iPhone SDK background processes: are Apple lazy, greedy or stubborn?
Apple’s decision to refuse third-party developers from using background processes on the iPhone has been a regular sore-point in discussion of whether the handset is a “true smartphone”, and at first glance Rupert Goodwin’s article on the subject comes across as just more bile-bait. However, what differentiates Goodwin’s piece - once you look past his comparison of the iPhone to a 1981 IBM PC - is the fact that he offers some actual suggestions for how Apple could have handled the situation differently.
“If the design of the iPhone precludes proper always-on connectivity — which wouldn’t be the first time the company has gone for form over function — then have a decent scheduler, which understands the metrics of wireless access and makes intelligent decisions about when to allow what to connect. This does put the onus on application designers to understand the limitations and capabilities of such a channel and to create software accordingly, but then that is their job”Rupert Goodwins, ZDNet
