Apple’s iPhone Apps Stunt Mobile Social Growth
by
on July 16, 2008,
You have the most successful touchscreen handset on the market, your brand image could sell contacts to the blind, and guess what? You are largely responsible for a roadblock in the advancement of mobile social networking. What I'm referring to is the fact that new iPhone applications are not allowed to run continuously as a background processes.
Of course, I doubt Apple or its head man Steve Jobs directly intend to inhibit the advancement of mobile social media by not allowing iPhone applications to run continuously in the background of the iPhone interface. That choice would be in the interests of ensuring that the iPhone doesn't become sluggish from too many background processes — a slow phone, no matter what the reason, does not translate as success with naive consumers. I would venture a guess that many smartphone consumers choose Blackberrys or iPhones because they aren't running Windows Mobile, an operating system notorious for being sluggish and buggy. Call it quality control or whatever you like, from a business standpoint, the decision is a no-brainer.
The problem is that you will have no idea when you receive an instant message on AIM, a direct message on Twitter, a friend request on Facebook, or a video reply on Seesmic as you go about your day to day activities, unless of course you have your Mail app configured to receive updates to each of these programs. The situation simply isn't ideal. This is the way it should be: when you open up your Facebook application, until you turn off your iPhone (or end the process), your iPhone should notify you when you receive updates to your account. That is being truly connected 24/7 on your mobile unit.
Perhaps the most frustrating thing about this situation is that the iPhone is arguably the most capable platform for paving the way to fully-realized mobile social networking. There is a simple solution, but it most likely isn't a solution that would sit well with Apple. Simply add a "Force Quit" application to the iPhone so users can pick and choose what applications they run. I'm not a huge YouTube fan, and I'd rather have it turned off. I also don't really need to check my stocks at all times (as I am a bit low in shares right now). Why shouldn't I be able to run two different applications in their places?
The next obvious solution would be to plan a boost in RAM and processor power for the next version of the iPhone. It will be far too easy for Apple to sail smoothly by only pushing hardware enough to stay slightly ahead of competitors. But it is obvious this application issue is a problem. Though I and many have a vested interest in the advancement of mobile social platforms, I seriously doubt that is Steve Jobs' top concern. At what point does keeping ahead of the Joneses get replaced by really pushing innovation? Isn't that what the iPhone was originally all about?
I have to say that I think Apple copped out with the iPhone 3G. Granted, changing the phone to work on the high-speed 3G network was needed, but not groundbreaking by any means. Developers did all the work on the Apps store, and I hate to say it, but there is very little "Wow!" factor to GPS these days. Jobs gave us something great and original, and is now sitting back to milk the cash cow, and that is why you are just a hop, skip and throw away from proper mobile social networking.
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This definitely sounds like a huge problem both for users and apps developers. After all, if Apple is here to innovate in mobile social networking, why don’t they at least allow users to decide what exactly they want to run constantly and what apps are not all that critical?
I find this limitation frustrating. Since the applications are basically “restarted” each time you go do something else and come back, they often loose their recent state. Even something simple as a game. For example, I started playing Mahjong, went to check email and when I returned to Mahjong it started from the beginning. Even my Treo wouldn’t restart apps. Part of this could be due to how the application was written.
Yea, thats a great idea… what I want is to constantly run twitter or facebook so that my battery lasts all of an hour.
Look, the iPhones limitations on running apps like this is due to making sacrifices in order to insure that the battery life is sufficient enough for normal use. If you are running data driven apps nonstop in the background you are going to drain your battery.
If you followed the iPhone 3G keynote when the phone was announced you would also know that they have solved for the “running in the background” issue with the upcoming update that implements a notification system so that while the app won’t run in the background, a server will push notifications to you that an app has an update (instant message, new twitter message, etc.) and you will get a little number icon signifying updates on your application just like you do with the email icon, voicemail icon, etc.
I think this “we want it to be responsive and have a long battery life” explanation that Apple gives is not enough.
There are truckloads of very smart people at Apple, and I consider it impossible to conceive that no one there thought of displaying a prominent warning when you try to put an application in the background, saying: “Sorry, this application requires too much CPU to be put in the background” or “Warning, this application requires up to 10% of the iPhone’s CPU and may reduce its expected battery life to “.
We’re all old enough to be able to take responsibility for such a decision, I assume.
Also, it would be perfectly possible for them to limit the processing power available to background processes to, say, 15% of the CPU, if they know the phone needs 85% of its CPU to be completely responsive. Or allow you to adjust the trade-off between the CPU power you leave to programs and the remaining battery life. Or even (for extreme battery saving) to only allow background apps to wake up every so often for a very small amount of time (although that’s probably not needed, given that the iPhone can run for many hours browsing the web or playing back music, which does consume a fair amount of CPU and battery power…)
With any of those limitations, that would still be enough to open up a Pandora’s box (pun intended) of applications that are impossible otherwise — think for example of an application that will record the details of all wireless networks that you encounter, or any geo-related application that might want to update your location or whatever to a server every few seconds.
And of course, the possibility of having more than 1 program doing its thing at the same time.
So, either they did it in good faith, for the reasons they said, and simply decided to go the simplest route for their first revision — in which case they will add background processes with one of the next revisions (better battery / lower power cpu, more time to develop) — or they actually do have some ulterior motives.
For example, the cellular carriers to which they provided exclusivity might not be too happy about a platform which on day 2 might see 99% of their users having downloaded and started using Skype to make their phone calls, instead of paying the comparatively much higher charges (bit-by-bit) that people are still forced to pay for “voice” service.
On 3G networks, unlike earlier generations, “voice” or “data” makes pretty much no difference anymore, it’s all just traffic, just like companies like Vonage offer “voice” service over DSL lines. Except that the carriers can get away with charging a lot more for it.
It will also be interesting to see what happens if (when) the iPhone 3G gets hacked in a way that might allow some or all of the options I mentioned above. That might build a lot of pressure to actually implement them. Remember how “Web Applications” in Safari were the smart solution proposed by Apple at the beginning….?
Something tells me that Apple is smart enough to understand the potential for having background applications, and will work to clear the obstacles. For example, its move away from exclusive partnerships with carriers (which allowed it much more leverage at the beginning of the game) and towards a carrier-agnostic device (which they can start to afford, as they become an established and demanded market force), might allow them one day to let the carriers deal with their own problems, and concentrate on making the best possible portable device.
Let’s see what happens
“Something tells me that Apple is smart enough to understand the potential for having background applications, and will work to clear the obstacles.”
I have already addressed this, and again, you obviously didn’t follow the Apple WWDC iPhone announcement close enough because if you did you would know that Apple HAS announced they will be coming out with an SDK update that will enable app developers to integrate background message notifications that something has changed.
Push notification system keeps applications connected in the background. The iPhone maintains a consistent IP connection to keep data updated to the application. You can push alerts, email inbox, custom textual alerts. This enables you to do things like receive Facebook/Myspace message notifications, instant message notifications, etc.
Carl, that will only solve the problem of letting you know that you might want to start your program again to handle an incoming event.
It will not allow you for example to play the radio from Pandora or AOL in the background while you do something else on your phone.
Or to have any sort of monitoring program collecting and processing or transferring even a tiny amount of data every, say, 30 seconds (for example your position, if you want to know where you’ve been) while still being able to use the phone for other purposes, like listening to music or looking something up on the internet.
Concurrent applications as I described above will only be possible if the iPhone actually allows programs to use a percentage of its CPU -even a smaller allowance than what it uses to decode and play audio files, which is not a trivial task- while something else is going on. If your phone does not record its own position, nobody on the internet can do it for you…
Instead right now you would be forced to avoid making phone calls or listening to music or using the internet or reading your mail or doing anything else, if you want such a monitoring program to work.
For comparison, according to Apple’s specs, the iPhone’s battery is rated to last 24 hours when under the load necessary for reproducing music– which doesn’t seem too bad.
Sorry if I didn’t make this clearer in my previous post, I hope you can re-read it in this light now.
Cheers!