Shock:Engadget editor-in-chief agrees with AAS's Steve

[slitchfield]

A little off topic, but then this is Friday/weekend and we're all supposed to be letting go a little - I've been moaning a lot in the podcasts and on The Phones Show about how Symbian OS and other mobile OS roundly trounce Apple's iPhone (much as I love it in other ways) in terms of what I consider vital to a modern device: multitasking, something which Symbian OS pioneered in handhelds. Here's a very well written piece, and witty with it, written by Engadget's Editor-in-chief, Joshua Topolsky, talking about exactly the same issue. Mind you, if Apple responded and introduced proper multitasking, the iPhone would present an even bigger threat to the other devices and platforms. Comments welcome!

Read on in the full article.

[sapporobaby]

Great article and hits at the heart of the so-called speed issue with the iPhone. It is fast, fast as hell simply because it is opening only one app at a time. Yes, Mail sort of multi-tasks in the background and the iPod section, but for the most part, the iPhone or iPod with phone as I call it, drops dead cold when forced to push more than one app. This was demonstrated when friend jailbroke his and attempted to run several apps at the same time. You could almost hear the thing screaming for mercy. This is where the robust but heavy Mac OS comes it. It is too heavy to multi-task in its current incarnation. I am running circles around the iPhone'rs I work with using my N97 as my weapon of choice. If Apple does optimize Mac OS to multi-task on the iPhone, Nokia will have to stop its in-fighting and pay attention because they are about to get run over.

How many folks use their iPhone to "work" on a website?
Please!

Any article that knocks the iPhone is well written to you.

[jah]

The iPhone is not a business tool. It is a great entertainment device. 3 years after lauch and we still don't have the kind of Office support we have had in Symbian and WM for years, no multi-tasking, no HID BT profile, can't replace the battery (no spare battery no business continuity), okay call quality (for business you need great call quality) etc.

Psion rulz!

[seki]

The iPhone doesn't need true multi-tasking .. that would be great.. but as a minimum "Suspend" - "State Save" - "new task" - "old task" - "Restore State" - "Resume" would be acceptable.

I haven't seen anything in the SDK which allows this sort of activity. We tend to use a database to save the user's state as the proceed through our applications, but we've yet to implement a "resume at last point". Something I must get on to our code-monkeys about .. it must be possible.

The GS definitely has enough RAM and processing power to do a proper multitasking job. Maybe Jail-breaking is the best and only option to utilse this device to its potential.

[JohnnyN]

Nice article that points out the iphones flaws, but I think anyone that buys one thinking that they are going to be able to run their office from it is simply not giving much thought to it before purchase. If I'd bought an iphone I certainly would have done it for the excellent interface and touchscreen and apps alone.

I suppose this supports the argument that the smartphone-iphone rivally is ridiculous as both types of devices target diffent demographs.

wats iphone anyways? cant find it in my dictionary

[Super Chimp]

People are so wrapped up in this constant idea of Symbian Vs OS X that they never notice that the OS that will really bring down the house of Symbian is Android.

As far as TS devices go it seems to me that Symbian is something of fudge being something of a mess being developed from a non TS OS. My experiences with the 5800XM has made me very unwilling to try S60 5th edition again.

As a Symbian, OSX and Windows mobile user. I have to say OSX wins by far however Symbian is much nicer than windows mobile.

I despised my modded HTC Touch HD. It was terrible to use despite new roms every week. The hardware was largely wasted. Poor 5MP camera and screen is horribly misused. With lots of dithering... Not to mention the twin horrible dual UI.

Despite the small restrictions on the Iphone 3GS i am really enjoying it! Its an amazing phone. However its is a premium device. Its pure qulity and very fun to use. The UI is perfect and fast.

I agree Symbian and Android are competitors. The Iphone/OSX are their own category though. Apple will focus on just the one or two phones a year whereas Symbian and Android on loads across different customers.

Office stuff ont he oPhone is more impressive than many are willing to admit. Its the best email device i have ever used and Quickoffice is already doing a great job!

@ SuperChimp:
> that they never notice that the OS that will really bring down the house of Symbian is Android.


You're got to laugh at people that believe this. Talking about living in the land of hype and nonsense. As a long time software developer and mobile nut, and having done professional studies of Android and iPhone, and as a long time S60 user, all I can say is - Android doesn't even begin to stand the first chance.

Technically it is a nice OS. It is however HORRIBLY immature, with an uncertain future. It exists on one or two VERY poor handsets, has sold practically nothing comparitively, is technically still underdeveloped in various ways, Google have not pledged undying love for it, and have made clear noises that they prefer the mobile web, and so on.

Symbian/S60 is has many years of market experience that have grown it into a superb and extremely solid and capable OS, that exists in by far the largest number of sold handsets of any smartphone in existance. It outsells other platforms by something like 10 times.

Those who criticise S60/Symbian are people who judge a book by its cover and see no deeper. The shiny wizzy iPhone OS excites these people. Leave em to it. As witnessed by the sales most people prefer S60 handsets. Just because it isn't quite as slick or the Ovi store quite as mature, people think it's the end of Nokia and S60. Wrong. These things are easily fixed. Android is going nowhere fast, and iPhone has key architectural problems and missing hardware features (not to mention a vast cost) that mean it will never get close to S60 sales figures.

[Super Chimp]

You have to laugh at people like this who are so blind to the faults in S60, such as the various bugs in it that have often been in it since day one that their willing to defend it from the least piece of criticism & are willing to come up with spurious reasons to criticise other OS types. S60's age is one of its main problems. Which is probably why Nokia are looking towards new OS types such as Maemo & the like.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

@ SuperChimp:
> that they never notice that the OS that will really bring down the house of Symbian is Android.


You're got to laugh at people that believe this. Talking about living in the land of hype and nonsense. As a long time software developer and mobile nut, and having done professional studies of Android and iPhone, and as a long time S60 user, all I can say is - Android doesn't even begin to stand the first chance.

Technically it is a nice OS. It is however HORRIBLY immature, with an uncertain future. It exists on one or two VERY poor handsets, has sold practically nothing comparitively, is technically still underdeveloped in various ways, Google have not pledged undying love for it, and have made clear noises that they prefer the mobile web, and so on.

Symbian/S60 is has many years of market experience that have grown it into a superb and extremely solid and capable OS, that exists in by far the largest number of sold handsets of any smartphone in existance. It outsells other platforms by something like 10 times.

Those who criticise S60/Symbian are people who judge a book by its cover and see no deeper. The shiny wizzy iPhone OS excites these people. Leave em to it. As witnessed by the sales most people prefer S60 handsets. Just because it isn't quite as slick or the Ovi store quite as mature, people think it's the end of Nokia and S60. Wrong. These things are easily fixed. Android is going nowhere fast, and iPhone has key architectural problems and missing hardware features (not to mention a vast cost) that mean it will never get close to S60 sales figures.

Between this review and Tzer2 current N97 vs 5800 review. I have just realized that the iPhone is NOT a SMARTPHONE, but a very good media centric feature phone... Discuss
- bob

[buster]

I find it quite funny that over at Engadget people kept talking about having multitasking but having it turned off by default; very strange. Multitasking is not really the problem, the quality of the installed apps and what they do when in the background is of far more importance than the simple fact of whether multitasking is actually supported.

Whatever the pros and cons of multitasking, every modern OS (mobile and desktop) supports it. No matter what Apple's real reason for not allowing multitasking, it is a serious impediment to the overal usability of the iPhone. I have an iPod Touch, and having to leave a running app just to check ie. the weather forecast is just plain stupid. It doesn't matter how well written an app is, it is never as quick or as easy to restart an app which has been closed as it is to simply switch to an already open app.

It's about Apple accepted this and did something about it. If not, they may end up going the same way as the last manufacturer before them who felt that multitasking was an unnecessary luxury....

[JohnnyN]

"such as the various bugs in it that have often been in it since day one"

What bugs? Every operating system has bugs. I never noticed any in my N95 that are carried over to my N86?