Hope Windows 10 will have unrestricted multitasking?

[a5cent]

I was expecting hardware to shrink the resuming time.

Correct. However, at least for the foreseeable future, and as long as the OS remains unchanged, improved hardware won't be able to shrink the resuming delay away to the extent of it becoming unnoticeable. I don't know about you, but that delay becoming unnoticeable is the only result I'd really be happy with.

Asking for better specs just ignores the problem and leaves it to each year's newest flagship to slowly reduce the resuming delay. I'd rather MS just finally get around to fixing it, rather than waiting for flagships to gradually swipe more and more of the issue under the rug, which is all the throw-more-powerful-hardware-at-it approach does.

I was expecting more RAM to remember my IE pages and not reload the pages when I go back. I thought I should but now maybe I should expect less, because now I know it's a software related issue and good hardware cannot solve that issue.

I don't want to deep dive into this as it's a bit off topic and it's also a bit complicated. I'll just invite you to compare a 512MB, a 1GB and a 2GB WP device and even IE on a desktop with 16GB of RAM. You'll notice they all reload pages when navigating backwards. Granted, a powerful desktop can do that a LOT faster than a Lumia 535, so it's not a huge issue there, but it's a clear indication that (as with the previous issue) just throwing hardware with more RAM at it won't solve the problem! On all these devices, IE will reload pages when navigating backwards, so users with slower devices will experience an annoying delay, no matter how much RAM their device has.

Fixing this likely requires changes to both WP and IE first. Until then, faster reloading is the most "better specs" will ever achieve for us (while simultaneously degrading battery life).

Frankly, all current web browsers are memory hogs, and IE is one of the worst in that regard. As such, I'm not sure this problem will ever be solved on 512MB devices, but I see no reason why IE must behave as it does on a 1GB or 2GB device. I really hope Edge improves much in that regard. It's one of the things I'm looking forward to most in W10M.

Does it [task-switching] remember what I typed in the textbox in my WindowsCentral app when I go back to it?

This is completely unrelated to anything discussed so far. This is a consequence of (a) how WP handles navigation between pages of an app and (b) what developers do (or don't do) to retain UI state when navigating between pages or switching between apps.

This has almost nothing to do with task-switching and absolutely zero to do with multitasking. No amount of multitasking of any kind will change this. Changes to how WP handles task-switching could improve this somewhat, but not to the extent that it would solve the issue in every possible scenario.

But does task-switching, lets say, let the flashlight remain open when I switch to another app?

Out of all the things you mentioned, this is the only one that actually is related to multitasking. The term "real multitasking" is just a really stupid term for what some consider to be a potential solution. In contrast, the term "unrestricted multitasking" makes a lot more sense and is also a lot more descriptive. Unfortunately, unrestricted multitasking means the OS must sacrifice all control it might otherwise have over battery longevity.

I don't know about you, but I find that a really poor and unacceptable trade-off to make for a device that must function as reliably as a smartphone at all times. I simply don't want that kind of responsibility on the shoulders of the average app developer. It's also an extreme solution to what is a very trivial problem. It's like using a tomahawk cruise missile to swat a fly.

IMHO the flashlight is simply one of those features that should be accessible through a service that allows the app to retain control even when the controlling app is no longer in the foreground. The app should retain control of the light, until that app is closed, or another app that has permission to use the light is brought to the foreground.

That solves the problem, without allowing any old app to weigh down my device's CPU anytime it wants, which might be while I'm playing a game. No. I want the OS to reserve the CPU for what I'm doing, rather than allowing any old app to divert CPU cycles to whatever it deems more important. I don't want app developers deciding that for me.

 

[noersetiawan]

Microsoft should have hired us to design their OS.

 

[someone2639]

Microsoft should have hired us to design their OS.

Considering all of our WONDERFUL coding experience (no offense to devs), yeah.

 

[noersetiawan]

Considering all of our WONDERFUL coding experience (no offense to devs), yeah.

Haha you got it. Seems like most of our members "know" what is good and what needs to be changed, so I guess it's not a bad idea. We just do the design with features we want and let MS devs code it for us .

 

[a5cent]

Haha you got it. Seems like most of our members "know" what is good and what needs to be changed, so I guess it's not a bad idea. We just do the design with features we want and let MS devs code it for us ��.

To be fair, I and every other developer here is judging this in hindsight. That tends to make all these things sound a lot more obvious and self evident than they actually are. When you're thinking up new solutions nobody in the world has ever tried before, it's often really hard to anticipate the consequences of those decisions for every possible app someone may eventually want to develop.

Sometimes, something that looks good on paper isn't always that great in real-life either. Consumers tend to make those types of mistakes even more often than developers do, even when they're just discussing design preferences and high-level features.

 

[PepsimanLeh]

If I recall correctly, there is a line of code for fast resume that developer can add into their apps, right? It seems like a lot of apps still don't have this, or I left something out?

And also, IE on phone reloads the page when we switch back from other apps. I hope MS fix this with Edge too.

I think newbies tend to get confused between task-switching and multitasking. I don't know much about OSes, but I think MS only need to fix task-switching and add/improve background agent. Task-switching is a pain in WP. Fix task-switching to solve those problem, and improve background agent for essential task to be performed in the background. Real multitasking, umm, not needed I think.

And, why MS haven't hired you yet?

 

[Yazen]

^ bro, WP can already do that, yo! :wink:

The feature already exists, but devs don't use it. You can call for MS to include "real" multitasking (or whatever the non-technical term for it is these days) until the cows come home. It won't change zilch if developers ignore it, as they currently do.

Admittedly there are limits to how many files can be queued up for download (I think it's five), so it doesn't work for every possible scenario, but it would probably work just fine for what you want.

You can see the feature in action in the store. No problem downloading apps in the background.

I'd say 95% of this thread makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. What consumers should be calling on MS to do, is to eliminate/remove every single way of downloading files except through the background file transfer mechanism. That would force developers to do it the way it's supposed to be done.

I'd like to see a permission that allows apps to bypass imposed restrictions. I remember buying San Andreas for WP and never playing it... >.<'

 

[Yazen]

If I recall correctly, there is a line of code for fast resume that developer can add into their apps, right? It seems like a lot of apps still don't have this, or I left something out?

And also, IE on phone reloads the page when we switch back from other apps. I hope MS fix this with Edge too.

I think newbies tend to get confused between task-switching and multitasking. I don't know much about OSes, but I think MS only need to fix task-switching and add/improve background agent. Task-switching is a pain in WP. Fix task-switching to solve those problem, and improve background agent for essential task to be performed in the background. Real multitasking, umm, not needed I think.

And, why MS haven't hired you yet?

Fast resume requires a little more than that haha. Navigation needs to be modified. If it were this easy we'd expect WhatsApp and Skype to have FAR haha.

IE on WP8.1 does preserve app state, unlike WP8 where it would require a refresh all the time. Was really annoying, especially when typing anything.
Modern browsers are memory hungry. Refreshing the page after a brief app switch is another way of saying "you were getting low on memory, sorry pal".

 

[Spectrum90]

Some level of real multitasking would be nice, specially for productivity. For example, I don't want to wait many seconds while a big website is being loaded or in general when an app is working in a long task. It would be nice if I can switch to other apps and come back later when the task is done.
Maybe a couple of minutes of background execution wouldn't hurt that much on phones with powerful CPUs.

 

[smogz]

Considering all of our WONDERFUL coding experience (no offense to devs), yeah.

The problems are not the coding but the requirements. I can run endomondo and listen to audiobook with screen black at the same time.

 

[chmun77]

I have very simple requirement for multitasking in Windows 10 for phone. As long as 3rd party apps can continue to run in the background, aka without the need for them to stay on the foreground in order to have their tasks running, that will be excellent. I'm very pissed with Windows phone 8.1 currently because of this requirement. I have apps like Manga reader which download comic chapters, an drama app that grabs latest drama series, Podcast + pro which grabs latest podcasts, etc.... All these 3rd party apps are required to stay in the foreground in order for the downloading queues to run. Is so frustrating!

On the other hand with my Note 4, I have simple switch away to anywhere on the phone while the download queues do their individual jobs. The OS will notify me once any of the jobs are completed. So sweet and easy. So much for being a modern OS for Windows Phone.

Another irritating thing about Windows Phone is its Resuming and Reloading. The moment I have the Whatsapp, or Messenger left in the background for sometime, I sure to see Resuming first, followed by the app. Perhaps there are some levels of resuming as well on Android, but it is so much quicker. I really hope all these crazy "features" will be removed for Windows 10 for phones. Otherwise, I will be back to Android for good. Even iOS resume apps faster than Windows Phone.... :eck:

 

[D M C]

I know that was sarcasm but I'd like to take this opportunity to elaborate.

Xbox music flashes the "resuming" screen momentarily while loading, and only rarely (once a week perhaps) does the app bug out and is left resuming for any longer.).

That is a sarcasm.
Xbox music shows resuming everytime or most of the time. It is so poorly optimized that even some third party apps and games loads faster than Xbox music. If you like I can post a video on music app resuming.

 

[a5cent]

I'd like to see a permission that allows apps to bypass imposed restrictions. I remember buying San Andreas for WP and never playing it... >.<'

I don't play games on my phone. What exactly are you thinking about here and how was San Andreas impacted? I'm very sceptical that such a permission makes sense...

 

[a5cent]

Some level of real multitasking would be nice, specially for productivity. For example, I don't want to wait many seconds while a big website is being loaded or in general when an app is working in a long task. It would be nice if I can switch to other apps and come back later when the task is done.
Maybe a couple of minutes of background execution wouldn't hurt that much on phones with powerful CPUs.

Allowing an app to do anything it wants in the background, but then restricting that ability to being available for only an arbitrary amount of time (a couple of minutes), is a solution that causes far more trouble than it's worth.

The computational power available during that time allotment would vary between low- and high-end devices. Worse, any new low-end device could change the goalposts. That would make it hard for devs to judge whether a specific task can be completed in the background in the allotted amount of time or not. Situations also exist where we simply can't know how long a task might take. For example, a file that is downloaded in 30 seconds where you live, might take 30 minutes to download over a hotel's shared WiFi AP in a non industrialized country. That means some background tasks would work as expected in some places, but not in others :straight: Consider also that any number of other apps might also be competing for background processing time, i.e. what a user does with their phone would influence how much processing resources an app could get in the allotted time frame. For any app idea that requires a reliable background processing mechanism, this time-restricted multitasking would be a royal pain in the back side. Basically, this solution only works for features where it doesn't matter if the background task actually completes or not. In some scenarios it wouldn't work at all, like the flashlight PepsimanLeh mentioned. His flashlight would just go out after those couple of minutes ran out, which would likely seem very random and be even more annoying than it already is.

The above is just in response to your last sentence, but I agree with everything else... and so does MS.

In fact, that level of multitasking you mentioned already exists, and even the specific example you mentioned is already taken care of! I just accessed windowscentral.com in IE after it opened the page in the background while I was editing this post in Tapatalk. No problem.

Any app can play or stream audio in the background. You can rely on GPS based voice-guidance running in the background, even when the screen is turned off. Not only can the app-store download files in the background, but any app can do so as well (devs do a really poor job of using background file transfer capabilities, but we nevertheless have quite a few apps, UCBrowser being one, that prove it can be done).

To sum up, there already is a certain level of multitasking available, a level that already solves almost every issue mentioned in this thread so far. Excluded are those problems that aren't related to multitasking at all, and PepsimanLeh's flashlight example.

 

[a5cent]

If I recall correctly, there is a line of code for fast resume that developer can add into their apps, right? It seems like a lot of apps still don't have this, or I left something out?

Are you sure you have a clear understanding of what fast-resume is?
I don't have a gazillion apps on my phone (less than 150), so I might not be aware of some apps that have been left behind. At least right now, I can't think of one app off the top of my head that doesn't support fast resume. Starting with WP8.1, fast resume is the default, meaning developers have to do nothing at all for it to work. However, that means it must be a WP8.1 app. It's not the default for WP8.0 apps running on WP8.1.

Fast resume requires a little more than that haha.

It's actually not even a line of code, but a setting in the app manifest. If you tell WP to cache pages, which also worked on WP8, it's no more work than that.

 

[Yazen]

Are you sure you have a clear understanding of what fast-resume is?
I don't have a gazillion apps on my phone (less than 150), so I might not be aware of some apps that have been left behind. At least right now, I can't think of one app off the top of my head that doesn't support fast resume. Starting with WP8.1, fast resume is the default, meaning developers have to do nothing at all for it to work. However, that means it must be a WP8.1 app. It's not the default for WP8.0 apps running on WP8.1.



It's actually not even a line of code, but a setting in the app manifest. If you tell WP to cache pages, which also worked on WP8, it's no more work than that.

It's never that easy lol
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/li....105).aspx#BKMK_Optimizingtheresumeexperience

FAR is fundamentally different than FAS, so it is better to change the apps navigation stack.

 

[Yazen]

I don't play games on my phone. What exactly are you thinking about here and how was San Andreas impacted? I'm very sceptical that such a permission makes sense...

When I leave the app I'd like to see a system pop up that asks me whether or not I want to allow the app to continue downloading in the background, regardless of battery life or the file size.

It would be nice if the pop up had information regarding number of files, size, eta, etc.

Wouldn't this be awesome for OneDrive, Edge, etc?

Edit: Every time the app went in the background it had trouble resuming.

 

[hinst]

MS stole multitasking from us in 2011.
I very much doubt they are about to give it back now. If they were, Windows 10 Mobile preview would have it by now already. They got the name wrong though. This is not Windows Mobile. Windows Mobile had multitasking. Windows 10 Mobile is actually another Windows Phone, a cheap toy OS. Just like Apple iOS; the only difference is that iOS is an expensive toy and WP is a cheap toy

 

[fatclue_98]

To me, if a background app isn't updating in real time, it's not multitasking. To that end, only BlackBerry's QNX achieves that in today's day and age. Symbian and webOS had it, but they're pushing up daisies at Woodlawn.

 

[a5cent]

It's never that easy lol
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/li....105).aspx#BKMK_Optimizingtheresumeexperience

Enabling fast app resume is exactly that simple. I'm aware of at least two apps where nothing more was required (every launch already cleared the back stack). You're right that apps can require more, but unless you're working on the app with navigation-logic-from-hell, it's certainly not difficult or time consuming in any way. It's certainly not an effort worth arguing over.

When I leave the app I'd like to see a system pop up that asks me whether or not I want to allow the app to continue downloading in the background, regardless of battery life or the file size.

It would be nice if the pop up had information regarding number of files, size, eta, etc.

Wouldn't this be awesome for OneDrive, Edge, etc?

Edit: Every time the app went in the background it had trouble resuming.

I don't think something that simple requires a popup to get in my face each time. This is actually more of a UI issue than one related to multitasking. As I've already said a few times now, WP can already queue up a file to be downloaded in the background. No further permissions are required for that, particularly not a "screw all permissions and let me do whatever I want" permission. A better solution might look something like this:

1. Keep the background file transfer service the way it already is, but force developers to use it, by removing the ability to download files in any other way.
2. Provide a download manager UI that lists all the files that are currently queued up to be downloaded in the background. Maybe that UI could be accessed from the action centre. It would list all the queued up files, show file size and download progress, allow entries to be reordered to specify downloading priorities, and allow the user to force the download of large files over the cellular network. There's no need to throw a popup in the user's face each time. An icon in the status bar could show the download queues status (empty, downloading, paused, etc).
3. If users had access to a background download manager like this, MS could also remove the current limitation, which currently allows no more than five files to be queued up at one time.

My key point here is that none of this requires changes to multitasking, which is the topic of this thread. What WP is actually missing is something else entirely, but far simpler... just a download manager UI. Everything else related to downloading files in the background already works, which is why I'm arguing against the whole real-multitasking-for-file-downloading blah blah stuff (not from you). It's probably a lost cause at this point, simply because opinions like hinst's are so wide spread. They're just very ill informed.