multitasking
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What's missing from the iPad
All in all, the iPad turned in a pretty exciting product debut. I don't think Apple will have any trouble selling these things, and it can't be a very good day in Amazon, Sony or Barnes and Noble's executive suites. While all the final info is not out yet, there were a few major omissions from the iPad hardware. Here's the highly desireable stuff that came out missing : No camera, which means no video conferencing. No quick shots for blog posting. No videos. No Verizon. The AT&T pricing looks good, but is it really unlimited or is there a 5GB ceiling? Many users are pretty desperate to get away from AT&T, so it was surprising Apple went for another partnership with them. No notifications. Not a word was said about them. They might be in there, since the iPad clearly runs iPhone apps (and what iPhone app doesn't notify you these days?) but nothing was demoed. Enhanced multitouch. As far as we can tell, it works the same as the iPhone -- no dynamic tactile interface, no pressure sensitive screen, nothing special that we know about yet. No TV content. Of course there's the iTunes deals, but Apple has apparently been scrambling around to make so DVR deals as well. So far, nothing. No multitasking. Perhaps the biggest disappointment: no streaming media apps while punching out a document in Pages. No MLB video running in a corner while you read your mail, or pulling up a PDF while chatting with a friend. I think the iPad will be a superior device, and will sell like the proverbial hotcakes. Apple will certainly extend and enhance the iPad over time, but it would have been great to see some of these things in the initial release. Anything else we missed that they missed?
Samsung i8910 HD thumbs nose at Pre Plus, runs 50 processes of its own
PreCentral's 50-app demo on the Pre Plus was insanely (if not excessively) impressive, but is it the only phone out there with the kind of multitasking prowess that mere mortals could never possibly need? No, turns out. Adam Fullerton of iUnlock does a pretty wild demo on Symbian-Guru where he flashes his i8910 HD with a custom ROM that significantly lowers power-on consumption of the phone's 256MB of RAM, starts running apps, and makes it all the way to 50. Even better, they aren't all throwaway apps, either: he's got Gravity, Skyfire, Opera, Quickoffice, Adobe Reader, and S60's built-in music player and browser all running, among countless others, and it looks like he still comes out of it with a bit of headroom at the end. Is it practical? No -- nor could you likely do this with a stock i8910 ROM -- but it's comforting to know that the hardware's entirely capable of this kind of tomfoolery.
Palm Pre Plus shows off multitasking upgrade with 50 simultaneous apps (video)
Yea, you read that right -- fifty apps loaded side by side by freaking side on the Pre Plus, and the thing just kept on ticking. The chaps over at Pre Central decided to test out specifically how much of an improvement the doubling of RAM and storage in the new handset delivered, and they were not disappointed. Opening up the same apps on both phones, they found the original Sprint Pre (sporting a mere 256MB of RAM) ran out of puff at the 13 app mark, whereas the Pre Plus soldiered on until a nice round fifty was reached. Go past the break to see the video evidence for yourself -- long live multitasking!
Rallycast promises "the equivalent to tabbed browsing" on HDTVs, hopefully doesn't mean memory leaks and crashes
After hitting CES with a bang, it's been a quiet year for the TV widgets movement, but Rallycast isn't giving up, going from app developer to announcing its own TV App Store for 2010. The company's CEO Jeff Allen calls its plans to allows multiple programs running at once similar to tabbed browsing on the PC. Not having to pick and choose what's running is great, but while we love our Firefox, its never ending performance issues and the already poor reputation of speed on widget televisions could be a slow, scary mix. Hopefully a year of development (and maybe some newer HDTVs at CES?) can improve performance, because the last thing we want is lag when it comes to updating fantasy football rosters, deleting that note Mom left on our Facebook page, or both. Samsung's LED TVs will support the new store, as well as "several other models" check the full PR after the break.
Multifl0w project teaches Apple a thing or two about iPhone multitasking
Though it's relented on MMS and copy / paste, Apple has stubbornly, steadfastly continued to hold the line on the multitasking issue throughout the iPhone's two and a half-year career. Though it has a point about traditional multitasking burning through power, competing smartphone platforms -- scratch that, every competing platform -- has proven that it's still plenty possible to get a full days' life out of a battery while running a full host of apps in the background. Of course, the jailbroken iPhone community knows this full well, which is why there are a number of utilities available for backgrounding apps, but maybe none quite as slick as the just-released multifl0w. Taking a cue from the Pre, multifl0w adds backgrounded apps to a horizontally-scrollable gallery of cards; the only thing it's missing is a swipe gesture for quitting, but it's a minor point. Apple, we know you're seeing how good this is -- is there a defensible reason for why we still have to h4x0r our handsets to get this? [Thanks, Jai]
The Daily Grind: Favorite activity to do at the same time as MMOing?
Let's face it: there are times when playing MMOs that your full, undivided attention isn't really required. Maybe you're in a slow group or raid, or camping some rare spawn, or just online to keep an eye on the market. We're often left with enough mental capacity to start up a second activity. Here are some popular ones: Reading a book Watching television Getting paperwork done Browsing the internet Playing another game These are just some examples. Maybe you have something a little less common you like to do that you could share with the rest of us. Knitting? Making and flying paper planes around the room? Sorting M&M's by color? Let us know how you keep yourself occupied during the duller passages of gameplay.
TUAW Tip: Multitasking in iTunes
Have you ever been playing one of your finely-tuned playlists, blissfully grooving to the music, only to connect your iPod or iPhone and lose your place? In other words, iTunes (if you've set it to automatically sync) will move your view from whatever playlist you're in to the sync window. That's handy, of course, but if you forgot which playlist you were in, it can be a pain. I have several playlists set to random, and when I try to go back, it re-shuffles the order. There are other multi-tasking issues with iTunes that largely stem from its one-window interface. If you want to browse the store and manage a playlist, for example, you're stuck doing a lot of scrolling. But iTunes isn't really one window!If you double-click the title of a playlist, it allows you to edit the name of the playlist, right? But if you double-click the icon of a playlist (for a standard list it'll be a little blue note to the left of the title), iTunes will open an entirely new window, as seen above. You can open a bunch of these if you like and it works with TV, Movies, pretty much everything on the left side. It's much easier to drag and drop songs this way if you have a bunch of playlists. Plus, the window menu will give you quick access to whatever you opened, or you can switch through them with Exposé.Note: yes, this has been in iTunes for a long time.
Switched On: Taking the iPhone to tasks
Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology. Apple may be right that the benefits of multitasking do not outweigh its costs at this point, and the company will address at least some of the needs that have traditionally been met with background apps via its reworked push service and in-app e-mail due to launch this summer. However, the rationale presented at the iPhone OS 3.0 event this week against background apps is an incomplete argument at best. First, let's turn back to when Apple first announced that the iPhone would not support background applications at WWDC last June. Apple's Scott Forstall showed a screen shot of Windows Mobile's busy Task Manager noting, "This is nuts." He pointed out how background applications consume cycles, sandbagging performance, and consume battery life. But since when does Apple accept that Microsoft's implementation of something is the last word? And at the iPhone OS 3.0 preview, in a quantitative justification of the background process ban that included relaying testing on Android, Apple talked about how running a background IM client can reduce standby time at least 80 percent, whereas a push system reduces standby time only 23 percent. However, the case against background applications is not so straightforward.
The DS Life: Motherly love
The DS Life is a weekly feature in which we scour the known world for narrative images of Nintendo's handheld and handheld gamers. If you have a photo and a story to match it with, send both to thedslife at dsfanboy dot com.As our own Alisha Karabinus can likely attest, raising a baby leaves little time for anything else in your daily schedule. Taking care of everything you need to do requires some creative multitasking. Jump past the break to see what we mean!
Tame cube concept dishes out your availability status
Granted, it's becoming increasingly simple to just Twitter your day away with the smorgasbord of connectivity options out there today, but if you're just too productive to bother with that, the Tame concept is likely to become your next best friend. The cube shown above can be equipped with customized statuses that will inform anyone trying to contact you (via Facebook, text, cellphone, IM, fax, telegraph, can-and-string, etc.) exactly why you aren't responding. For convenience, each panel is assigned a color depending on the severity of your away-ness (i.e. red for "I'm on a 14-hour flight to Fiji with no BlackBerry service."), which can easily be glanced by the owner if dashing off in a hurry. Of course, this thing would be entirely more appealing if it included a robotic secretary that actually screened your calls and passed along those that were important, but hey, you've got to start somewhere.
Making the most of long arena queue times
Fighting in the arena is hands down my favorite thing to do in WoW these days. I do get very bored while I'm waiting for queues to pop. Since I usually do 2v2 and 3v3 battles I'm usually looking at wait times between five and ten minutes. Drysc stated that this occurs due to a limited number of instances that can be hosted at any given time, the problem will not likely be solved in the near future. Instead of complaining about it, I try to find something productive to do with inevitable delay. There are several in-game activities that to do with these unexciting minutes. I love to window shop the next piece of battleground or arena gear that I'm working for. It is also an excellent time to work on crafting and auctioning items. Skinners who queue up in Blade's Edge, find themselves in a perfect position for killing Bladespre Raptors for Knothide Leather.
The Daily Grind: Watching while playing
Let's be honest. As captivating as some of these games are, you can only kill hundreds of boars before the urge to multitask raises its ugly head. And so while many new players probably take in the game on its own merits, listening to the soundtrack and drinking in every clash and yell, I'd guess that the majority of us need something more than the game we've already played for many, many hours.So today's question: what is it you do while playing? Me, I like catching up on television shows while I play-- while a show like Heroes or Lost demands my full attention, there are plenty of sitcoms and reruns that I like to just let roll in the background while I mine for ore or slaughter orcs. I know lots of other people listen to music while they play, and while I personally have never done it, some bloggers even tell me they blog while playing. I will admit, however, to practicing my ukulele while playing-- sitting in the battleground queue (way back when there were battleground queues) doesn't require me to do much with my hands.So what do you find yourself doing most to divert your attention while playing?
DS Daily: Juggling
Oh, we don't mean juggling actual DS Lites (but if you do that as a hobby, we want to see), but rather, the art of juggling your DS play with other activities. When you play, do you focus on your DS alone, or are you also chatting, or watching TV, or maybe working idly on something else while playing something with a slower pace? If it depends on the game, then we're curious which games require your full attention, and which don't.
"Cell atlantic" personal cellphone booth offers portable privacy
Out of the many gadgets and devices that have been featured on these pages over the years, the last one you'd think someone would make improvements upon would be the personal cellphone booth invented last year by Nick Rodrigues, which seems to perform its intended duty almost perfectly. Well NYU student Jenny Chowdhury, the same person who brought us that team-building Mobile Assassins game, decided to take the mobile phone booth to the next level by making it both lighter and more private. Instead of the folding plastic and metal design built by Rodrigues, Chowdhury decided to use Chinese merchant bags to stitch together her cleverly-named, full-length "cell atlantic" phonebooth, as a symbol of the structure's nomadic nature. Chowdhury hopes that people seeing or using the booth will take a moment to consider the impact of cellphones on our daily lives, while forcing them to stand still and concentrate on a call instead of engaging in the usual multitasking.[Via textually]
SK Telecom launches HSDPA network with new Samsung SCH-W200
South Korean consumers looking for some serious mobile bandwidth need not wait until June to pick up one of LG's SH100 handsets that we brought you earlier today, because SK Telecom has just announced that their HSDPA network is live in 25 cities as of today, and that a new model from Samsung is available for the rollout. Besides 2G, 3G, and 3.5G data support, the new Samsung SCH-W200 -- which is the first of five impending HSDPA phones, including the SH100, that will available by year's end -- offers both a two megapixel as well as a VGA camera, S-DMB TV capabilities, MP3/AAC playback, text-to-speech, and perhaps most importantly with all these features, multitasking. Although theoretically capable of 12Mbps downstream traffic, SKT's HSDPA network will currently only deliver a relatively pokey 1.8Mbps to the W200 -- with 3.6Mbps promised for later this year -- but claims to be the only WCDMA network in the world to offer guaranteed video conferencing performance through circuit, and not packet, switching. Read- HSDPA rollout Read- HSDPA speeds (subscription required)Read- Samsung SCH-W200
