ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Craig Harper <dexteruk75@xxxxxxxxx>]

We are all behind Ubuntu Touch, if where not we would not commenting on
this problem.  We understand that its not going to happen overnight.  But
this is not the first time the conversation about Multitasking has been
bought up.  We all understand there is good programmers and bad
programmers, this is why you have application reviews, star rating and
other such things to give users informed decisions about the application
before you download it.

Still the fact remains, that the a modern mobile operating system without
Multitasking is really hard to swallow even for die hard open source
enthusiast like me, and trying to get developers to develop exciting new
applications for an OS that keeps one hand tied behind your bad, is not
only frustrating but in the long term is damaging to the whole Ubuntu
Touch.  The whole idea if im not mistaken is have a unified platform,
across desktops, tablets and phones, write the application once and its
works in across the board.  That means you should take into consideration
your slowest and resource restricted environment first.  So based on today
technology we are talking mobile, we also know that multitasking is not a
option, its a requirement, as a desktop without multitasking is called
windows (sorry had to get that in) but seriously surly the whole
multitasking should have been fixed in the begging and not wait for
disappointed users to pick this up..

So personally, i think the only way out of this is to create a multitasking
service, when you start an application that needs this service, ubuntu
notifies the users asking them permission to allow this application to
multitask, you could even push user feedback at the same time to the
screen, so they can make informed decision, this would work across all
platforms, be that desktop, tablet or mobile, thus allowing Ubuntu to keep
its main goal.

I like Alen Bell posting about the UI experience of this once you have
chosen to allow an application to have multitasking

one of the particular strengths of the Ubuntu Touch UI is that you can see
what apps are running and close the things you don't want. This is
considerably easier on Ubuntu than it is on Android (long press of the
button on the right that nobody knows what it does, then see your list of
apps and wonder how to close them, then give up) On Ubuntu it is go to the
switcher and swipe up or down to kill things. This could be enhanced, to
renice the applications. Drag them up a bit to make them faster, drag down
to slow them to a crawl, swipe all the way down to kill nicely and swipe up
to nuke it from orbit with a kill -9 (it is the only way to be sure)

Craig


On Thu, Oct 1, 2015 at 5:52 PM, Michał Sawicz <michal.sawicz@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

> W dniu 01.10.2015 o 15:44, Roman Shchekin pisze:
> > First of all:
> >
> >     I also really thing something should be done about this, even if you
> >     create a user override, allowing applications to multitask in the
> >     background.  Like you give permissions for applications to use the
> >     GPS.  Then the battery life would be the users choice, personally i
> >     was looking for a Linux machine in my pocket that is what got me
> >     excited about Ubuntu Touch, but instead i got smoke an mirrors, i
> >     use Linux a lot in my life, computers make our lives easier when
> >     they are working for us 24/7 not only when we are looking at the
> >     screen.  Choosing Open Source over closed source is about freedom,
> >     so any choice should be based on user choice not some top down idea,
> >     force onto everyone.
> >
> >     Lets get this fixed.
> >
> >
> > I agree with that guy for 100%. Said like God.
>
> I think you misunderstand where the "choice" part of Open Source lies.
>
> > Now about business - why don't you want to make _*an system-wide
> > option*_ of services availability? User will be able to control it
> himself!
>
> Because that would mean there's apps that don't work properly for people
> that don't enable this feature.
>
> What we propose, instead, is to make it all work for everyone. It's not
> going to happen overnight, but we'll get there. It's not like we don't
> care about the use cases you all provide, but we're taking the more
> difficult route of getting there in a way that's not going to fragment
> the app ecosystem and maintain the platform at its best.
>
> I would love for us to have this discussion in a manner "I have this use
> case, how do you plan / how can we enable it in the given constraints"
> instead of plain "you don't support this, change it!".
>
> --
> Michał Sawicz <michal.sawicz@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Canonical Ltd.
>
>
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