Coming Soon: Multitasking On Your iPhone

In a few days, Apple will release the latest version of its iPhone OS, which has recently be rebranded to iOS, to make it sound more compatible with other iOS devices such as the iPad. One of the most requested features in iOS 4 is the new Multitasking feature. Yes, Apple will finally allow us to run Apps in the background.

Sorry, that won’t be the case. Apple has created a small set of API’s for developers to be implemented within their Apps, in order to be Multitasking-ready. And, in order for an App to qualify for iOS 4, the only thing a developer has to do is to compile its App with the iOS 4 SDK. That means that developers DON’T have to implement the new background features.

The following API’s are available:

• Background Audio
  Allowing applications to play audio in the background such as Pandora and Spotify.
• Voice Over IP
  Allowing applications such as Skype to remain ‘open’ after the app as been closed.
• Background Location
  Useful for Navigation Apps such as TomTom and Navigon. Navigation applications will continue to run if the app has been closed.
• Push Notifications
  The Push Notifications as we know them, for Twitter updates and Instant Messaging Apps.
• Local Notifications
  The same as Push Notifications, but on a local level. Think about scheduled events in those Farmville games.
• Task Finishing
  Uploading a movie YouTube, posting a picture to Flickr. All these activities can be run when the app is closed.
• Fast App Switching
  Probably the most important one. This API allows ‘state freezing’. When re-opening an app, it will look exactly the same as when you left it. It has not been running though and therefore did not consume any battery.

We can say a lot about multitasking and whether it is real multitasking or not, but I won’t do that here. Instead, I have done something else. In order to get a clear overview of the Apps that support any of these API’s, I have created a list (here) that shows the various applications under their respective category. Please use the form to submit apps that are not on the list yet.