In praise of unitasking

Essential viewing: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/view/

Hahaha! Man, the backflips Apple apologists go through. Would you be making this same argument for "less is more" if the iDevices had full multitasking and competing products did not (the opposite of the current situation)? We all know you would be using this issue as a pointer as to why Apple products are superior and the competitors are just playing catch-up. Those of us who are not compromised by irrational dedication to a brand are laughing our asses off right now.

And yes, this was typed on my uni-function iPad.

"Mail, Facebook, and oodles of other clamoring apps will run at once"
No, they won't. You'll just be able to switch between them really fast.
I don't know why you keep thinking they'll be running in the background.

I agree. That's the amazing thing about the iPad. It's just a portable screen that can do pretty much anything you'd want a screen to do. And it's just the right size, too.

I think people -- myself included -- are more desperate for multitasking on the iPhone because the screen just isn't big enough to do very much on, or get absorbed into. You get frustrated browsing the internet or trying to tweet on it, so you want to move on to something else, and something else, and something else.

I totally agree.

Sent from my iPad ;)

Great post. Love it. It's not difficult to unitask, simply turn off those push notifications or simply click them away when they come in. Your focus is your deal. How you choose or don't choose to focus is that thing that keeps you doing what you do best...or worst. Some people thrive on a lack of focus. They call it multitasking.

I call it crap. Most people can barely walk and chew gum at the same time, much less do many things on a computer at one time. Printing, emailing, tweeting...maybe, but you can only type in one window at a time so it's not literally multitasking. The machine does the multiple tasks, the human factor is simply App Switching :)

Apple's taking the App Switching, tagging it as multitasking, and marketing it brilliantly because people are tied to the buzzword.

Just remember though unless you're literally typing and tweeting in the same window at the same time, while typing out an email at the exact same time, you're not truly multitasking. There's no way it could be done and no way you'd want it done because your email's not limited to 140 characters. :)

That'll get the minions thinking. Can't wait for IOS, will be fun to see a new UI and to be able to switch the wallpaper without jailbreaking things and opening up that can of worms for the dorks writing malware to sneak into.

I should point out that apps like Facebook, which have push notifications, make it hard to stay "unitasked" on my iPhone. I can be in the middle of a game or reading a web page, and Facebook pops up in my face to let me know someone sent me a message, or commented on a wall post, or tagged me in a photo. It doesn't happen that often, but it's still enough of a distraction (especially with that big, fat "View" button callng out to me from the message dialog), that I've already started thinking of my iPhone as less of a uni-tasker than it used to be. I'm actually considering disabling push notifications altogether, just so I can stay focused on whatever I'm doing.

i never seem to give time to reading full articles on google reader but once i got instapaper, BAM! i'm reading full articles and it's a pleasant change, to be able to sit down and do that

See also: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/05/ff_nicholas_carr/

Is this how you apologize for your iPad only running one app at a time?