One of the reasons I was initially drawn to the N900 was because it is a fully functional computer that can fit in my pocket. IMHO a mobile computer should be able to do everything any other computer can do. Yes there are hardware limitations on a mobile device - I know that compiling on the device will be slow and will reduce my battery life but I don't have a problem with that.
Given that Jolla's core is Mer, I expect it will have proper multi-tasking anyway.
Exactomundo! Jolla would indeed be ill advised, not to use multitasking. Sooner or later all mobile OS will have to overcome such artifical restrictions, because the hardware is getting more and more powerful. These devices will replace more and more PCs or notebooks, if the user can use them like such simply by attaching HMI devices (like a docking station).
One comment to the argument "wild running apps drain the battery": Wouldn't it be enough to display a coloured circle somewhere near the battery symbol to indicate the system load? Even some cars indicate their current fuel consumption, so the driver can shift gears to save fuel. I think almost every similar approach would be more reasonable than artifical restrictions like "optimised multitasking", however intelligent and sophisticated designed and implemented that would be.
One of the most convincing arguments for multitasking has been presented by Microsoft: They were not able to use Skype (which has been bought for a huge amount of money) on their Lumia devices for the simple reason: They needed an interface to compensate missing multitasking. This is ridiculous.
Oh, the n900 has been able to do that for years now. We have easy debian which can run many of the desktop .deb programs that maemo can and also full desktop apps such as GIMP and Open office (and more).
I'm thinking well beyond this level. Instead, the ability to have the same application running, but with two different user interfaces, depending on how it is being used at any particular time (desktop vs mobile), and optimising resources accordingly.
I see the appeal of full multitasking, but most of the time people —*including myself —*would rather not have to go to the bother of working out which background processes are sucking up all the juice. The iPhone's model works reasonably well for the majority of multitasking activities and battery usage is reasonably predictable. Where my N9 can quite suddenly suck through its battery, and you have to do a bit of debugging to work out what is doing it.
Guys, what is all the spam about? Jolla is going to run Mer, and I hardly believe, that they would invest work to replace proper multi-tasking with fake, capped, pseudo-multitasking.
Not to mention, that users wouldn't forgive them doing so - no one like having possibilities restricted, just because "some users may be too dumb to use that properly". Mobile computers (even with phone functionality) are for people with brain, that are able to check power consumption at any given moment. Others are free to buy iphones and androids (more likely former, than the later).
"We want to inherit the best elements from MeeGo," says Hurmola. He does mention that they believe multitasking is an issue that other smartphones don't do well by making users open and close apps constantly."
Freak sake!!! Create another thread if people want to discuss digferent multitasking!!
You are all trolling youself in this thread. There are too many that think they know somthing and must post it here. Why not create a thread for professionals?
Well, this is more from a technical angle and my own personal curiousity, how about we do a discussion on how to technically do proper battery-life-saving, memory-saving multitasking on Linux?
There's a couple of interesting topics:
* WiFi traffic activity of background applications
* Radio wakeup for GPRS/3G communication
* SIGSTOP of background applications while you're touching the device
* Cgroups and ways to 'freeze' or limit background applications
* Application design to be better power consumers when backgrounded
* Hibernation of state
* SIGSTOP of background applications while you're touching the device
* Cgroups and ways to 'freeze' or limit background applications
I think this is really bad desing. You should not force applications to do anything. There should be nice APIs and instructions for that kind of stuff so that developers themselves can make the call when needed and proper quality assurance to see that applications are working as they should. There is no need to cripple our nice Linux OS.
Great example, but I have to call in question how popular this truly is on a mobile device.
I ask out of curiosity and a true lack of numbers.
That is precisely the point of a device like the N900 and that's why we love it. The ability to do things that are not popular.
It's not popular to have an option to play sound on both hw speakers and headphones and I wouldn't put it there if I was designing a phone. But guess what? I needed it and it I could do it with the N900.
It's not popular to want to drop cellular functionality altogether when wifi is available but it prolongs my battery life significantly and my usage pattern fits perfectly to it.
I have seen all kinds of weird "features" people have implemented on this board that for 99% is a "who would want that" feature.
And by the way torrents are something I use 5 or 6 times a year on the N900. All those little things that you know you can do on the N900 are the reason I never carry a laptop with me unless I'm pretty sure I'll have to sit on a desk and work for a couple of hours. Everything else I may need to do can be done on the NIT. Having it in my pocket along with two japods makes me feel it's alright to leave the laptop at home.
There are too many that think they know somthing and must post it here. Why not create a thread for professionals?