I’ve used a number of mobile devices over the years, and there are a couple of things in my usage pattern that stand out:
- Speed is a feature. I need to be able to go from email to my calendar to SMS and back again effortlessly and quickly.
- The mobile web is slow. Even with the faster 3G/4G networks, the initial connection takes time and loading up a webpage or similar isn’t something you want to be blocking your usage of the rest of the device.
I have previously owned 2 iPhones (original and 3GS) and I currently use an iPod touch and an iPad. I found the iPhone to be extremely useful in certain situations and extremely limited and frustrating in others. Most of the frustrations are around the concept of multitasking.
When using one of my current iOS devices, I’m typically on pretty fast WiFi and the network lag is pretty much acceptable. When using a device on a mobile network, this is not the case. That’s when multitasking becaomes important.
Currently I use a BlackBerry, and previously was using a Palm Pre Plus. On either of those devices, it was easy to do the following:
- Start a web page loading
- Go do something else (read an email, check calendar, etc.)
- Go back to web page and it has loaded
Another common example for me:
- Launch a dedicated podcasting client1
- Start a podcast playing
- Use the device to do something else (check email, surf the web, etc.)
These are things I just can’t do on an iOS device. Turns out I don’t care much about fast app switching and saving state – what I really want is the ability to multitask on the device.
The fast app switching has been a throw-away feature for me. In my usage, it’s not any faster than going to the home screen and clicking on an app – especially because on the home screen I know where the app I want to launch will be; I don’t have to go hunting for it. Sometimes I invoke fast app switching, then have to horizontally scroll a bit because I forgot it was further away in the stack than I remembered. Having 2 ways to launch/switch between apps just hasn’t been useful to me.2
In discussing this with friends (most of them only had experience with iOS devices), I was surprised to learn that they didn’t even know that other platforms (Android, BlackBerry, webOS) didn’t have this limitation. The mobile landscape is still in its infancy. I’m sure we’ll look back in 5 years at the compromises in today’s devices and shake our heads.
UPDATE: I’d forgotten that apps can now play music in the background with the latest iOS release. However, they can’t download podcasts in the background, so I have to leave the app open while it downloads instead of switching to something more interesting/productive.
- Podcasts are not available quickly enough through iTMS (they are delayed a few hours, which means they aren’t available on my drive home) so using the iPod app isn’t an option. Also, the iPod app can only play files loaded via sync or the purchase – so there is no way to get the podcasts loaded in to the iPod app on the go except via iTMS. [back]
- I’m not terribly surprised, bolting on afterthought features to an OS rarely works out well. [back]
What are your thoughts on multitasking on Android? I’ve never owned an iOS device, and had Palm (before webOS), WinMo, and Blackberry devices in the past, and Android is the first that seems to really get multitasking, without the problem of bringing the device to a dead crawl like WinMo was fond of doing.
With the iPhone you have been able to play music (or a podcast) in the iPod app and have it continue to play as you switch to other applications. They added true multi-tasking support with the iOS4 upgrade a couple months ago, so now other applications (i.e. Pandora) can do that as well.
Granted multi-tasking doesn’t work as well as it should, but what you talk about is supported.
@Nathan: The podcasting example Alex posted above is possible on iOS4… but the web page example really isn’t (unless Safari keeps loading pages while it’s “sleeping”).
iOS4 doesn’t really add true multitasking in the classic sense… it allows an app to keep running enough of itself to perform one of the supported functions (defined by Apple), but doesn’t let the app truly stay background resident.
My experience has always been that Safari will continue loading a page in the background (as you switch to different apps), but with iPhones prior to the iPhone 4 (with it’s lovely 512MB of ram) it was highly likely that Safari would drop the rendering when it got a low memory notification.
I just switched from BlackBerry to Android (I was also a iPhone and iPod Touch user). I have been very impressed with what the OS can do. My typical mode on the phone is listening to music (mp3, Pandora or Last.fm), looking at multiple email accounts, Skype (IM+), Google Reader, twitter, etc. I never have any slow downs but just draining of the battery. I have to charge every night but I am able to stay in contact for better or worse. The speed for switching applications is pretty fast and has allowed me to work extremely efficiently. In fact I am using it now to post this. Android is a very nice option.