iPhones May Finally Get Multitasking Support

One of the biggest criticisms of Apple’s iPhone is it’s lack of multitasking support. The basic ability to run more than one application at a time. Pretty surprising given that a large part of their business involves people buying apps from their store. According to inside sources, it looks like Apple may be adding this feature in it’s upcoming 4.0 release this summer.

This is actually not a feature addition. The iPhone hardware is fully capable of running multiple applications simultaneously. With it’s initial release, Apple hobbled the iPhone so that it could only do one thing at a time (except for certain apps of Apple’s choosing). This was allegedly to preserve battery power, optimize resources, and for security purposes. The specifics of how multitasking will be implemented in the new 4.0 release are unknown, but Apple supposedly has a “full-on solution” for these problems.

Some iPhone users already have a multitasking device. Jailbreaking eliminates the security features on the device, allowing third-party applications to run in the background. While this opens the door for viruses and malware, it also opens the possibilities for a lot of basic things in high-demand by users. Multitasking would make always-on IM a possibility (something that has been possible on other mobile devices for quite some time). You could have streaming music via Pandora while you’re handling business elsewhere. Apple could even stop getting made fun of by Microsoft.

Multitasking on the iPhone isn’t a hardware or software issue, but it is a user-interface issue. There is currently no built-in method for switching between concurrently running applications on the iPhone. The visual cues that exist now which let you know you have an app in the background don’t scale for more than 2 applications. Without some type of interface over-haul or fancy task-manager, users will have no way to switch between things. iPhones are supposed to be simple to use, but an interface modification of this magnitude could change that.

Windows mobile and Android users are sometimes frustrated by the clunky methods provided for dealing with multiple applications. Apple is going to have to be extremely creative in avoiding the same problems. Another issue is resource usage. Multiple apps will drain your battery faster and slow down operations and worrying about resource usage is not something your average iPhone user wants to do. They probably don’t even know what that means.

(h/t to TNW)