Linked by Hadrien Grasland on Fri 15th Apr 2011 10:24 UTC
Ever since iPhoneOS (now iOS) has been released, there's an old fight going on about how multitasking should work on personal computers, and more specially what should happen to applications which are put in the background. Some advocate that they should be dipped in virtual liquid nitrogen and stop doing anything, like on iOS, which others advocate that they should continue to run in the background, like on desktop OSs. What about putting a little more flexibility in there?
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What would make more sense, is to put the decision in the hands of the user and not just the application developer or platform designer...
For instance, i might want a complex calculation to complete, using 100% cpu and draining my battery very quickly, but i also want to read my mail or something while its doing that. Under Apple's system i would either need to waste my time watching the progress of the cpu intensive app, or suspend that app while i read my mail.
You should have a choice between suspending an app (thus it stays running, but is frozen - effectively a SIGSTOP), killing the app or letting it run in the background (with the option to adjust its priority so its processing doesn't interfere with my foreground app). App authors and platform vendors should only get to choose a default, not force the user.