Multitasking: Why the iPhone Needs It

It may be a simple feature that so many people take for granted, but for Apple device users, multitasking is a rare gift from the engineers at Cupertino. The feature was recently announced as a definite new feature for the iPhone 4.0 OS and it will allow up to a total of 4 programs running at the same time.

Still, there is one simple thought that occurs to many people, if iPhone users have learned to live without the feature for such a long time, why is it such a big deal now? There are plenty of technical bonuses to being able to run more than one app at the same time. For one thing, it opens up new possibilities for multi-app features. A location based service can link up to a game application which will allow users to invite nearby users to join their game.

There are also more simple uses such as being able to switch in an out of various app calculators when doing complex computations or being able to run an app while checking online for usage instructions.

The real story here however is not exactly the inclusion of multitasking, but what it means for the Apple community. For years, Apple has done without support for the feature in the iPod Touch and the iPhone, so why now?

This is a landmark event that shows that Apple is finally beginning to adapt some changes in order to meet the needs of the users more. While we certainly are not going to see Flash support anytime soon, at least we can be sure that Apple is starting to care.

Aside from multitasking, the new OS update also brings a total of almost a hundred new features.

Read more about the iPhone multitasking and see the video of the feature in action at Know Your Mobile.