Apple iPhone 4.0 Firmware to Support “Expose-like” Multitasking

Much anticipated and upcoming Apple’s iPhone firmware 4.0 will support multitasking allowing iPhone users to launch multiple third party apps and quickly switch between them running in background. At present, a running application must be quit before returning to the Home screen.  According to the report, multitasking on iPhone OS 4.0 will utilize an interface similar to the Exposé function found in Mac OS X.

To save battery life of iPhone or iPod touch, Apple did not supported multitasking completely (restricted to some apps) till now. Earlier, in order to support multitasking (sort-off), Apple developed a workaround with Push Notifications to enable third party apps to appear to respond to outside updates (such as incoming messages or news alerts) even when they were not actually running. But with the growing demand of complete multitasking like available on other smartphone devices like android phones, Blackberry and high end Windows Mobiles, multitasking in iPhone OS 4.0 is imminent.

iPhone 4.0 firmware user interface will resemble Apple’s desktop Expose feature. After tapping the Home button twice, an expose-like interface will bring up the currently running apps, prompting user for quick selection. Once the selection is made, the iPhone OS zooms out of the Expose task manager and transitions you to that running app.

Two new features have been reportedly seen in pre-release builds of iPhone 4.0. Features like a “global mailbox view” and the ability to add individual contacts to the iPhone’s home screen, such as a button that will call “Boss” directly. It looks quite hazy, if both the new features could make up with upcoming iPhone OS 4.0. What do you say?

[via AppleInsider]