Apple Brings Multitasking to iPhone
Apple Inc.'s iPhone and iPad devices will soon be able to run more than one program at a time, something that phones from Apple's rivals already offer and that iPhone owners have long sought.
The changes, coming this summer to iPhones and this fall to iPads, mean that users user might be able to listen to music using the Pandora program and check a bank account online simultaneously. Currently, users must return to Apple's home screen, effectively quitting the open program, before starting a new task.
Taking the stage this morning at the company's Cupertino, Calif. headquarters, CEO Steve Jobs gave reporters a preview of the much-awaited software update which includes 100 new user features. Among the improvements, perhaps the most anticipated will be multitasking, a point Jobs acknowledged in his remarks.
"We weren't the first to this party, but we're going to be the best," he said. During a product demo, Jobs showed a dozen applications running simultaneously.
Speaking later, Scott Forstall, senior VP of iPhone Software, explained how multitasking was implemented. "We looked at the 10s of thousands of apps, and distilled down the services that these apps need to work in the background. Then we implemented these services ourselves in a way that perserves performance," he said.
At the same time, Jobs added some color to the strong early enthusiasm for the newly-released iPad, which went on sale last Saturday. So far, he said, more than 450,000 units have been sold. Jobs added that in the first 24 hours after the iPad's debut, users downloaded 1 million iPad applications. As of today they've downloaded over 3.5 million apps. While impressive, the early iPad sales numbers were slightly below some analyst estimates. Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster had earlier estimated that Apple would sell between 600,000 and 700,000 units during its first weekend of availability.)
Pointing to a photograph of a happy kid hugging an iPad, Jobs said, "When you create something you have butterflies in your stomach... so far people really seem to be loving it."
The iPhone already permits some multitasking, but that's largely limited to Apple's own programs. Apple had not given users ways to seamlessly switch among all the software "apps" available from outside software companies, the way phones from rivals Palm Inc. and Google Inc. already do.
What Others Had to Say
With the updates, known as iPhone OS 4, an iPhone user might be able to listen to music using the Pandora program and check a bank account online simultaneously. Previously, users must return to Apple's home screen, effectively quitting the open program, before starting a new task.
"It really changes the way you use the iphone. you're bouncing around the apps with tremendous fluidity," Jobs said.
The updates to the operating system running both iPhones and iPads will be available this summer. Apple generally makes such updates available for free as a download.
Jobs also unveiled a unified inbox for all e-mail accounts, support for folders filled with applications and a way to connect an iPhone with a regular keyboard using Bluetooth wireless technology.
He also announced an advertising platform called iAd in which Apple will sell ads to run on apps made by outside developers; those developers get 60 percent of the ad revenue.
Full multitasking had been high on many people's wish lists. Because Apple's new iPad runs the same software as the iPhone, changes would apply to that larger gadget as well. Some people have held off buying one because of its inability to run more than one program at once.
The iPad models currently on sale connect to the Internet using Wi-Fi, at prices that start at $499.