By Sibers CTO Andrey Gavrilov
Windows Phone 7 has been announced, and everybody wonders if it has a multitasking mode. A Microsoft representative answered to that saying that applications will be able to “bring value to the user, even when their apps aren’t running”.
In fact, it is worth mentioning that the description for hubs (new interface elements, practically the same as widgets) says “…it’s pulling data from the app or the app’s associated service”. That means connection with a service, with the latter working in the background.
Actually, that’s all we need. Ideally, phone multitasking (and I’d like to see it on desktops as well) should not imply a window with the background service popping up any moment. The task should be performed as a background job and notify the user about the events if necessary. In my opinion, Windows Phone 7 has all the prerequisites for it.
A few years ago a similar approach was implemented in Palm OS 6 (Cobalt). Every application had one thread for the interface and an arbitrary number of threads (more than 0) in the background. After minimizing an app the interface thread closed while all the other threads, such as playing music or receiving mail, went on working. Windows Phone 7 seems to have the same approach, only with a more advanced concept of services instead of threads.
What about the new OS kernel? Is it WinCE or something new? Let’s wait and see.
Speculation on the OS to be used
My brief Internet search showed that many think Windows Phone 7 to be working on Win CE. Some turn to Win CE 6, which was produced more that 3 years ago but not used yet in any Windows Mobile version. Others are absolutely sure it is Win CE 7, which has not been announced yet and can well be anything including an absolutely new OS based on fresh principles.
I would choose in favor of a new OS and will try to explain it.
Modern mobile OS have two main trends. The first type is a “scalable” OS, such as iPhone OS, Android, MeeGo with its predecessors Maemo and Moblin, which after some adjustment can work on desktops. iPad and numerous netbooks on Android are in the middle between phones and desktops.
The other trend is represented with such OS for limited environments as Symbian and Brew. An interesting variant is Bada, which is a kind of OS add-in. Together with the Samsung proprietary kernel, Bada requires less resource than Symbian and about the same as Brew. Added to Linux, Bada can turn to an OS of the first type.
Symbian seems to be less favorable in such circumstances as it is much more demanding of resources than Brew and Bada, but lacks the advantages of iPhone OS or Android. Windows Mobile is in the same basket as well.
If we take Windows Phone 7, MS has two variants: to use traditional WinCE, which can result in an unscalable OS with big requests, or to create a new generation of OS taking advantage of reset and use the experience of Apple and Google.
Google can’t be expected to provide a well-thought strategy as they try to win the market, but Apple and Microsoft have all the opportunities to carefully think over their ideas. Apple traditionally puts off compatibility and starts from scratch. Thus, we might expect iPhone OS with additions of background multitasking and split-screen to appear on notebooks soon (and, probably on desktop computers later).
Windows doesn’t throw the idea of compatibility and decided to facilitate the desktop Windows 7 making it more efficient and finger-friendly. However, there appeared a number of challenges:
- Desktop OS requires too many resources to fit into a smartphone;
- Old programs have old interfaces, which cannot be managed with fingers or on small screens;
- With most users preferring full-screen (or double-app split-screen), large number of windows becomes redundant – this was statistically proved by the Microsoft itself with the Windows 7 development;
- Compatibility prevents implementation of new technologies. There were information leaks what Microsoft was searching for a plan to move from Windows to Midori.
If Microsoft sees the same, it looks like the right time for them to get rid of NT in favor of more advanced concepts.