My Wife Said No

Well, it just got slightly harder to criticize the iPad. Apple has announced the addition of multi-tasking to the iPhone OS in version 4.0 and while it won’t hit the iPad until this Fall, it does squash one of the major complaints against the iPad. The ability to run an app like say, Pandora, while also using Safari, email, and Pages really increases the likeliness that people may use the iPad to actually get work done rather than just consume content.

The way Apple has handled the multi-tasking isn’t truly multi-tasking in the sense of a desktop environment. It’s nearly identical to the way the newly announced Windows Phone Series 7 mobile series (or whatever they’ve decided to call it) implements it’s “multi-tasking” in that you don’t have a task manager to open and close apps. Jobs is quoted as saying

In multitasking, if you see a task manager… they blew it. Users shouldn’t ever have to think about it.

So as it stands now, it’s more like multiple fast app switching with application state saved. Which just fine for a device like this. Basically, I’m just happy that if I ever get one (don’t forget you can donate as little as $1 I could potentially play games in meetings while also being able to quickly switch back to my “notes” when necessary