HTC Desire - Mulitasking?

Fus Ro Dah · 15 Jun 2010 at 10:00

I've got a Desire, although I love how powerful it is, the mulitasking seems rather long winded.

Where-as on the Iphone 4 there seems to be an easy way to switch between open programs.
On the Desire other than the task killer there doesn't seem to be a way to switch between them.

Is there a way to do this on the desire, or even an app for it? It should be possible as it's a very powerful phone. :confused:

Thanks in advance for any responces.

Tee Hee Johnson · 15 Jun 2010 at 10:08

Hold the home button for a second and a wee pop up of recently used apps will come up

Nice and speedy switching

fluffmct · 15 Jun 2010 at 10:09

I haven't got one myself but I have a nexus one. If you hold in the "home" button you get a alt-tab type selection

Phrozenpenguin · 15 Jun 2010 at 10:09

Press and hold the home key shows you recent / running applications.

Fus Ro Dah · 15 Jun 2010 at 10:13

LOL!!! What a nub I've been!
THANKS GUYS

reflux · 15 Jun 2010 at 10:16

Yup, just as easy as the Iphone 4g.

BoomAM · 15 Jun 2010 at 20:07

Or the notification bar....

V4NT0M · 15 Jun 2010 at 20:16

Or you could use pre home too.

indyskyz · 15 Jun 2010 at 20:52

with the lolphone 4 only a hand full of apps can multitask everything else just gets 'suspended' like the old lolphones

box · 15 Jun 2010 at 22:28

Holding the home button just gives you a list of recently used applications though. They're not the apps that are currently open. I don't think there's actually that much multitasking going on at any one time in the Desire. Apps seem to just get paused and closed when you exit them, rather than kept open in the background. The only things I can see running in the background are the connectivity services.

indyskyz · 15 Jun 2010 at 22:41

tim80bwi said:
Holding the home button just gives you a list of recently used applications though. They're not the apps that are currently open. I don't think there's actually that much multitasking going on at any one time in the Desire. Apps seem to just get paused and closed when you exit them, rather than kept open in the background. The only things I can see running in the background are the connectivity services.

whilst using any app/game hit the home button its still running listen to music browse the web oh whilst your browsing you come across a word you dont know hit home open the encyclopaedia/translator musics still playing and your still getting voice prompts from google navigator (if you have 2.1)
hold the home button to access any of your open programs + any recently open programs for quick access

bit far fetched but its truth....

TheVoice · 16 Jun 2010 at 02:22

tim80bwi said:
Holding the home button just gives you a list of recently used applications though. They're not the apps that are currently open. I don't think there's actually that much multitasking going on at any one time in the Desire. Apps seem to just get paused and closed when you exit them, rather than kept open in the background. The only things I can see running in the background are the connectivity services.

Nope, everything is kept running.

osc89er · 16 Jun 2010 at 06:49

yes and no. android apps have the capability to keep running in the background but many apps recognise that they don't need to so allow themselves to go dormant until needed again. so you may find an app looks like it has paused but if it was a browser loading a webpage then it would finish loading before it stopped using CPU

these dormant apps can be woken by broadcast receivers to do some tasks so is similar in this way to ios4.

apps that are dormant for too long, or when the phone runs out of memory are told to save state to disk and deleted from RAM to make way for something else.

HumbleCoder · 16 Jun 2010 at 07:35

TheVoice said:
Nope, everything is kept running.

It's actually little from column A and a little from column depending on what type of app you are and how you define running.

There is a nice overview here http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/04/multitasking-android-way.html and there is a good Google IO session on youtube about it if you have a look.

mrk · 16 Jun 2010 at 15:39

I thought ios4 was all multitasking "done right"?

V4NT0M · 16 Jun 2010 at 15:47

Khaaan! said:
I thought ios4 was all multitasking "done right"?

No, you misunderstood, it's "done... Right?"

box · 17 Jun 2010 at 10:18

Interesting stuff. Having moved from an Ipod Touch to the Desire, I'd have to say one thing I'm not sure about is the feeling that I don't actually know what is running on my phone at any one time. I've installed a task killer app, and it seems to show that applications decide to load themselves and close again of their own accord in the background (fring for example) even when I haven't used them or set them to run on boot. I'm not sure I really like this.

Robbo · 17 Jun 2010 at 13:59

Skyfall said:
No, you misunderstood, it's "done... Right?"

mrk · 17 Jun 2010 at 14:25

tim80bwi said:
Interesting stuff. Having moved from an Ipod Touch to the Desire, I'd have to say one thing I'm not sure about is the feeling that I don't actually know what is running on my phone at any one time. I've installed a task killer app, and it seems to show that applications decide to load themselves and close again of their own accord in the background (fring for example) even when I haven't used them or set them to run on boot. I'm not sure I really like this.

What's not to like? By using something like an iPhone you're being forced to operate a particular way and not deviate

Android is a clever OS, it knows when tasks need to use resources and when not to.

The only time something will eat at resources ifs if the app developer is a bit of a tool.

In respect of that, only install known apps. Like the stuff recommended in the essential apps thread here.