Apple May Be Bringing Real Multi-tasking to the iPhone

Apple may be preparing to remove one of the biggest limitations in the iPhone: the inability for multiple third-party applications to run at the same time.

According to an unconfirmed report, Apple will release an update for the current iPhone 3G that will offer limited support for multitasking, allowing a couple of third-party applications to run simultaneously. In addition, the next generation of Apple's smartphone will supposedly have significantly more robust hardware, and will therefore have more complete support for multitasking.

The source for this report, Mac Rumors, does not know when the iPhone 3.0 software update will be released. However, there has been much speculation that Apple will continue its habit of introducing new smartphones and major system software upgrades in the summertime.

Earlier rumors have indicated that the next iPhone will be considerably more powerful than previous models, possible even including a quad-core processor.

Push Notification MIA

Although many were pleased when Apple added support for third-party applications to the iPhone line last year, it was also criticized because these can't run concurrently. Apple's own software can multi-task, but not apps written by outside developers.

CEO Steve Jobs did announce a work-around for this, though. He unveiled a system in which outside developers will be able to access a push notification server run by Apple. Using this, a third-party IM service could notify an iPhone user that they have a new message, even though the actual IM application isn't running.

However, this feature has yet to be released, even though it is now months past Apple's own deadline, causing some to wonder if it has been supplanted by something else, like real multitasking.

Via Mac Rumors