It has been a hot-topic ever since MWC in Barcelona, the question of whether Windows Phone 7 Series will have true multitasking. Will it be allowed to run several applications (both first-party and third-party) simultaneously, or will it provide pseudo-multitasking that is equivalent to single-tasking between save states? While Microsoft has been subtly nodding its head in the latter direction for weeks, the exact form that tasking will take on the WP7S was not known.
At MIX 10 yesterday, Microsoft confirmed to the audience at the regular event and at the developer session that WP7S will not perform multitasking in the traditional way, and gave them a glimpse of what exactly will happen behind screen of a WP7S device and how the OS will handle multiple programs being open at the same time. Here is what will happen:
WP7S tasking flow revealed at MIX10. Image courtesy: Engadget.com
Similar to the webOS and iPhone OS (and now the BlackBerry OS), WP7S will offer also a push notification service called the Microsoft Notification Service, a simple way for any application in the background to vie for your attention while you are doing something else on the phone, by appearing as an unobtrusive bar on the top of display, which when clicked, will take you to the corresponding application or to a fuller view of the relevant information.
Other information revealed at MIX10 yesterday was that WP7S will not have copy-paste functionality between applications, in other words, there will be no clipboard operations. Sad news, especially since all Window Mobile OSes before this have enjoyed this feature. What’s the reason for this omission? Microsoft executives say this was a conscious design decision based upon user research that indicated that people don’t actually “use copy and paste” often, that they usually just want to view things on documents, and not move them around! Do you agree? I certainly cannot think of day that’s gone by without the use of Ctrl C or Ctrl V. What the OS features instead is a system-wide data detection service that will allow you to take action on things that it recognizes, such as phone numbers, contact names, and email addresses. Third-party applications will also be able to use this service.
While Microsoft has also added that it will not be giving these features even at a later date, we are pretty sure they will bring something out that addresses these issues, especially copy & paste, maybe even by year end.