Closing App

[theman60099]

He's saying it's misleading because you're doing it wrong. As I said, it's about using your tools correctly. You can hammer a screw into the wall, but that decreases the effectiveness of the screw. In your scenario, you pushed an app out of the switcher to create a 2nd instance of another app because you aren't used to using the fast app switcher as it's meant to be used.

As for your trust issues, if you really don't trust that apps in the switcher aren't running, then take your control and test it yourself. See if there's any significant difference in battery life between having 5 apps always in the switcher vs. having no apps in the switcher. If you've used your device before Mango and you don't have any hardware/software bugs or a large amount of apps using background services, you should already know the answer.

he's just a cavern?cola that's y he can't understand the multitasking. I'd also like to see these "benchmarks" he's talking about.

 

[species5618]

He's saying it's misleading because you're doing it wrong. As I said, it's about using your tools correctly. You can hammer a screw into the wall, but that decreases the effectiveness of the screw. In your scenario, you pushed an app out of the switcher to create a 2nd instance of another app because you aren't used to using the fast app switcher as it's meant to be used.

As for your trust issues, if you really don't trust that apps in the switcher aren't running, then take your control and test it yourself. See if there's any significant difference in battery life between having 5 apps always in the switcher vs. having no apps in the switcher. If you've used your device before Mango and you don't have any hardware/software bugs or a large amount of apps using background services, you should already know the answer.

My question remains, do you think there's no use case to have more than 5 apps running? If so, then there's no point for Microsoft to extend that limit. Somehow, I doubt Microsoft agrees with you.

New instance starting is also not as consistent as the other poster claims. For example, IE does not start a new instance, neither does market. Messaging does, but only if you are in conversation window. For example, if you have one instance in online friends, and open messaging again, it would reuse the old instance rather than start a new one in threads. Settings generally takes up two slots in the task switcher. Not only it's unrealistic to expect the user to remember how many apps have been opened to avoid lost works, there's no easy way of doing it anyway. If the "right" way is to get the task switcher up every time you want to launch an app just to make sure older apps are not pushed off the list and to have a mental list of which apps would take how many slots, then I'd say MS chose the "wrong" way.

As for resources, idle apps use resources for sure, even only to remember the status of the app. I doubt it will impact battery all that much with only 5 apps running even if it was not done right (my android phone can last full day easily with more than 10 apps running at any given time.). The arbitrary limitation of 5 apps makes me wonder whether Microsoft know its suspended app management is not as tight as it claims. I suspect they still uses RAM even if they don't use the processor, which would cause performance degradation if you keep too many of them around.

wp7 doesn't even have true user multitasking (neither does iOS) let alone the best multitasking around. I understand it's a conscious design choice, but the current implementation is clearly still a work in progress. I don't mind it all that much since wp7 has strength in other areas, I simply think it has a lot of room for improvement in this particular area and I am sure Microsoft is hard at work.

 

[species5618]

he's just a cavern?cola that's y he can't understand the multitasking. I'd also like to see these "benchmarks" he's talking about.

If you don't know how to use google (or bing if you like), then you can "would like" all you want. I have no problem with you living in the fantasy world where iOS devices have less RAM and wp7 has the best multitasking around because it has more space in skydrive.

 

[theman60099]

If you don't know how to use google (or bing if you like), then you can "would like" all you want. I have no problem with you living in the fantasy world where iOS devices have less RAM and wp7 has the best multitasking around because it has more space in skydrive.

I asked u to provide simple evidence to support ur claims. now im just going to assume that ur talking out of ur culo.

 

[species5618]

I asked u to provide simple evidence to support ur claims. now im just going to assume that ur talking out of ur culo.

To be honest, I don't care what you assume until you learn to have a civilized conversation without all the weird name calling. iOS 5's benchmarks are flooding the Internet, if you don't know how to search then I am not about to help you.

 

[theman60099]

To be honest, I don't care what you assume until you learn to have a civilized conversation without all the weird name calling. iOS 5's benchmarks are flooding the Internet, if you don't know how to search then I am not about to help you.

y should I have to search? YOU were the one to bring it up.

 

[sirtwist]

I don't see why it's misleading. Are you saying there's no use case where a user might have more than 5 apps running? If so, I would be looking forward to your reaction when MS inevitably extend the limit. Because based on your logic, it would be a totally useless bonehead move.

There are plenty of Android developers swear by their OS too yet advanced task killer was consistently one of most downloaded apps. The difference is I have control there. Here I have to trust a company who shall we say does not have the best track record.

I didn't say anything about the number of apps running. I was talking about opening an app from the start screen launching a new instance of the app.

As for the number of apps, it doesn't really matter to me that much. I rarely need to access more than the last 2 or 3 apps ... Sometimes I'll be watching a podcast and then need to bounce out to check email or look something up on the web and then back to the podcast. I've been using Mango for a long time and I haven't yet run into a scenario where I wanted to get to something in the back stack and it was gone.

Of course, I recognize that everyone is different. There may very well be some people out there who say that 5 apps isn't enough ... but I would imagine that the vast majority have no problems with it as it is. And when you're targeting a mass consumer market with a product, that's your goal ... satisfy the vast majority of customers.

Unfortunately, the 99% who are totally satisfied with your product usually aren't the ones you hear from. It's the 1% who want something more or something different that are the ones you see posting all over the internet.

 

[power5]

Do tabs in the browser count as apps in the app switcher?

 

[sirtwist]

New instance starting is also not as consistent as the other poster claims. For example, IE does not start a new instance, neither does market. Messaging does, but only if you are in conversation window. For example, if you have one instance in online friends, and open messaging again, it would reuse the old instance rather than start a new one in threads. Settings generally takes up two slots in the task switcher. Not only it's unrealistic to expect the user to remember how many apps have been opened to avoid lost works, there's no easy way of doing it anyway. If the "right" way is to get the task switcher up every time you want to launch an app just to make sure older apps are not pushed off the list and to have a mental list of which apps would take how many slots, then I'd say MS chose the "wrong" way.

There's not really a good way to know whether Internet Explorer starts a new instance or not, since it ALWAYS remembers your open tabs and sites, even through a power cycle of the phone.

I'm not quite sure what you're talking about with Marketplace or Messaging ... they BOTH behave exactly the way I said that EVERY app behaves.

Follow these steps:

1) Open Marketplace
2) Browse to apps
3) Pick an app and view it's info page
4) Hit Start
5) Open marketplace from your app list or pinned tile (if you have one)

Guess what? You're at the main Marketplace screen. It just started a new instance of Marketplace.

Same thing with Messaging or any other app. If you're in the app and hit the Start key, then open the app again from the app list or a pinned tile, it starts a new instance. You don't even have to open another app. Every time you open the app from the app list or a pinned tile it opens a new instance of the app.

Windows Phone wasn't designed to behave like a computer, allowing you to have an application window open indefinitely with unsaved data to come back to much later. Can a case be made that someone could lose a text message they were typing because they got distracted and opened a bunch of other apps? Absolutely. Unfortunately, you can't design a mobile OS for every scenario ... you have to hit the most frequently used scenarios. And MOST people will compose their text message and send it without going and opening any other apps ... or at least not more than 4 apps, causing their text message to be pushed out of the back stack.

I understand that may not be acceptable to some people ... but that's the way it is.

 

[sirtwist]

Do tabs in the browser count as apps in the app switcher?

Apparently, they do.

 

[species5618]

There's not really a good way to know whether Internet Explorer starts a new instance or not, since it ALWAYS remembers your open tabs and sites, even through a power cycle of the phone.

I'm not quite sure what you're talking about with Marketplace or Messaging ... they BOTH behave exactly the way I said that EVERY app behaves.

Follow these steps:

1) Open Marketplace
2) Browse to apps
3) Pick an app and view it's info page
4) Hit Start
5) Open marketplace from your app list or pinned tile (if you have one)

Guess what? You're at the main Marketplace screen. It just started a new instance of Marketplace.

Same thing with Messaging or any other app. If you're in the app and hit the Start key, then open the app again from the app list or a pinned tile, it starts a new instance. You don't even have to open another app. Every time you open the app from the app list or a pinned tile it opens a new instance of the app.

Windows Phone wasn't designed to behave like a computer, allowing you to have an application window open indefinitely with unsaved data to come back to much later. Can a case be made that someone could lose a text message they were typing because they got distracted and opened a bunch of other apps? Absolutely. Unfortunately, you can't design a mobile OS for every scenario ... you have to hit the most frequently used scenarios. And MOST people will compose their text message and send it without going and opening any other apps ... or at least not more than 4 apps, causing their text message to be pushed out of the back stack.

I understand that may not be acceptable to some people ... but that's the way it is.

uh, followed your step, yes it does go back to the main screen, now launch the app switcher, do you see your original app info page? I don't on my phone at least. That means either no new instance was started (wp7 simply moved the old instance back to the main screen) or the old instance was immediately closed unlike messaging.

Can you see two different app's info and switch between them (say you want to compare to apps)? If so, maybe there's something wrong with my phone.

I am afraid MOST people simply bought an Android or an iPhone, both support more than 5 apps running and are consistent in their behaviors, albeit differently. And for messaging, multitasking is nothing more than a workaround anyway. MOST people would just say wp7 does not support draft (Android does it automatically), fail.

 

[theman60099]

uh, followed your step, yes it does go back to the main screen, now launch the app switcher, do you see your original app info page? I don't on my phone at least. That means either no new instance was started (wp7 simply moved the old instance back to the main screen) or the old instance was immediately closed unlike messaging.

Can you see two different app's info and switch between them (say you want to compare to apps)? If so, maybe there's something wrong with my phone.

I am afraid MOST people simply bought an Android or an iPhone, both support more than 5 apps running and are consistent in their behaviors, albeit differently. And for messaging, multitasking is nothing more than a workaround anyway. MOST people would just say wp7 does not support draft (Android does it automatically), fail.

you fail

 

[jfa1]

he's just a cavern?cola that's y he can't understand the multitasking. I'd also like to see these "benchmarks" he's talking about.

or maybe he's not a geekazoid!