Craig Hockenberry on iPhone SDK and backgrounding

HAS THE WORLD GONE MAD?! All this stuff is intriguing, but it seems that a fundamental issue is being overlooked. If Apple came out with a car that has a lot of neat features (the iCar?), but would have to be brought into the dealership if you get a flat tire, I guess these same people who buy the iPhone would buy it.
The iPhone is the only mobile phone or PDA I know of which does not have a user-replaceable battery!
Apple says “if your iPhone requires service only because the battery's ability to hold an electrical charge has diminished, Apple will repair your iPhone” for $86 and “The repair process normally takes three business days”. Apple’s ads tout the iPhone as being virtually indispensable and yet this is what they do – not only price-gouge their users but worse than that grossly inconvenience them.
If the battery dies or runs down on my Smartphone, I simply pop in my spare $35 lithium-ion battery. Not only does this mean that I don't have to bring my phone in “for repair" if the battery is no longer good, I've also got back-up in case my battery is simply fully discharged at a time when I may need my phone most (emergencies, etc).
So, folks -- go buy an iCar for which you pay a lot of money but pray you don't get a flat tire in the middle of nowhere! And even if you’re ‘somewhere’, prepare to pay a lot and wait a lot. If the iPhone had a user-replaceable, reasonably priced battery I would own it in a minute.

To all the commentators breaking their arms while patting themselves on the back over the "but Windows Mobile has been doing this for years", please take note: the iPhone hardware platform is significantly more powerful and power-hungry than the vast majority of smart phones out there. The system specs on that thing would have been pretty sweet on a Powerbook about 7 years ago. No wonder Apple is doing all it can to maintain battery life in the face of high demands.

HAS THE WORLD GONE MAD?! All this stuff is intriguing, but it seems that a fundamental issue is being overlooked. If Apple came out with a car that has a lot of neat features (the iCar?), but would have to be brought into the dealership if you get a flat tire, I guess these same people who buy the iPhone would buy it.

The iPhone is the only mobile phone or PDA I know of which does not have a user-replaceable battery!

Apple says “if your iPhone requires service only because the battery's ability to hold an electrical charge has diminished, Apple will repair your iPhone” for $86 and “The repair process normally takes three business days”. Apple’s ads tout the iPhone as being virtually indispensable and yet this is what they do – not only price-gouge their users but worse than that grossly inconvenience them.

If the battery dies or runs down on my Smartphone, I simply pop in my spare $35 lithium-ion battery. Not only does this mean that I don't have to bring my phone in “for repair" if the battery is no longer good, I've also got back-up in case my battery is simply fully discharged at a time when I may need my phone most (emergencies, etc).

So, folks -- go buy an iCar for which you pay a lot of money but pray you don't get a flat tire in the middle of nowhere! And even if you’re ‘somewhere’, prepare to pay a lot and wait a lot. If the iPhone had a user-replaceable, reasonably priced battery I would own it in a minute.

He doesn't say it is impossible. He says it didn't work the way he tried it. And there may not be support to do it right in the first release of the SDK.

He says he thinks Apple might add support in the future.

So you can stop saying "but my Blackberry can do it".

Well, if thats true active sync is going to kill your iPhone.

I think there may be a much more obvious answer to why Apple doesn't want interpreted code or apps that run in the background. Those things make it hard for Apple to test the applications. Can't be sure an interpreter won't do something bad without a *lot* more testing than Apple is probably willing to put in.

Two words SIDE KICK. You have to be kidding me that a 5 your old device can last all day with IM running perfectly fine in the back ground multitasking will all other apps and this guy says his program drained his battery in 4 hours only checking every 5 minutes. I mean seriously this guy must have some screwed up code. I use mobile Scrobbler on my Iphone and it runs a daemon ALL DAY. It never turns off and my battery is fine. Get a clue. If you program right your battery will not be effected that bad. Also with Apple checking every app they should beadle to look at an app and tell the user that it can drain the battery. Let me decide.

Can someone explain me how Apple will implement push-email without leaving the radio on? By SMS notification followed by pull?

Apple's not selling a phone; they're selling a beautiful phone experience. If it was just a phone, providing maximum flexibility to devs and users would make sense; but some choices would wreck the experience (by killing battery life or responsiveness of foreground apps), so they can't permit those choices. Only they themselves, or sufficiently trustworthy developers, can be permitted to make tradeoffs that won't appreciably harm the experience.

If choice is what you want, rather than a guaranteed experience, perhaps the iPhone (Apple's way) is not for you. Go with either the iPhone (hackers' way), or some other device entirely.

I think everyone of us understands why Apple is doing that, but I still find it totally bogus.

IMHO it would be much better if we (developers and end users) were given a choice. I would be COMPLETELY happy to recharge my phone more often to have the possibility of running some apps in the background.