Filed under: Other Events

The demand for iPhone OS multitasking is nothing new. People have been looking for ways to do more than one thing at once on their iPhones for some time. For example, let's say you're chatting on IRC in one application, and you want to hop out to check a Web page. Should you have to disconnect from your IRC session just so you can sneak into Safari? Maybe you want to listen to Pandora radio while shopping at the App Store. Should you have to stop the Pandora music?

People multitask, and now the iPhone OS can too. Starting with the upcoming 4.0 firmware, the iPhone OS will (finally!) allow users to do more than one task at once. As Steve demonstrated today, iPhone OS 4.0 lets you switch tasks by double-clicking the home button. A dock-like bar appears at the bottom of the screen, showing you a list of running applications.

Typically with multitasking, the more processes that you run, the more burden you'll place on battery life. The application would have to page into and out of memory a lot more, and as a result, less memory and processor power will be available on a per-app basis. It's a trade-off. For me, and I'm sure for many others, it's a trade-off we're willing to make in order to cash in to the associate benefits.

However, it seems that we may not have to fear: Apple says they have found a way around all of these caveats. How, you ask? They are providing background services to applications, allowing the app to stream music, provide notifications, or do other tasks without compromising performance.

What about you? Is this a feature that you're going to be taking advantage of? Would you rather swap it out for better battery life and app performance? Let us know in the comments.

Tomorrow, Apple will be hosting an invitation-only media event to introduce the iPhone 4.0 roadmap. Please join us as we blog-the-blogs to create a one-of-a-kind TUAW take on the keynote. As always, we'll be bringing our Apple love and our best cut-copy-and-paste skills to the table for a fun and frivolous event. (We might even have a few exclusive tidbits from inside the event... time will tell.)

Will Apple be introducing multitasking and iPhone exposé? Or other items on our reader wishlist? One way to find out. Join us and see what Apple has on offer for the next generation of iPhone and iPad firmware -- and maybe some hardware announcements as well.

What: Apple 4.0 iPhone OS Event
Where: Here At TUAW!
When: 10 AM Pacific Time, but come a little early so we can chat as things get started

Last month at Macworld, Telltale Games announced that they'll be releasing their games day-and-date on both Mac and PC at the same time. Last week at GDC 2010, they announced a brand new season of Sam and Max, and also the news that, on April 15th, the first episode of The Devil's Playhouse will be available on both Mac and PC (as well as the PSN, if you're into that sort of thing). I got a chance to see the game at GDC, and while the version I saw was running on the Playstation 3, I can promise you that they said we'd get Sam and Max, and that's exactly what we're getting.

Like the other games in the series (which aren't on the Mac quite yet, but are coming soon), The Devil's Playhouse (the first episode is called "The Penal Zone") is a cartoony point-and-click adventure game featuring the legendary Freelance Police duo. We played through an initial sequence that had the two going up against the evil General Skunkape and his spaceship, armed only with Max's ability to travel through phonelines, some silly putty that will let him change into a potted plant (or a bazooka), and the help of an alien brain in a jar. Just like the rest of the series, Sam and Max features item-based puzzles with plenty of absurdity and humor.

"What kinds of games do you like?" Adam "Atomic" Saltsman asked of his panel audience at the Canabalt postmortem during the Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco. "Role-playing" was yelled out, as was "puzzler," and eventually Saltsman picked "platformer" as the genre. Without another word, he quietly went to work on a laptop. Then, his partner at Semi Secret Software, Eric Johnson, took the podium to tell us all about what it was like to make one of the App Store's most popular games.

He started by saying that the game was originally developed in just "five very long days," and was created for the Experimental Gameplay Project and based around simplicity -- it only uses six colors and, obviously, the one button. For a game that's so simple, it actually had a lot of complex influences. It drew from older games, like Another World and Flashback, as well as modern works, like Half-Life 2 and District 9.

The 2010 Game Developers Conference kicks off today in San Francisco, and TUAW is in attendance to check out the latest and greatest in iPhone game development. The conference boasts a whole track dedicated to iPhone gaming this year, and all week long, we'll be bringing you panels, news, and interviews straight from the conference floor. This morning, panel number one was from Stephen Detwiler and James Marr, two engineers at Ngmoco, to talk to developers about how they put the server software together for Eliminate, the "freemium" first person shooter that's serving as their flagship app lately.

As they explained during the presentation, they had a heck of a goal with this project: they wanted to put together "the definitive FPS for iPhone," complete with all of the functions of a standard console deathmatch-style FPS, in just five months with just three engineers. And they started with the toughest nut of all: the networking code.

The Opening Ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics kicks off tonight at 7:30pm ET/PT. Here's a list of some ways you can enjoy this year's games on your iPhone.

2010Guide - Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games: The Official Mobile Spectator Guide [iTunes link] Free.
This app is a location-aware schedule detailing more than 2,000 sport and cultural events taking place over 17 days between February 12 and 28, 2010. Updated throughout the Games, the schedule adjusts to your time zone and works even without a data connection. Plan your Olympic experience by creating a personalized itinerary using Favorites. The app also includes real-time results for every sport as well as headlines, photos and twitter streams.

CTVOlympics.ca [iTunes link] Free.
The official CTVOlympics.ca iPhone app. Covers up-to-the-minute headlines and news on every sport at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games. Stunning photo galleries with hundreds of spectacular photos, in-depth Canadian and International athlete profiles, venue information and the upcoming event schedule for the Games. It's everything you will need on the Games from Canada's official broadcasters: CTV, TSN, Rogers Sportsnet, RDS, V, RIS Info Sports, OLN, OMNI, APTN and ATN.

More Games-related apps and downloads after the break.

Steve Jobs recently held a Town Hall meeting for Apple employees, and according to Wired, he had some very choice words for both Google and Adobe. While these likely aren't direct, word-for-word quotes, as they come from employees who spoke to Wired and MacRumors on condition of anonymity, if they're even in the ballpark of what Jobs said, Apple's response to both Google and Adobe can be summed up in two words: "Bring it."

On Google: "We did not enter the search business. They entered the phone business. Make no mistake: they want to kill the iPhone. We won't let them [...] This don't be evil mantra? It's bullshit."

Snap. Maybe a tad belligerent there at the end, Mr. Jobs? I wonder what brought that on?
On Adobe: "They are lazy. They have all this potential to do interesting things, but they just refuse to do it. They don't do anything with the approaches that Apple is taking, like Carbon. Apple does not support Flash because it is so buggy. Whenever a Mac crashes more often than not it's because of Flash. No one will be using Flash. The world is moving to HTML5." Sounds like the petitions can stop now. If that's really what Apple's CEO thinks of Flash, then make no mistake: Flash is never coming to Apple's mobile devices.

Some other tasty tidbits from the Town Hall courtesy of the folks at MacRumors:

- Jobs considers the iPad on a par with the iPhone and Mac as one of the most important products he's worked on
- Apple acquired Lala because they wanted to bring Lala's people to the iTunes team
- The next iPhone is "an A+ update" that Android won't be able to keep up with
- New Macs this year will take Apple "to the next level"
- Apple is still playing "wait and see" with regards to Blu-Ray, and won't implement it until/unless Blu-Ray sales take off

In the course of Apple Events, there comes a time as FCC approvals draw near, and announcements hang in the balance, that the store goes down and a great hush goes through the land. It is a time of great reflection and contemplation as each of us stands with 'bated breath, anticipating the technology shortly to debut.

Who are we kidding?

Can'twaitcan'twait! Puppies! Rainbows! Unicorns! Tablets! Are you as excited as we are? Is the iPad going to be ready for pre-orders? Maybe this is *it*?

Let us know in the comments.

Update: As of about 5:40 PM ET, the store was back up! Thanks for all of the tips from readers.

Apple has posted QuickTime streams of its "Latest Creation" keynote on their webpage, just in case you missed all the festivities earlier today. That latest creation, as we many had speculated, turned out to be the iPad. So you can watch Steve sit in a cushioned chair and browse the Internet (along with all of the demos from participating developers) with your own eyes. The streams, available in low, medium, and high bandwidth flavors, can be found here.

And if the keynote stream doesn't completely pad up your iPad appetite, check out TUAW's iPad page, a portal for all things iPad. If you see anything in the stream that we missed, definitely let us know.

Yesterday we pooled our predictions together to try and predict what would happen at the iPad presentation today. How did we all do?

Sang Tang:

Sang was the closest in terms of the iPad's screen size -- 9.6" prediction vs. 9.7" actual size. However, the iPad has neither wireless HDMI nor a front-facing camera (or, indeed, a camera of any kind). Score: 1/3.

Erica Sadun:

Erica was off on screen size, but was correct in predicting that the iPad would look and function much like an iPod touch. However, by all appearances the iPad doesn't add any new revolutionary gestures, and without a camera of any kind, any augmented reality applications are going to be very limited in scope. She was correct in saying there'd be no "mind-blowing new tech onboard" and optional nationwide wireless with a monthly fee. Score: 3/5.

David Winograd:

David was also off on screen size (though just barely), cameras, and new gestures. He was correct in predicting a keyboard dock and an optional data plan, but wrong about iPhone tethering and iPhone OS 4.0. Score: 2/7.

More scores and the TUAW total after the break!

Thank you again everyone for stopping by and sharing this live event with TUAW. We really appreciated how many of you stuck around after our CoverItLive connection died. Thank you all! We really appreciate your support for TUAW.

11:37: And it looks like we're out of there. I think I'm going to have to soak my fingers in ice water. Yikes!

11:35: iPad is up on Apple, and video!

11:35 "Thank you so much for coming."

11:35 GIZ Jason Chen: And here's IPS: In Plane Switching. Click here if you want a better explanation of the technology.

11:34: "Go to the store. Get your hands on an iPad. Once you get your hands on an iPad you'll never go back."

11:33: "We fit the users. User don't have to come to the device. We come to the users."

11:33: "We always try to be at the intersection of technology and liberal arts. Be able to get the best of both. Extremely fast products."

11:33: Jason Chen: "We are ready for the iPad."

11:32: "Most advanced technology", "Magical and revolutionary device", "Unbelievable price".

11:31 Back to Steve. iTunes Store, App Store, iBook Store, all on the iPad. Over 125million accounts. One click shopping. (One tap, really) 12 Billion products. At scale, and ready for iPad.

11:30: (via Macworld) Monitoring The Twitter, I see a lot of people blown away by the price here, and also a bunch of people sold on the keyboard. Fraser Spiers, a Mac developer and a schoolteacher, says the 16GB wi-fi only model with keyboard extra makes it an amazing product for education.



11:30 "If I was a college kid and most of my textbooks were on here, I'd be pre-ordering right now" -- Megan Lavey

Are you as excited as we are about the upcoming Apple announcement? Join us in this open chat prior to today's liveblog. All we ask is that you keep things civil and suitable for all ages. C'mon and join in the excitement as we monitor Twitter and analyze the latest rumors, leaks and stories.

Update 11am ET: Logins appear to be working again for the iPhone Dev Center, at least from the East Coast. If you're still having trouble logging in, try using Firefox rather than Safari. Still hearing reports of intermittent issues (Namely "Can't connect to application instance")

Isn't it weird that Apple has taken down the iPhone devcenter a day before their big "newest creation" announcement? Normally we expect site outages on the day of announcementpalooza, not the day before. Maybe it's a maintenance/infrastructure thing that needs to go live and be tested before the big day. Maybe it's 3.2. Maybe it's an attack of rainbow unicorn puppy dog devs. We don't know. All we know is that the site has been down since about 5AM Eastern. (I write this at about 10:30 Eastern). iTunes Connect remains unaffected by this outage.

Macworld is reporting that their partner Network World recently did a poll and came up with the figure of four out of ten Network World readers willing to buy a tablet on day one sight unseen. That's an interesting result (and it's not the only one seen along those lines), but I want to know what you TUAW readers think. We've got a pretty good group of professionals, "pro-sumers" (ugh, sorry, I'll never use that word again), and just plain Mac fans in the audience here, and I think we represent a pretty good cross-section of Apple's core audience. Jump in on our poll below, and let us know, if the impossible became possible, if you'd plunk down the rumored $1000 for a tablet even before Steve's demo, or if you'd rather wait and see (or maybe not even buy a tablet at all, no matter what it does).



Personally, I'm more of a "maybe," though I can totally understand the belief that this is already a revolutionary project (we've certainly been waiting long enough for it). Or perhaps those of us who already have an iPhone and a MacBook aren't really as interested in the in-between as Apple might think.