[iPhone] Background Tasks

They said from the very beginning that they wouldn't allow background tasks. What are you trying to do that doesn't work with their push feature?

Honestly, having done enough work on Windows Mobile and run enough stuff on a jailbroken iPhone, I can attest that letting stuff run indiscriminately in the background really can drag the phone's performance and battery life down. Even just adding a few new system things on a WinMob phone -- like a new battery status tool, a task menu, and a Today screen replacement -- can have a noticeable impact on your battery life, with that much more running regularly and nonstop.

If the lack of background stuff kills your app design, that's unfortunate, but most things /can/ be worked around with a server and the push functionality. And push data will be way more battery friendly (and network friendly, for that matter) than allowing constant background app usage.

Some of my ideas will be much less useful without background tasks (particularly the ones that involve having data available offline); others will actually be more useful, since the push system favors designs I might not otherwise use. (In particular, I've been thinking about how I'd design an IRC client--the simple way would be to have the phone directly interact with the IRC server, of course. But if you introduced an intervening gateway, you could have connections persist when the user closes the app, and the server could push notifications. The persisting behavior is lovely for users, but I wouldn't consider implementing it that way without the push server.)

It's a shame, though, that I can only push badges, sounds, and popups. If I could push files into a sandbox's Documents folder, a lot more of my ideas would work.

Message was edited by: Brent Royal-Gordon