Developers Archive

  • Apple now accepting iOS 4 apps, multitasking ahoy

    Apple now accepting iOS 4 apps, multitasking ahoy

    Posted on June 11, 2010 | No Comments
    Although we've been running iPhone OS 4 -- now known as iOS 4 -- since it was first announced in April, we actually haven't been able to try out any of the fancy new multitasking features, since no third party apps have been released with support yet. That's all about to change: as of today, Apple is accepting iOS 4 apps, which means we should see quite a few apps that take advantage of multitasking on the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4, as well as make use of the 1500 other new APIs in the system when it launches on June 21.

    That's definitely good news, but we've got a feeling Apple's unique take on iPhone multitasking will take a few people by surprise, as only certain tasks are allowed in the background -- and apps that need to run persistently, like IRC and IM clients, still won't really work at all. In fact, there's already some rumblings by devs that they need additional backgrounding tools in order to provide features that users are asking for; Instapaper's Marco Ament has proposed a network polling API that would allow his app to update content in the background, for example. We'll see how quickly Apple responds to these requests, but for right now we're just happy we'll finally be able to switch away from a Skype call or GPS app while using our iPhones.

    [Thanks, Oliver]

    Apple now accepting iOS 4 apps, multitasking ahoy originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Jun 2010 15:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • Windows Phone 7 devs said to be getting test hardware ‘very soon’

    Windows Phone 7 devs said to be getting test hardware ‘very soon’

    Posted on June 7, 2010 | No Comments
    Windows Phone 7 devs said to be getting test hardware 'very soon'
    If you're a developer following our coverage of Windows Phone 7 and want to get on that gravy train as early as possible, you'll be happy to know that development hardware will be arriving "very soon." This apparently according to an unnamed Microsoft representative at a Norwegian Dutch developer event, where it was also made known that, upon the retail release of hardware, developers will be allowed to unlock five devices for their testing, although Microsoft will continue to make available pre-unlocked dev handsets after launch. Exactly what the unlocking procedure will look like remains to be seen, as does nature of these early developer-only handsets. MobileTechWorld speculates that LG's GW910 will be that handset, and since that company did provide us with the world's first official device running Windows Phone 7, we'd say that money is probably a safe bet.

    [Thanks, Frank]

    Windows Phone 7 devs said to be getting test hardware 'very soon' originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 Jun 2010 09:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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