New Apple Tablet?

[michl]

What if I want to see both my email and safari at the same time?

Well, you can't. I mean, literally. Your eyes - and your brain - can only do one at a time.

So even on your 24" iMac screen or 17" Macbook Pro or whatever, you may have both mail and browser windows side by side, and several others for that matter, but you still only read one at a time...

That is why "multitasking" is seriously overhyped, and not needed as much as many would believe. We're switching tasks, not multistasking.

Now of course, till now switching is much faster and easier on the Mac example, but, if the iPad is as fast as they say, and application switch is gesture-based and truly "instantaneous" (as far as our perception is concerned), then it will end up a very similar experience. Flick your fingers instead of flicking your eyes...

(And, just to be complete, we can multitask alright, when mixing modes of perception i.e., listening to music while reading e-mail, etc. But that works already on the iPhone / iPad. We also like multitasking as in, mixing a computer task in the background with our human task in the forground. There's some of that on iPhone / ipad e.g., alarms, notifications, but clearly there's room or improvement...)

[drsandy]

^^ What about IM'g?

Gotcha there!

[gierran]

No issues with the iPad, but I think I'm going to wait for something a little more:

[chefmerrick]

What if I want to see both my email and safari at the same time ?

Dan

No offense but, i feel if you want to use all ur mails n work you should use ur primary machine,
The ipad is more for entertainment.

[michl]

^^ What about IM'g?

Gotcha there!

Not convinced... See above again, and also the phone example here.

Can you read two texts at the same time? If you're really doing real-time texting, can you actually keep reading that e-book or working on that Word doc? I doubt it. You're switching back and forth - and probably not being very productive on the non-IM side, but ok that is another issue .

Except for some people or situations, we're just not multitasking. In fact, it can be a bad thing, and even dangerous (or lethal).

All we can argue for IMO is (1) open background notifications e.g. to other IM or PIM apps, not just Apple's, and (2) a slicker and faster way to switch than the current round trip via the home button etc. But with better resolution screens and gesture recognition, or even vocal commands, I believe that one is coming...

[drsandy]

Eh?

I wasn't referring to IM'g and browsing at the same time. Most people leave their IM client on all the time so that people can IM them whenever they want. With the iPad that won't be possible since the application logs you out once you switch to another application. Sure, push notifications are there but we all know how useful they are....or not!

Whether YOU like it or not; the ability to run multiple apps at the same time IRRESPECTIVE of whether they are being used or not is a basic necessity. I'll give you one more small example:

I use medical references on my iPhone all the time which has multiple categories and sections. When i open a topic and get a phone call, i am logged out of the application (to accept the phone call) and upon ending the call, i am brought back to either the home screen or the app itself where instead of being where i left off, i have to once again jump through different categories and sections and search for the line in the topic that i was reading. Does that sound user friendly to you?

I rest my case.

[fangpyre]

@Dan, I think the screen is too small to do that anyway.
The fact that the apps are persistent, makes that acceptable.
Keep in mind this isn't a phone, so there will be less interruptions.

But adding the camera is what really pisses me off.
I can't get around that one.
And throwing it in is a no brainer.

[Magnus]

I use medical references on my iPhone all the time which has multiple categories and sections. When i open a topic and get a phone call, i am logged out of the application (to accept the phone call) and upon ending the call, i am brought back to either the home screen or the app itself where instead of being where i left off, i have to once again jump through different categories and sections and search for the line in the topic that i was reading. Does that sound user friendly to you?

No it doesn't but an argument could be made that in that case it's bad app design/programming if it doesn't save the state and bring you back to the same state when you open it again.

[fangpyre]

Many programs don't save the state they are in, even though the iPhone does support that.
Between that and push notification (which doesn't work well), the iPhone does a very good job at acting as if it did do multitasking.
So much so, that many non-technical people don't understand what all the fuss about this is.

But in Drsandy's case, it would be fixed if the iPhone just allowed it to work in the background.
Ironically, jailbroken phones had this functionality in 1.x.
Only to be taken away as the SDK was introduced in 2.x.

[michl]

Certainly I do agree with the general opinion that Apple needs to improve its handling of backgrounding, notifications, et al. But really it is a lame example to pick, that of an app that clearly does not follow Apple guidelines of saving application state, and as a result provides a crappy user experience... Imagine playing PGA Tour Golf and you're through to the 16th hole and go answer a call and then... you have to start all over again(!)

Unfortunately it seems there are still developers who - like so many users yet - do not understand that the iPhone is a different computing paradigm, and that they have to adapt their app accordingly. Blame them, not Apple. From iPhone OS Reference Library, Saving State Information:

"...any action that would cause your application to suspend or go to the background in Mac OS X causes your application to quit in iPhone OS. Because these actions happen regularly on mobile devices, your application must change the way it manages volatile data and application state.

Unlike most desktop applications, where the user manually chooses when to save files to disk, your application should save changes automatically at key points in your workflow."

And again:

"When your application is asked to quit, you should save the current state of your application to a temporary cache file or to the preferences database. The next time the user launches your application, use that information to restore your application to its previous state."

Can't be much clearer...