Will Microsoft improve multitasking on Windows 10 for Phone?

[Godson Arun Kumar]

I really can't understand what multi-tasking issues windows 8.1.1 on phones has. All my live tiles update constantly, all notifications from any manner of apps show up then n there. I can reply to a msg in the middle of a game and resume it after sending the msg. I can start a download in the store and start a photography session and the download completes in the background. Seriously, what else is multi-tasking and what are you guys refferring to as multi-tasking and how is it creating a problem with the latest denim update?

 

[manicottiK]

The folks who want "true" multitasking want the phone to act like a PC so that apps are getting CPU time from the moment that the user launches them until the moment that the user closes them, even when the app is not showing on the screen. (Android provides for this model.)

The good side of more multitasking support is that users and developers could continue to think, code, and use apps as they did in the desktop/laptop world.

Here a bad example: I have an app that I wrote for myself. It goes to a popular website and grabs all of the content, storing it offline for my use during airplane travels. This isn't based on an RSS feed, so I can't use that kind of app, and my app grabs the full content, not just a headline and preview. When boarding for my flight begins, I start the app and push the Download button. I must wait for it to finish retrieval of 150-200 articles and comments before I can do anything else. This sucks.

And it sucks because I, as a user, am not annoyed enough to pester me, as a developer, to fix the app. If the me who is the developer were more committed to producing a quality app that was more mobile-power friendly. Fortunately, since it's not yet in the store, I get no complaints except from myself.

The downside of more multitasking support is that one badly coded app can drain your battery. This then creates user demands for task management apps and task killer apps. (I think that simultaneously tapping all four corners of the screen should be interpreted at Ctrl+Alt+Delete!

P.S. I do plan to rewrite my app and release (it with background downloading), but not until the website goes through a redesign, which is expected within a few months.

 

[stenson625]

I wonder why I can't do much on cyan's IE in the background without the need for the page to be reloaded? I wonder why cyan's phone LED torch can't run in the background without going off?
Truely, I still wonder why some apps can run the background download while other's can't? For reality sake, why should I not have alternative to use a WiFi or mobile network data to download a large file? Is this a phone, or a confusion from the Android normals? So I can't do much with a WP smart phone without need for an Android phone or a PC...? What a hell is wrong with doing things the normal way by MS while still enjoy the gorgeous and beautiful look of WP?
To make WP better means good business, and that is expected from W10 for phone to do just that right for MS!

 

[spch]

IE cannot download files under the lock screen, I would like this to change.

 

[a5cent]

I wonder why I can't do much on cyan's IE in the background without the need for the page to be reloaded? I wonder why cyan's phone LED torch can't run in the background without going off?

Truely, I still wonder why some apps can run the background download while other's can't?

You are the one that's doing all the wondering, and ultimately doesn't understand, yet you have the gall to call other's answers stupid. Do you not see the irony?

For some reason you're unable to envision/accept that the issues you have with WP could possibly be solved in any other way than THE ONE (Android / Desktop like) way you are familiar with.

Some of the previous paragraphs in this thread mention why things are the way they are. Others explain what a better alternative (to the full out and uncontrolled multitasking approach you're advocating) may look like.

For some reason you're misunderstanding all of it. You're behaving as if we're telling you that you can't have any of the parallel-running features that are important to you. That's wrong. You can have pretty much everything you've mentioned so far, just not by way of the ill-conceived unrestricted multitasking solution you're constantly referring to.

95% of your requirements are related to background downloading. I don't know when MS will get around to making that a bit more flexible, but we all agree they must, possibly by adding a restriction, namely by removing the ability to download something in any way other than through a centralized download manager.

Anyway, unless MS decides to go full out Android-Clone (to facilitate compatibility with Android apps), the unrestricted multitasking you're asking for isn't happening. But if you'd just stop calling for that, and instead just mention the parallel-running capabilities you think the OS should provide, we'd be pretty much in agreement.

 

[a5cent]

But if they used XAML too, then it's likely not XAML that's causing the resume/load issue, m i rite?

I think you're right that it's not a general load/resume issue. It's only a factor when the XAML engine must rebuild the UI from scratch, which happens either on launch or during rehydration (after having been tombstoned). Then however it can be an issue, but obviously not always. It depends on how complicated the UI is (number of elements, how much data binding occurs, etc).
If you look at the guidance MS provides for developing WP8.1 store apps that perform well, you'll notice that almost all of it focuses on limiting the amount of XAML the XAML engine must parse. I don't think MS would devote so much time to that one issue if it wasn't a major factor.

 

[KhawarNadeem]

I think you're right that it's not a general load/resume issue. It's only a factor when the XAML engine must rebuild the UI from scratch, which happens either on launch or during rehydration (after having been tombstoned). Then however it can be an issue, but obviously not always. It depends on how complicated the UI is (number of elements, how much data binding occurs, etc).
If you look at the guidance MS provides for developing WP8.1 store apps that perform well, you'll notice that almost all of it focuses on limiting the amount of XAML the XAML engine must parse. I don't think MS would devote so much time to that one issue if it wasn't a major factor.

Well I'm not a primarily software guy, I'm an electrical engineer, so pardon if I get something wrong here. I haven't done a through study of MVVM and what it means on mobile OSes but what I have heard is that it does add a more computational overhead on relatively simple apps. MVVM is, and is always recommended to be, the model used for hub style apps which are very dominant in the WP dev field. I wonder if that contributes to the delay as well.

WinRT has splash screens as a compulsion which SL didn't. And the way it's supposed to be done is that the major part of the view is supposed to load while the splash screen is showing (including the resources like images). A loading screen after the splash screen is just poor coding, I think.

I think the load times on WP are fine, for the hardware. It's the resume times that MS needs to polish out. XAML is the ONLY thing that makes the view, so limiting the amount of XAML means limiting the functionality of the app, which in turn limits what the app can do. If we had an alternative that would be fine, but devs have no other choice but to use XAML. And XAML is supposed to be quite efficient itself, isn't it? At least it was for Silverlight, which had a lot more APIs and functionality that WinRT did (at the time of 8.0). Even now things like graphing libraries and camera lenses are missing for WinRT which were there in Silverlight.

I guess, given time, RT will catch up. Even Android was quite slow with its runtime(s) before Jellybean.

 

[Vitor Salvatore Pierce]

^ the comparison between W10 IE and W10M doesn't tel us anything. One uses Win32's multitasking model, the other uses WinRT's multitasking model. Completely different.
Second, as ManicottiK alluded to, no *app* on WP, nor on W10M runs in the background. None. However, an app can request that the OS run specific features in the background. BackgroundFileTransfer, and BackgroundAudio are two examples. That allows the OS to fully suspend the app, but continue to execute a function on its behalf.

Like I say, isn't just IE: "Also, some apps stay in the background when you lock the phone!"
Did you read?

 

[stenson625]

You are the one that's doing all the wondering, and ultimately doesn't understand, yet you have the gall to call other's answers stupid. Do you not see the irony?

For some reason you're unable to envision/accept that the issues you have with WP could possibly be solved in any other way than THE ONE (Android / Desktop like) way you are familiar with.

Some of the previous paragraphs in this thread mention why things are the way they are. Others explain what a better alternative (to the full out and uncontrolled multitasking approach you're advocating) may look like.



95% of your requirements are related to background downloading. I don't know when MS will get around to making that a bit more flexible, but we all agree they must, possibly by adding a restriction, namely by removing the ability to download something in any way other than through a centralized download manager.

Anyway, unless MS decides to go full out Android-Clone (to facilitate compatibility with Android apps), the unrestricted multitasking you're asking for isn't happening. But if you'd just stop calling for that, and instead just mentioned the parallel-running capabilities you think the OS should provide, we'd be pretty much in agreement.

I just saw how irony had turned up in painting me stupid. Yeah? Yeah! I do not understand the developers jargons (permit me to use), but still advise them to advise themselves and MS and retrieve the alpha cyan WP OS from the public, whose pros and cons are still problems yet to be figured out by all the involved parties!
Can't this MS group of developers do something nice to WP OS without creating a problem which you think is only personal to me?

 

[a5cent]

I haven't done a through study of MVVM and what it means on mobile OSes but what I have heard is that it does add a more computational overhead on relatively simple apps.

I'd say so too. I think it's related to MVVM apps typically making more extensive use of databinding.

I think the load times on WP are fine, for the hardware. It's the resume times that MS needs to polish out.

Note that when rehydrating after being tombstoned, the load and resume delays are caused by the exact same things. Shortening loading will often shorten resuming durations by the exact same amount.

IOW when loading we're shown the splash screen, and when resuming we're shown the resuming screen, but behind the scenes the app is often going through the exact same motions.

XAML is the ONLY thing that makes the view, so limiting the amount of XAML means limiting the functionality of the app, which in turn limits what the app can do.

Not necessarily. I'd guess the majority of apps include a lot of needlessly verbose XAML where the number of elements in the visual tree could be significantly reduced without the user noticing any difference at all. As previously stated, there is also the common issue of apps forcing the XAML engine to parse far more XAML than would be required to render the landing page.

And XAML is supposed to be quite efficient itself, isn't it?.

XAML is a really nice UI technology, that allows devs to declaratively configure a UI. Considering what it does, it is efficient. Yes. But compare that to iOS or Android where that ability simply doesn't exist. No matter how efficient something is, you can never beat not doing it at all.

The same is true of the CLR. Considering what it does, initializing the .NET runtime on WP is quite efficient, but compared to iOS, it's slow, because iOS requires no runtime environment at all.

I guess, given time, RT will catch up. Even Android was quite slow with its runtime(s) before Jellybean.

I don't think there is any catching up to do in that sense. It's an apples to oranges comparison, because often times WinRT does much more. We can't expect WinRT to do everything it does and match iOS' performance, who has no support for anything like XAML nor even a runtime environment.

 

[stenson625]

Polished and vehement confusions everywhere, even in the WP OS world. If it is not Android, it is not Android; and it can't get perfect and be cheap. Just wasted my money! What a world! Windows phone everywhere with forever catch up of their developers! Pathetic!

 

[Asskickulater]

Polished and vehement confusions everywhere, even in the WP OS world. If it is not Android, it is not Android; and it can't get perfect and be cheap. Just wasted my money! What a world! Windows phone everywhere with forever catch up of their developers! Pathetic!

I can't make the slightest sense of this post..

 

[stenson625]

I can't make the slightest sense of this post..

You just bought yourself alot of time to be part of the confusion by that comment.

 

[Asskickulater]

You just bought yourself alot of time to be part of the confusion by that comment.

Again.. I can't make out what your trying to say at all..

Are you saying I'm gonna be part of confusing other people? Or are you trying to punish me because you cant English on an English forum by not clarifying? :s

 

[vish2801]

What I'd like to see is a global download manager that lists all the files that are queued up for background downloading, and also mentions on behalf of which apps that is occurring, thereby giving users control over the download process.

BTW: WP can already download files in the background, even when the app isn't running, but the download queue per app is limited to five files.

For many apps this works perfectly well, but app developers often fail to use that capability. MS can't do much about that. In your situation that probably wouldn't work however, assuming your podcast app downloads more than five files. Still, it should be able to download at least five files without the app being in the foreground. If not, then its the developer of the app that screwed up, not MS.

That's true and shows the poor quality app situation in WP Store
Btw, can we have a uservoice for having Global download/upload manager which can be in Action Center until the task finishes ?? Or do we have one already ??

 

[a5cent]

That's true and shows the poor quality app situation in WP Store
Btw, can we have a uservoice for having Global download/upload manager which can be in Action Center until the task finishes ?? Or do we have one already ??

Unfortunately, I found a gazillion of them. Most of them with 3 - 12 votes. :-/

Worse, many of them mention only IE, which IMHO would be a terrible idea. It really needs to be OS-wide, meaning it should be for use by all apps, not just IE. If MS is smart, they will also remove the ability to download anything from the internet in any other way, because too many developers don't seem to care enough to make the downloading process run in the background if they aren't forced to.

However, I did find one feature suggestion that had a decent description and a reasonable number of votes. This one:

https://windowsphone.uservoice.com/...251-port-idm-internet-download-manager-for-wp

I'll be adding a few votes there too.

 

[stenson625]

Again.. I can't make out what your trying to say at all..

Are you saying I'm gonna be part of confusing other people? Or are you trying to punish me because you cant English on an English forum by not clarifying? :s

You are confused because you seem to be alien to the problems and complaints which flood Windows Central about WP OS limitations.
When you hear words like, 'I just wasted my money on WP for its several limitations', then you shouldn't be confused at all about the complaints! However, when you chose to be deliberately confused, you are either part of the problems or aiding them.

 

[Asskickulater]

You are confused because you seem to be alien to the problems and complaints which flood Windows Central about WP OS limitations.
When you hear words like, 'I just wasted my money on WP for its several limitations', then you shouldn't be confused at all about the complaints! However, when you chose to be deliberately confused, you are either part of the problems or aiding them.

No, I just cant understand your broken *** English.

 

[vish2801]

Unfortunately, I found a gazillion of them. Most of them with 3 - 12 votes. :-/

Worse, many of them mention only IE, which IMHO would be a terrible idea. It really needs to be OS-wide, meaning it should be for use by all apps, not just IE. If MS is smart, they will also remove the ability to download anything from the internet in any other way, because too many developers don't seem to care enough to make the downloading process run in the background if they aren't forced to.

However, I did find one feature suggestion that had a decent description and a reasonable number of votes. This one:

https://windowsphone.uservoice.com/...251-port-idm-internet-download-manager-for-wp

I'll be adding a few votes there too.

That's about porting IDM software available on desktop imo. But still I'll upvote it Can you suggest something to MS employees here taking part in various forums ?

 

[kklemn]

i'd love an option like this:
-default state of an apen app in the background is suspended/paused state
-if you listen to a youtube clip in IE, it would be awesome if you had the "pause/play" button if you hold the back button below the screen of the app

what do you think? that way the battery life would be the same for people that are ok with the way things are now, but if you needed an app to be running you'd just go to the open apps menu (how do you call that view when you hold the back button anyway?) and make it run in the background