Now that we have cut, copy and paste in the iPhone OS, the current most desired missing feature (at least among developers) is background processing (multi-tasking). While Apple has said push notifications was fine instead of multi-tasking, in reality there are so many things that can only be done with multi-tasking.

For example, using a very common user complaint, it might be nice to be able to listen to Pandora and be able to get a phone call, without dropping Pandora's feed, that is.

Apple, on the other hand, has always used battery life as the reason for no multitasking. The company has said that the current state of battery technology and battery life is such that background processing (multitasking) on the iPhone was a non-starter. This puts severe constraints on what can and cannot be done on an iPhone.

The iPhone 3.x software is a fully preemptive multitasking operating system. So, it is possible, on a jailbroken iPhone with Backgroundr, to work outside the limitations artificially placed on it by Apple, and multi-task. Aside from that, only the apps bundled with the system by Apple can run in the background.

AppleInsider claims that "people with a proven track record" have told them that multi-tasking is coming in iPhone OS 4.0. Of course, if they do that, besides the obvious questions on battery life, Apple also has to figure out a slick way to switch and kill apps.

For that, Apple might have taken a look at some other apps for jailbroken iPhones. ProSwitcher is one such example. It allows you to switch and kill apps running in the background, even allowing you to flick them off the screen like in Palm's webOS.

At any rate, this isn't the first time the addition of background processing to the iPhone OS has been rumored. To this point, users have always been disappointed. This time, who knows?

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Tags: Apps, Background Html, Background processing, Battery Life, Battery Technology, Constraints, Copy And Paste, Current State, Flick, iPhone, Multi Tasking, Multitasking, Os 4, Pandora, Phone Call, Point Users, Preemptive Multitasking Operating System, Proven Track Record, Webos, X Software