would be a nice feature to have some menu to reach running apps on top all the time. like a taskbar.

To expand on that: One thing I would like to mention (while a Nokia representative is watching) is the atrocious sales/support fiasco they have going on in the US (via NokiaUSA). There are a number of threads about how horrible support is, and how hard it is to even purchase a phone in the US because of their ineptness.

I love that Nokia is asking about multi-tasking, and how to improve it for the next device. But if I can't order the device because their US sales group is too inept to sell that device to a customer who wants to buy one, what good is the input I'm providing?

I usually have running:
Panucci or Media Player
Homoculus (file manager)
Web browser - tweetgo.net
Web browser - gmail

Then on top of that pull up other apps like calendar, or more browser windows as needed.

The Indians and Europeans who will be buying the device will love your for helping them.

I close everything when I'm done, but when I'm using the N900 I can have about 4-8 windows open but definately not more than that... But if it wasn't for the swap (consumes battery and n900 becomes un-responsive sometimes) I would keep the windows open... So I think a phone with better ram and memory swap option would be great.. Also, if there's an option to refresh some windows every x minutes?

I generally have the following apps open:

• BatteryGraph -- 1 window, always open because battery voltage is a much better SOC indicator than the "bars" of battery left (even stock, but exacerbated by my aftermarket 2400mAh battery), but a little history+diagnosis is always handy, too.
• E-mail -- 1 window
• Media player (or sometimes Symfonie, etc.) -- 1 window, tunes for cranking through the speakers on my bicycle mostly, but I leave it open all the time.
• Microb -- 3-4 windows, the launcher, one or two pages I'm keeping active, and 2ish links opened off in new windows. A background window option has already been mentioned, I'd find it very helpful. I keep things down to ~4 windows when I'm actively browsing, but unless they're AJAXy or Flash-laden, I generally don't do any further cleanup when I'm done browsing.
• X Terminal -- 1-2, sometimes more; I find keeping several sessions with coherent histories invaluable even especially when I leave one of them sit for a couple days. I should use screen for this, but it's a testament to the N900's multitasking that it works so well, I haven't bothered to install screen yet.
• Maep -- 1 window, only if I'm out (i.e. not at work, not at home), generally stays on whether I'm on my bike (with N900 in homemade mount on bars) or in stores/restaurants/whatever.
• GPSJinni, or occasionally jSpeed -- 1 window, running exactly when Maep is running.

So that's 7-8 at home or at work, and 9-10 when I'm out. As a rule, webpages (and then only "bad" ones with heavy javascript or Flash), games, and the GPS are the only things that take much juice to keep running; I have adequate swap space, so unless I'm rather sure I won't be using an app for quite a while, I mostly don't close them.

Allow me to echo the request for shuffling tasks around in the dashboard -- personally, I'd like to go as far as reserving certain spots for certain apps, so they automatically go there, displacing any non-reserved app in that slot, but of course that's infeasible from a "friendly" UI perspective.

Some have mentioned phone calls breaking as a reason not to rock too many apps -- I haven't really experienced this. To me, phone call issues occur, starting heavy lag even with one app open, and becoming unanswerable with a handful, if I have the phone app set to always portrait or to rotate automatically (one of which, I believe, is the out-of-box default), but if I set it to always landscape, it may be a bit laggy coming up if I've got 8-10 windows open, but I can still answer it before it goes to voicemail. This is an issue that should be fixed, but it's not the show-stopper for me it is for some, probably because I changed the orientation away from the default and they didn't...

Oh, and FWIW, I overclocked my old N900 like a maniac (warranty? who needs a warranty? ), but since it took a bath in the rain, I haven't gotten around to dialing in the voltage settings on my new one, so everything described in this post is on a factory-clocked device. I should probably do something about that...

And Peter, thanks for conducting this poll; I get the sense sometimes that Nokia does these great studies of what the average man on the streets uses/needs in a smartphone, then uses that to design the UI for a device so advanced that it sells mostly to geeks and hackers, even though you never did any studies on us. I fully understand the need to take the mainstream side into account (after all, you can hardly expand the market much to the`more nerdy side ), but it's nice to see that you are looking after the existing, geeky, userbase as well. I've probably gone into some details you don't care about for this study, but I reckon it's easier for you to ignore something I did say than to read something I didn't.

I generally keep none open while it's in my pocket, and then while using it it goes up to three or so, mostly having to look something up, based on the real world, (eg, sister asks me what I think of a restraunt, I pull it up in MicroB), but I can easily snap back to whichever one I was using after I'm done looking at it. Occasionally I'm loading quick applications while I wait for others (eg, openoffice) to load, (yes, I'm really impatient) or copying information from one application to another (eg, terminal commands.)

most of the time my desktop is clean I only use two screens just for the sake of battery and use only weather and media-player widget on one and email and other regular shortcuts on another. I get and receive a lot of calls and email daily so I try not to do a whole lot of multi-tasking while I am on the go so that I do receive my emails and calls when in need. But when I do have time and when I am just chilaxing I have at-least 3-4 browsers checking bbc, cnn, and maemo.org(i probably check this atleast 52 times a day), and whatever other sites I can think of at the time.

on weekends, my mom, dad, and bro always beat me on being always in front of the PC at home, when i got the n900, i did not mind no more,

i voted more than nine apps, coz i do the same on my pc, viewing and editing word and or excel files (debian lxde, word to go and sheets to go open), e-mail, conversations, contacts, transmission (anime stuff and other movies), microb or firefox browser and weatherbug (yes you can laugh but i use it) plus more apps like games and x-term (there is no single day i did not open x-term).

it looks silly but i dont experience, most of the time, lags or so on with the 600mhz cpu speed and 250mb ram.

my job is one of my life's revolutions so i do office work with my n900. but i rarely use it as my phone (i got my Samsung phone for that) because i dont want an SMS or phone call while doing stuff on it (not any other Negative reasons).

and that is my n900 story in the last 7.5 months.

I think the above definition hides the platforms strength.
My main "multitasking" feature is skype (IM) integration. With every other platform this would be counted as "multi tasking" - but with the N900 it's just built in....

Just saying!