So this is amusing.
Microsoft very politely targets Apple in a commercial (posted below) selling their newly announced Windows 7 OS series. This isn’t us interpreting the commercial, the ad literally screams “we do multitasking, Apple’s iPhone doesn’t”. Clearly that must be the angle Microsoft is pursuing in its attempt to allure customers away from its long time rivals.
Before I continue…watch the ad. Just so you know I’m not exaggerating:
To be 110% sure, Gizmodo raises the question of app multitasking with Joe Belfiore, the director of Windows Phone.
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His response:
“The core operating system is a modern multitasking operating system. If you play music for example, the music will play back as you navigate around the experience…if you’re using email, we have great support for push email and that happens in the background.
For third party applications—we’ll get into a lot more detail on this in MIX—but we have a few ways we’re going to make sure that third parties can bring their value to the user even when the app is not running. Live tiles are an example. Data feeds in the hubs are another example for some apps.”
Like Gizmodo, we think that sounds almost identical to what Apple and the iPhone preach. Not true backgrounding but rather various features here and there to let apps provide some levels of functionality despite being switched off.
Just like Windows 7, the iPhone allows its default apps to run in the background. You can play music while browsing Safari. Try to open Spotify and do the same and you’re stuck in Spotify until you want to do something else. If this does turn out to be the case, Android, Meego and the new Symbian OS might be the only way to go for true app multitasking functionality.
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