Is it just me or is WP8 task-killing pretty obvious?

[MathiasVerden]

A lot of people have used the Windows 8 Preview, and if you have, you'll know that to easily kill a Metro app, you can drag from the top, and with a little force (at least on desktop), kill the application. Many Windows Phone users, including myself have been wanting such an easy and logical feature, that is just a huge, missing feature right now. I think that in WP8 (and perhaps 7.8) we'll be able to slide down on a View in Multi-tasking and with just a little bit force, pull it down, and out. It'll probably have the same animation where the View gets smaller and then fades away while it slides out. I'd be surprised if this wasn't how it'd end up being. What do you guys think? Pretty obvious or just me being stupid ?

 

[12Danny123]

Pretty obvious. But ms should do that actually. And ps you are not stupid It would be stupid to call someone stupid because it's stupid

 

[jdevenberg]

It is really an unneeded feature in Windows Phone 7, but agree that it should be included in WP8. I say it is unneeded in WP7 because your phone doesn't truly multitask. What happens is that your phone dehydrates your application, remembering where you are at and freezing the application. It is not actually running or using very much memory. It takes your phone a mere instant to kill the program to give that memory to a new program. There would be no performance increase from being able to manually kill applications.

 

[fwaits]

Yeah not sure if they will add that exact gesture to WP8 or perhaps give you the ability to swipe down on an app card when in task switch mode. (Long press of the Back button) For a phone and one handed use, I think the swipe card method would be a little easier rather than having to reach the top edge of the screen and swipe off the full length of the screen like W8.

 

[richu75]

It is really an unneeded feature in Windows Phone 7, but agree that it should be included in WP8. I say it is unneeded in WP7 because your phone doesn't truly multitask. What happens is that your phone dehydrates your application, remembering where you are at and freezing the application. It is not actually running or using very much memory. It takes your phone a mere instant to kill the program to give that memory to a new program. There would be no performance increase from being able to manually kill applications.

While mostly correct for 3rd party apps, WP7 does multitask.
Only a limited number of apps have access to the API, think Zune for instance.

You are right when you mean WP7 doesn't have a full blown pre-emptive multitask kernel.
But then again, it doesn't need one. It's a phone, not a desktop.

 

[selfcreation]

they should give us EASIER access to closing the apps that actually run in the background instead of having to go into settings or the apps them self's.

for the regular apps its just useless.

 

[PG2G]

It is really an unneeded feature in Windows Phone 7, but agree that it should be included in WP8. I say it is unneeded in WP7 because your phone doesn't truly multitask. What happens is that your phone dehydrates your application, remembering where you are at and freezing the application. It is not actually running or using very much memory. It takes your phone a mere instant to kill the program to give that memory to a new program. There would be no performance increase from being able to manually kill applications.

How has that changed in Windows Phone 8? Even Windows 8 works that way. The benefit from killing applications would be being able to control the ones that get auto closed as you start to run out of memory.

 

[Winterfang]

I wish I could chance between tabs with a swipe to right-left

 

[selfcreation]

I wish I could chance between tabs with a swipe to right-left

id rather have access to BING with a left swipe hehe

 

[jdevenberg]

How has that changed in Windows Phone 8? Even Windows 8 works that way. The benefit from killing applications would be being able to control the ones that get auto closed as you start to run out of memory.

You are incorrect. At the developer summit MS announced that apps could continue to run background tasks and demoed this new ability using location and VoIP. Currently no apps can continue to run in the background, which is why you have to keep your nav app of VoIP app open for it to keep running. WP8 changes this, now you can start your Nav app, get your directions going, then respond to an incoming text using TellMe and your Nav will still be active and give you voice prompts when needed. In WP7 you would need to jump back to the Nav app after finishing sending the text.

Windows 8 absolutely does not work that way. For example, in Windows 8 (and I'd assume WP8), if I start going to a web page in IE and immediately jump to Messages to respond to someone, IE will continue to load the page and when I go back to IE the page will be ready and waiting. In Windows Phone 7, IE would freeze and wouldn't finish loading the page until you want back to IE. Windows 8 continues to multi task just like any previous version of Windows, the only difference is how it looks.
Microsoft brings true, background multitasking to Windows Phone 8 -- Engadget

 

[fwaits]

You are incorrect. At the developer summit MS announced that apps could continue to run background tasks and demoed this new ability using location and VoIP. Currently no apps can continue to run in the background, which is why you have to keep your nav app of VoIP app open for it to keep running. WP8 changes this, now you can start your Nav app, get your directions going, then respond to an incoming text using TellMe and your Nav will still be active and give you voice prompts when needed. In WP7 you would need to jump back to the Nav app after finishing sending the text.

Windows 8 absolutely does not work that way. For example, in Windows 8 (and I'd assume WP8), if I start going to a web page in IE and immediately jump to Messages to respond to someone, IE will continue to load the page and when I go back to IE the page will be ready and waiting. In Windows Phone 7, IE would freeze and wouldn't finish loading the page until you want back to IE. Windows 8 continues to multi task just like any previous version of Windows, the only difference is how it looks.
Microsoft brings true, background multitasking to Windows Phone 8 -- Engadget

I don't believe that is 100% true, for desktop apps yes, but for Metro apps that use the new APIs, certain things can use the background task agents and some don't. Apps that don't NEED full-time CPU to run it can dehydrate in the background until awoken again. Check the task manager in Desktop mode after launching a bunch of Metro apps, you will see some marked as 'Suspended'. That means they are using the same mechanic that WP uses now to not have them run full-time in the background if not needed, to conserve battery.

 

[jdevenberg]

I don't believe that is 100% true, for desktop apps yes, but for Metro apps that use the new APIs, certain things can use the background task agents and some don't. Apps that don't NEED full-time CPU to run it can dehydrate in the background until awoken again. Check the task manager in Desktop mode after launching a bunch of Metro apps, you will see some marked as 'Suspended'. That means they are using the same mechanic that WP uses now to not have them run full-time in the background if not needed, to conserve battery.

Yes, but saying Windowsm8 can dehydrate an app and saying Windows Phone 7 and Windows 8 handle multi-tasking the same way, which is what i was arguing against, are two very, very different statements. Okay, so Windows 8 is smart enough to not let fruit ninja sit in the background using CPU cycles needlessly, but it doesn't dehydrate all background apps and close the 6th oldest every time you open a new one, which is what windows phone 7 does. Both Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 let apps that benefit from running in the background do so while Windows Phone 7 doesn't. That is the point I was trying to make.

 

[fwaits]

Yes, but saying Windowsm8 can dehydrate an app and saying Windows Phone 7 and Windows 8 handle multi-tasking the same way, which is what i was arguing against, are two very, very different statements. Okay, so Windows 8 is smart enough to not let fruit ninja sit in the background using CPU cycles needlessly, but it doesn't dehydrate all background apps and close the 6th oldest every time you open a new one, which is what windows phone 7 does. Both Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 let apps that benefit from running in the background do so while Windows Phone 7 doesn't. That is the point I was trying to make.

True, I wasn't trying to say you were 100% off, just saying that WP will still be less of a true multi-tasker (In terms of symmetrical background processing) than W8 is, but yes they will share some of those abilities, and should do more than WP7 does now.

 

[PG2G]

Windows Phone 7.X, Windows Phone 8, and WinRT (similar to iOS) define different TYPES of tasks that can run in the background. Examples of these tasks are Background Audio and Background File Transfers. Windows phone 8 is ADDING support for Background Location and Background VOIP, two things iOS already has. There is no fundamental change in how the OS handles multitasking.

 

[MathiasVerden]

From what I know, there is NO multi-tasking in Windows Phone 7. Some applications can run in the background, but it's not actually the applications that runs. Like when you're listening to music or you're making a phone call, it can continue because it's another task that controls it. I know that you can actually quick the music application, and the music will keep playing. I'm not sure about phone calls, but I think you can kill the applications and the call will keep going.

 

[PG2G]

If you guys are interested in how this works in Windows 8, check this link: Download: Background Tasks - Microsoft Download Center - Download Details

Honestly, we don't know enough about the changes in Windows Phone 8. We'll probably have to wait for the SDK and emulator. One noticeable difference in "multitasking" between Windows 8 and Windows Phone 7.X is when you launch a Windows 8 start screen it launches the in-memory version. When done in WP 7.X it launches a fresh instance. I HOPE this changes.

 

[socialcarpet]

Whatever.

Just as long as WP8 doesn't let apps run buck wild so that they NEED to be closed like earlier versions of Android did.

Aside from that, if it does it's job you should STILL never have to close or force close an app, even with "true" multitasking. People just can't seem to get their heads around that. I see people with Android 2.3 and later running task killers still and even hear WP7 users complaining they can't "quit" an app. Haphazardly running around killing processes will actually make the phone run worse. They are designed to manage memory without you doing anything. The OS knows to park an app, or close it out as needed. It doesn't need you to quit everything to free up memory. It's not Windows 95 people.

 

[AngryNil]

Let's set the record straight, shall we? Seems a lot of people would rather theorise than actually use their device, or read up on readily-available Microsoft documentation.

IE absolutely loads webpages in the background. The Marketplace doesn't stop downloading stuff when you navigate away from it. These first-party services run literally as services, and continue working in the background. That's why they are instant-open.

But now, how do you think Jay's fantastic app pre-loads stories when it isn't in the foreground? Why does your phone have a "background tasks" settings menu? Because third party apps get to use these things called background agents. There are currently two types - resource intensive and periodic.

Periodic runs a non-intensive procedure roughly every 30 minutes, and this is how WPCentral and RSS Central achieve background loading (it's also how many apps update their tiles). I haven't found any apps that use the resource intensive task, since it requires you to be plugged in to an external power source and on WiFi.

Read more about this stuff at MSDN here. Windows Phone 8 or Windows 8 don't necessarily need to have full multitasking - I think most people would be satisfied with an expansion of available background agents. For example, a VoIP/IRC agent (this is what the iPhone has, and what WP8 presumably will have. It's no black magic) that will keep the connection alive in the background.

What I'd love (but will likely never happen) will be agents for "initial load of app" (so you can start a game that takes 30 seconds to load, switch to something else, then return and have the game loaded) and "finishing data load" (so if you open a Twitter app and navigate away before the content is finished loading, it will continue to pull in your timeline, then terminate when that's done).

My thoughts in summary: no app needs to completely run in the background with no strings attached. I'm fine with it executing something immediately relevant, but it should be frozen after that. Or, a low intensity task can be executed in its place to accomplish functions that require "always-on". The important part is that Microsoft provides a solid range of agents to deal with the many scenarios possible.

 

[c8m6p]

The only thing that bothers me about WP7's multitasking is, for example, when playing a game, navigating to something else, then coming back to the game, causes the game to have to "Resume" and effectively load up again to be able to keep playing. That's annoying. I hope that's fixed in WP8.

Also, yes, I hope they allow us to kill apps from the multitasking screen. Pressing "back" 50 times to exit out of all my apps is a bit strange.

(Yes, I know that WP is so amazing and that open apps don't kill your battery life, but some of us don't like to have a myriad of apps open all the time, even if they aren't doing anything to the battery).

Also, add "virtual" back and forward buttons to IE, and make it so the physical "back" button has nothing to do with navigating webpages. It's unintuitive as is.

If I have IE running in the background, then resume it, and hit "back", it closes IE instead of going back to the last webpage I visited. I see people defending that logic here and it's just beyond me. MS needs to add a virtual back/forward button to IE, the way the back button functions with the browser now just does not make any sense.

 

[PG2G]

The only thing that bothers me about WP7's multitasking is, for example, when playing a game, navigating to something else, then coming back to the game, causes the game to have to "Resume" and effectively load up again to be able to keep playing. That's annoying. I hope that's fixed in WP8.

That was actually fixed in WP 7.5, assuming you are going back to the game from the cards and not from the start screen/app list (which launches it fresh). Many games have never been updated for it though, which is unfortunate since it just requires a recompile :/