Apple thinks about allowing iPhone applications to run in the background

One of the more common complaints about the iPhone is its limited ability to multi-task as any application that wasn’t developed by Apple is not able to run in the background.  Certain programs, however, lend themselves to running in the background, but the trade off, of course, is increased battery drainage.  When Scott Forstall of Apple discussed this very topic at last years WWDC, he noted that simply allowing any and every program to remain open in the background was a huge waste of resources.  With that as the backdrop,Forstall said that Apple had come up with a solution in the form of ‘push notifications’.  Instead of having applications constantly running, select applications such as instant messaging could instead always be ‘listening’ for any notice updates even if they weren’t actively running.  This all seemed well and good, and Apple initially promised that ‘Push Notification’ feature would be rolled out by September.

But September came and went, and there was no sign of Push Notification.  Then October and November came and went, and now it’s already February and Push Notifications are nowhere to be seen!  So what gives?

Initially, it was believed that Apple was delaying the arrival of Push Notifications because they wanted to make sure they really nailed it the first time around – and given the fiasco that accompanied the launch of MobileMe , this explanation made a lot of sense.  But again, it’s already early February and Apple still hasn’t released or indicated anything about the status of Push Notifications.

Interestingly, though, MacRumors recently reported that Apple was toying with the idea of abandoning Push Notifications altogether, and allowing users to select which applications they would like to be able to run in the background.  Such a decision would be a radical shift in strategy from Apple, which again, mocked other Mobile OS’s such as Windows Mobile for similar implementations.

So when can users expect to see anything from Apple that relates to muIi-tasking on the iPhone?  Well, it doesn’t appear likely that we’re going to see Push Notifications anytime soon, and should Apple change its mind and allow applications to run in the background, such an update probably wouldn’t become available until the next iteration of the iPhone is released, presumably in June.  A large number of iPhone users run multiple iPhone applications on a daily basis, and allowing them to all run concurrently would be an absolute nightmare in terms of battery life.  That said, such a feature would only be released once the iPhone gets upgraded hardware that is more capable of dealing with the demands of hardcore multitasking.

The popularity of the app store on iTunes is almost a double-edged sword for Apple in this regard.  On one hand, since so many people are downloading so many applications, running apps in the background is inevitably more strenuous for the iPhone than it is for othersmartphones .  At the same time, because the iPhone is fast becoming so application hungry, it’s also happens to be the device that stands to benefit the most from multitasking.  It will be interesting to see what type of solution, if any, Apple will choose to implement come June.  Either way, I suppose if you’re Apple, it’s a good problem to have.

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