrier. I will never switch to Sprint.

But I did switch to AT&T from Verizon to get an iPhone. I'd switch back in a second if Verizon either got the iPhone or the Pre (assuming the Pre offers a user experience 90% as good as the iPhone -- which _appears_ very possible, maybe even likely -- and there are apps to replace the ones I use daily... I could use my iPod Touch for games if I really missed them).

If Verizon got both phones then, well, I'd have to see what the user experience was like on the Pre then make a decision. But if Sprint remains my only option for a Pre, no deal. The last rumors I heard were that their exclusivity was only 6 months... which makes me hopeful.

The thing that worries me most about the Pre experience is that as far as I know there is no virtual keyboard. A physical keyboard is a huge plus in my mind, but that means no keyboard available in landscape mode, which is kind of crummy.

I've never really had crummy service with any provider. Both T-Mobile and AT&T have been fine with me, forgiving the price gouging that occurs with all providers. The prospect of switching to Sprint is not a big deal for me. I just make the payment to someone else and I get to keep my phone number. Meh.

However, I will say that I would like to be on Verizon for the simple fact that almost everyone I know is on Verizon and I could get by with a 25 minute/month plan. :)

The carrier is really matter of where you are. Where I am, refusing to switch from AT&T makes no sense. AT&T are by far the worst carrier to have around here, with their service seldom having coverage at all; Sprint has good service here, though it's not the best (Verizon is). So, the fact that they are on Spring, rather than AT&T, is what makes Pre far more appealing to me.

This article highlights some of the problems with Palm's design but I don't see it as a serious limitation for my typical daily use pattern.

As I understand it, quite a few people like to play games on their iPhone and they worry about battery life. I don't. I find that games work much better on my console attached to my 50" plasma TV and I generally keep my iPhone in the charger while I'm at work. So as long as the battery lasts 24-48 hours, I'm good.

On the other hand multitasking and notifications are two things that I really find annoying on the iPhone and would go pretty far to make it work. Even so far as ditching the iPhone for a Pre. Besides, everyone has an iPhone now. :)

I worry that Palm are putting too much faith in fixing iPhone "complaints" like lack of hardware keyboard, removable battery, multitasking.

These are all complex engineering trade-offs, it's my natural inclination to think that Apple have got these right. It is, however, incredibly easy to second-guess such decisions from your blogging armchair with no knowledge at all of the factors involved.

I'd rather Palm gave us what we need (even if we don't know what that is yet) than give us what some internet blowhards with a ad-revenue based agenda are asking for.

Can an iPhone multitask? I wasn't aware of it. (And I own one)

It's a pretty trollish question, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt :)

The iPhone runs OSX, so mutitasking's built in at an OS level. For a number of reasons Apple have decided that user-installed apps can't run in the background, meaning that when you select another app, the previous one actually closes.

Some Apple apps, like the phone, iPod player etc are exempt from this rule and do run in the background.

Have you ever been browsing in MobileSafari and had an incoming call or SMS arrive? Have you ever listened to music and had a calendar alarm fire? Congratulations, you just experienced multitasking.

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