iPhone, Background Apps, and Android

Apple has claimed that the iPhone does not do background processing because supporting it would hurt the performance of the phone. Jobs has said Apple’s concern is that because the processor is limited, loading up the phone with background apps is likely to crash the machine or bring it to its knees.

I have discussed this issue in the past. I have also discussed Apple’s response to the issue, which is an improved way of handling notification of inbound events like instant messages, which would normally be implemented through a background task.

I understand Apple’s concern about background processing, but I personally think its pretty lame. As I have written, there are ways to handle Apple’s concern. But the interesting thing is that the first Android phone, The T-Mobile G1 has been announced and will be out in the wild available on October 22nd. Android has no restrictions at all on background processing, and the first Android handset, the G1 is pretty similar to the iPhone hardware.

The question is, will Android demonstrate that Steve was somehow disingenuous about this whole background processing thing, or will the Android team be shown to be foolhardy about this critical performance issue? Nokia’s Symbian-based phones seem to handle background tasks just fine, but admittedly I don’t think many people are motivated to load up a Nokia smartphone with software in the same way that people are doing with the iPhone. But Android is really a true test. There will be lots of software, an easy to use app exchange, and a sense of openness that will encourage experimentation.

I am personally very curious to see what happens in the Petri dish.

This article was authored by Hank Williams who is a New York-based entrepreneur who explores the tech marketplace from 10,000 feet at Why Does Everything Suck?.