Android – No multitasking, but an awesome back button
October 13, 2011mike Comments OffAndroid is the new champion of the mobile operating system fight. It is a feature packed operating system that brings some openess and customization to the previously iOS dominated space.
Both iOS and android are missing something desktop computer users have come accustomed to: multitasking. Sure both OSes say they have updated to include multitasking, but as a former webOS user I am used to “real” multitasking (http://www.styrofoamsoup.com/tech/droid-for-a-day-aka-linux-mobile/)
In my opinion, while more than one application can run at the same time on android, its really not a multitasker, it has a really awesome back button.
With the exception of some apps that can load from the notification bar, there’s really no way to go from one app to another and then “resume” the first one. If I am typing an email and need to reference a web page I have to reopen the browser, then close it then go back to the email draft. Its really just a fancy back button like on a browser. The easiest example of this is, say you’re typing an email, or reading a website and a phone call comes in. Answer that call, talk for let’s say an hour, close the call. Forget completely what you were doing, two days later open email, notice an unfinished draft… oops… you never knew because android closed that door when you answered the phone.
I hate sounding like a webOS cheerleader all the time, but anyone has used it for a fair amount of time can surely see some features we hope android will add in the future.