Another Windows Phone 7 demo shows 2 kinds of multi-tasking

March 6, 2010 | By Surur

This Windows Phone 7 demo at TechEd Middle East shows 2 interesting features.

The first is when the user switches to Internet Explorer, and the page is already loaded. This indicated that at the very least Internet Explorer suspends or even better fully multi-tasks in the background.

The next feature demoed is turning any web page into a tile. The tiles can however also be active, pulling data directly from the internet, and clearly another route for developers to multi-task on Windows Phone 7.

As of yet we do not know if Windows Phone 7 will allow full multi-tasking, but what has been shown already clearly shows, with clever developers, there will be a way to keep our phones constantly in contact with the outside world.

About Surur

Site Admin and Windows Phone enthusiast, he has been using Windows Mobile devices since before they were called PocketPC’s. He is currently sporting a HTC 7 Trophy.

Tagged software, video, windows phone 7

John

Either way, it doesnt look like apps will be sandboxed from the rest of the OS in the same way the iphone is.
http://intensedebate.com/people/Lennard Lennard

this is good. I think they should do full multi-tasking, however, put a limit on how many applications can run at any one time.
vangrieg

Well, even the iPhone allows Safari to load pages in background, and it was long known that the OS itself is a multitasking one. The real question is whether third-party apps will be able to work in background.
Paul

Now I understand MS's strategy to convince carriers to sell WM7 phones. People putting up a half dozen auto-updating tiles are going to generate a data usage bonanza!

http://intensedebate.com/people/Strangerx Strangerx

Yea the whole phone is based on data usage actually all those 'live' tiles are gonna cost you a hell of a money per month. I guess I won't be among the users that can enjoy that live-ness…

http://intensedebate.com/people/Lennard Lennard

can't you get unlimited data plan from your phone carrier? I thought Europe had unlimited data plans before US carriers started doing so.

all in all data plans are where carriers makes the most of their money now, not so much form voice

Jos Dewey

Every country has different pricing, not all of Europe is the same.

Data like most things in life is cheap in the US… a few European countries have it cheaper but you guys have it good down there. In Canada there is still no such a thing as unlimited data, and just a few GB will easily cost you over $50.

Not worth it, not worth it one bit… especially given if I had data it would be used to download the inane Twitter posts and photo updates of drunk people from Facebook.

http://twitter.com/peterpulmonary1 @peterpulmonary1

essentially, the phone is exquisitely and easily customizable, on a real time basis. it adapts according to your current needs.
http://twitter.com/chmun77 @chmun77

I think WP7 will have allow user to on/off the data connection according to user needs…. It will not be connected to the Internet 24/7.
http://twitter.com/chmun77 @chmun77

Actually, I find it kinda troublesome to scroll all the way down to the desired application if the start menu is getting really long…. Can't that make the start page to be organised in tabs too??

http://intensedebate.com/people/Lennard Lennard

you can always move up the "pins" that you use most from the bottom. and the sweet thing about this is that you can pin anything to the home screen which I think is cool.

also what do you mean, organized in tabs?

http://mopocket.com Mordy

The live tiles thing is kind of cool, but it seems to be a very limited form of multitasking. It looks to me like you still won't be able to have multiple apps "open" that you can swap back and forth between in a desktop-like fashion, but it is still worlds better than having no multitasking at all.

Meanwhile, the background suspended apps thing isn't really a form of multitasking. Remember the old-school Palm OS? You could close an app, it would save its state and then resume upon launch again later. It would have ZERO processing running in the background.
You could hardly call that multitasking. The iPhone isn't considered a multitasking OS, yet it can also "suspend" apps and receive push notifications that wake them up. This tiles modem seems kind of weak.