Windows Phone 7 multi-tasking and computer processing primer
I know guys, I haven’t written much if anything lately, and even less about Symbian lately (partly because I no longer use it and thus can’t speak much to its merits in the present tense) but one of the common criticisms that was leveled at iOS when it introduced its version of “multitasking” was that it was “fake”. That is, third-party applications could only run in a few, very limited instances, an approach supposedly taken in order to “Preserve battery life”. While there’s a ton of merit to this statement, the exceptionally limited circumstances under which applications could actually be allowed to run in the background is a little restrictive to anyone using Symbian.
Android, much like Symbian allows most applications to run completely in the background and while this allows us power users to get the most out of our devices and use cases, it’s more than a slight annoyance to have issues with rogue programs running off with precious resources and leaving foreground tasks to either grind to a halt, crash outright or inundate us with low-memory errors (something S^3 went a long way towards fixing I’ll admit). In Android’s case, the OS supposedly “handles” memory and CPU usage itself and kills apps when resources run a little low. That’s all well and good but user control and granularity are important to power users and we’d prefer not having to dig through menus in the hopes of killing something that we don’t want running. The common message however is that for power and battery reasons multitasking has to be significantly managed either by the OS itself or limiting the API’s available to devs. It’s not really debatable that as a general rule Android devices have (in the past) had barely passable battery life and Symbian while generally considered the best in the battery life stakes can suffer similar problems if the wrong app is left running (remembers bad experiences with Fring).
- Windows Phone multitasking vision
Windows Phone 7′s multitasking mantra with the upcoming Mango update seems rather similar to iOS on first glimpse, some applications (likely a decent majority) will simply save state to the RAM or ROM and that’s that. When needed they’ll be brought back up. A “feature” called “Fast-App switching” in modern parlance. But what happens if you’re running an IM client, a VOIP application etc or even an application like twitter that you want to update your feed every once in a while or a feed reader that leaves a little notification when your favourite site puts up an update. That’s rather hard to do without some degree of multitasking don’t you think?
Other, undescribed use cases can likely pop up that users may not be aware of but developers will absolutely need in order to create highly functional, interactive and context sensitive applications for end users. At the same time, it’s likely highly unnecessary to run the full code of an application in the background at all times even when it’s not in the foreground. That will, for obvious reasons slow down and/or interfere with the application you’re actually focusing on and interacting with no? Microsoft have thusly come up with what is to me an ingenious way to allow both background processing and all the associated functionality while being very frugal with resources.
Of course, before beginning it’d be prudent that we ALL come to a common train of thought regarding multitasking and what it entails. First and foremost, up until recently (circa 2009) with the advent of ARMv7 based processors like Snapdragons, OMAP3′s, Samsung Hummingbird’s etc, mobile CPU’s could fetch (take in) and dispatch (output) ONE instruction per clock cycle. That’s not to say that there was no parallelism involved such as offloaded specified tasks to certain other processors but the CPU itself could only take in one instruction per clock cycle. The lower the clock speed of the processor, the less instructions it can process at a single time. Current ARMv7 processors based on the Cortex A8 design can process at most 2 instructions per clock cycle (taking in 2 instructions and outputting 2 others) while even newer processors like the Cortex A9 designs range from 2-4 instructions per clock and possibly more dependent on the number of cores available at any given time.
Dual issue processing pipeline
Knowing that, how in the world could we have possibly run multiple applications at once if those dreaded ARM11′s can only perform a single task at once?!? The main way in which we (the users) are made to believe that multiple things are occurring at the same time has to deal with schedulers and thread/process priority. The former is an intrinsic part of the operating system kernel that controls which instructions are carried out by the CPU at any given point in time. The latter determines which processes are given greater significance/time to run on the CPU when compared to other processes. Of course, with this method of processing, if an instruction takes a long time to complete as is often the case, the rest of the system is held up until that process can be completed.
Pre-emptive multitasking allows the kernel to interrupt processes before they reach completion in the event that time and processing constraints are not readily available. There is obviously, a lot of work that has to go into managing processes running, the conditions under which each process can run and all the fun things that would be required to get that entire system up and running. Creating a GOOD, EFFICIENT, FAST and WELL-ENGINEERED system that takes a good deal of time, energy and expertise and admittedly, kernel design was likely a big part of why Symbian was as efficient with resources as it was. As with any complex system there will be overhead involved and in the case of pre-emption and multitasking, the main overhead is what is called a context/task switch in which the scheduler determines that a process should be cut temporarily in order to allow another process to run.
In addition, the lower the clock speed, the longer it takes for a given processor to switch between tasks and/or decide which tasks it should run. Worse still is the fact that these tasks take even longer to get completed with the lower clock speed!!! On the OS level (separate from kernel level) there may be even more restrictions on processes running at certain times and this (OS level regulation) represents the crux of the differences in multitasking implementations we see in Android, iOS, WP7, Symbian and WebOS. Editor’s Note: We’ll be following up on this post with another explaining the importance of modern parts (including CPU’s) in devices in the coming weeks.
Now that we’re all much on the same page re: Multitasking, processing and all that other fun stuff, Let’s dive in to the meat of this post shall we?
NB. All slides taken from Darin Miller’s presentation on Multitasking in the Next Version of Windows Phone at MIX2011 This first image describes the WP7 application life cycle as of the Mango update.
Applications vary between the active state, running state, the deactivated state, the dormant state and in the event that the application can no longer fit in RAM due to application demands etc is tombstoned and paged out to ROM. When an app is placed in the dormant state, they’re more or less paused; much like in iOS the application’s access to the CPU is stopped and it’s state is saved in the RAM. When called upon again by the OS the application’s access to and utilisation of the CPU is resumed. Much like iOS there are API’s for background audio, notifications Nothing special right? This however, is where the similarity to iOS ends and the multitasking begins to mimic that seen elsewhere.
Mango introduces an interesting concept known as “background agents”. These agents, as their name suggests act on behalf of the main program in order to carry out specific functionality and tasks while the main application is no longer “in focus”. These agents are written by individual developers to suit their chosen purposes and their own needs albeit, like any managed system, there are/will be restrictions. While the restrictions as present today may be lifted in the future (especially in light of Microsoft’s emphasis on functionality and integration) these shouldn’t pose too much of a hindrance to developers. The abilities of the background agents are detailed in the following image.
Background agents, these small bits of code have access to the important things but aren’t allowed to alter the UI, record information with the microphone and/or camera (no spy apps for you!! 
) or access the core, powerful API libraries. They can do most of everything else however. Microsoft has also ensured that there are restrictions on how these agents can run at any given time and strangely enough, you don’t have to relaunch every app in order to get their functionality as agents are carried across reboots. The current browser also preserves tabs across reboots too so you really don’t lose anything unless you ever really want to.
There are, unfortunately, limitations on how many agents can actually run in the background and (for the time being at least) we’re currently limited to 18 agents at any time. The nice touch is, given that these agents start up on boot, utilise valuable resources etc is that they can be controlled by the user on the setting page. Furthermore, agents are only given a license to run for a maximum of 14 days before they require renewal. In essence, if you don’t use the application for 2 weeks, the agent will stop running and you don’t have to worry about that consuming your resources while you remain unawares .
The agents are also broken into two categories, “periodic” and “on idle” though developer applications can contain either or both of these. Periodic agents are run in periodic intervals of 30 minutes for 15 seconds apiece one after the other when the screen is on but pretty much in parallel when the screen is off. If the user is running 10 applications that require agents, you’ll have a situation where every half hour your apps may poll the CPU or network for 2 1/2 half minutes to cache information, sync data, check message servers etc. What wasn’t made absolutely clear was whether the applications are all on a single schedule or whether they’re independent in their polling (personally prefer the latter).
“On idle” are somewhat different and may depend on conditions like external power, Wi-Fi access etc, time of day ,etc. When triggered, and when all conditions have been met, these agents can run for up to 10 minutes at a time. Use cases for this sort of agent would be to load all your favorite web pages, download your entire twitter feed while you sleep and your phone is charging, update your RSS reader, sync wirelessly with your PC for music, PIM etc. While the screen is on, and the user is interacting with applications in the foreground, background tasks are limited to 5mb of RAM and ~10% of non-system required CPU time. When the user is not interacting with the device, the RAM limitation seems to remain but there’s no mention of the CPU restriction being kept at ~10%.
I can’t think of a circumstance that couldn’t possibly be covered by a set-up like this, albeit it’ll mean you can’t watch videos in a browser window AND read a document at the same time but for the VAST majority of users, from a performance and functionality perspective, this’ll cover and exceed use cases.
Coupled with the already existing push notifications framework and a load of battery-saving improvements (likely to be even more prevalent on Nokia devices) I think they’ve achieved what is likely the best compromise between functionality and saving battery life while not making life overly hard for developers.
If all of this reading proved a little too much for you, or you’d rather listen to all of this from the horse’s mouth (so to speak) then the link below.
http://media.ch9.ms/ch9/E54A/2D14FDFD-08CC-45B3-B596-9EB800F6E54A/MIX11DVC18_high_ch9.mp4
Now then, let the Symbian and Maemo comparisons and criticisms begin!!
Category: Nokia
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So you've read something I've written. yay!! As you already know, my name is Andre and I'm currently a student based in Atlanta. Much like Jay, I pretty much blog here in my free time. Follow me on twitter @andre1989 or contact me directly at Andre(at)mynokiablog(dot)com. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or suggestions.Subscribe
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Sites That Link to this Post
- LiveTris- games on the go : My Nokia Blog | May 25, 2011
- Nokia batteries through the years, and Mango multitasking | May 28, 2011
- Nokia batteries through the years, and Mango multitasking | PDF File Search Engine | Free Download Ebooks PDF - TurboDownload.Net | May 29, 2011
- Eldar’s Windows Phone 7.1 Mango Review : My Nokia Blog | June 7, 2011
- Windows Phone 8 Detailed | February 7, 2012
ill be honest
that looks pretty good
but since my new phone is symbian i will wait till 2012 for wp8 and windows 8, thats supposed to have a better ui and stuff
i cant believe how microsoft turned things around windows mobile was shit but wp7 looks kinda cool
shame nokia’s idea of ui change is adding sliding home screens and making the very old menu bar and little bit better but still shit(s60v5-s^3)
The Anna update is not the UI update they’ve promised, that’s the next update PR3.0 and the UI on N9 MeeGo looks fantastic.
As long as I can connect my phone to the TV via HDMI to play full HD 1080p videos at the same time I browse the web on the phone screen showing totally different things than the video on the TV, I’m fine with their multitasking.
No, really, I’m all for a decent and battery saving multitasking system, but this is EXACTLY the same “multitasking” as on the iOS! By exactly I mean THE SAME. So, you just pause everything on background and keep some APIs available for use. There is only ONE difference: WP7 has more available APIs for use on the background than iOS.
The rest is the same, even the so much praised “reboot the phone and all apps state is saved and resumed absolutely from the same place”. iOS does this too. However, iOS does not have a maximum limit of apps (WP7 has 18 max). So, if you open 32 apps on the iPhone and reboot the phone, you won’t lose te state of any of them.
By the way, there is one other difference: wp7 takes screenshots of the apps, and iOS uses their icons instead.
I love the N900′s multitasking (do everything at all times and display them all on the screen at the same time in real time), can we keep it, please? (as an option in settings, not as a rule).
As a side note, I wonder why the hell did Nokia implement 256MB of page memory swap if they don’t friggin’ use it, AT ALL! THIS is one of the things that should be fixed in the next firmware. If they actually used this 256MB “extra” memory, nobody would ever have to complain about “low memory” errors
NB: I’m not complaining about the WP7 “multitasking”; I kind of like it, and it looks smart-ish. Just don’t tell me this is different from iOS, because it’s not.
You clearly DID NOT READ… You can run as many applications as you damn well please, not all of them will run background tasks at regular intervals. Only 18 are allowed to run background tasks. But ALL will behave like iOS apps.
What you did is read the first few things and shut off… the developers decide how they implement background tasks.. they’re limited to certain things but they aren’t given 7 API’s and told to make it work.
Then again, I’m asking myself why to limit it at all!?
Yeah to ensure that the system don’t gets screwed by badly implemented and too many apps at the same time.
Design decision but not for me…
Good for the masses, I still need something different.
Problem is, with the masses adapting stuff like that, my niche dies out. That’s of no use to anybody is it?
Actually, I did read everything before posting that comment, including every comma and spacing you wrote there, your “train of thought”, processors talking, etc. I never ever post a comment before fully reading the article, regardless of how big it may be.
Well, WP7 developers aren’t given 7 APIs and told “make it work”: they are given a few more than 7 APIs and just then told “make it work”.
Do you remember Qik, the live video streaming for the web, with which you can broadcast videos live from any Symbian powered smartphone (and other platforms too)? Oh, well, it runs on the background while still recording and broadcasting live. Guess what? Can’t do that on WP7, so no more updating the live blog while recording, actually, no more doing anything while live streaming. This completely prevents any kind of multitasking.
What about Sleeping Screen? Runs on background, uses proximity *sensor* to decide whether to turn the screen on or off. Guess what? Can’t do that on WP7.
Can you create a cool music player app that changes song when you shake the phone, as seen many times for almost all platforms already? Nope, no access to phone sensors in background.
How about Wiimote apps with drivers to connect via bluetooth? Can they run on the background while still transmitting real time data via bluetooth? That is, if WP7 even supports that kind of bluetooth connection.
I don’t need to mention spying apps as you posted yourself they can’t be done either.
These are just very simple examples that popped in my mind. There are more.
Just think about it: do battery saving and app resuming options look great with this type of multitasking? Yes, they definitely do.
But, did Symbian need such limitations in multitasking to be considered “battery king” and retain its great battery management? Not really.
Hey again, I’m not complaining. It’s a nice multitasking management. But if someone complains about the iOS multitasking and talks it down, basically the same can be said about WP7′s.
> But, did Symbian need such limitations in multitasking to be considered “battery king” and retain its great battery management? Not really.
BOOM! (As Steve Jobs would say).
Antonio, you win. This whole article is undermined by your two posts, and the ball is now in your court Andre to refute what he says.
People think I’m just constantly harping on about “WinPho is shit, Symbian is excellent, blah blah blah” but it’s precisely the stuff in this article and what Antonio talks about in these comments that underlies what I say.
It’s not just a case of “WinPho is missing the specific feature of multitasking (as seen on Symbian)”. It’s the WHOLE LEVEL of engineering ability that that indicates has gone into Windows Phone. Other stories about MS screwing up their first WP update and bricking phones, failing to deliver even cut and paste on schedule, and the huge lack of features in WP, reinforces my position time and time again.
WinPho is CURRENTLY a steaming heap of junk compared to Symbian, with a slick-ish interface on top (which some people like and some don’t, just like Symbian). It requires MASSIVE work to turn this around.
That’s why I think Elop is talking total bullshit when he said they went with WinPho as it required less work. It’s a lie, to switch Nokia over to MS software at any cost.
Whether Symbian needs a lot of work to get it up to par or WP needs massive work to be less steamy. It’s all speculation, at least it is for me and probably for you as well.
We haven’t got access to the core code of both Symbian and WP so it’s all guesswork as to which OS needs what.
Nah that’s not true, there are still dumps of the just pre S^3 Code as it was still Open Source. There are quite a few gems around the web, some of which I already posted here like: http://www.informit.com/articles/printerfriendly.aspx?p=1578523
Ninja, this doesn’t need to be a Winpho vs. Symbian thing. That wasn’t the point of the article. All this article was doing was providing a more technical explaination of how Window mobile handles multi-tasking.
NO ONE is refuting Symbian as the multi-tasking king. I do, however fail to see how “this whole article is undermined”. It’s just an article how multi-tasking is handled. Ask yourself a question: Does Windows Mobile handle multi-tasking in the manner that is described in the article above? Yes or no?
Quit turning this into a Sybian is better blah blah blah thing. This article was very informative and this info is nice to have. Antonio was merely making an observation and expressing his thoughts on what was written. He didn’t “undermine” the article, he just questioned why things were done in a certain way. END OF STORY.
Undermining my story??
How??
Those use cases he provided are for want of a better word, EXTREME. Very few people do that, ever. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve actually done video out, much like push video while NOT mirroring my screen.
I knew you’d eventually come here and try to turn it into a comparison with Symbian or Maemo like you always do when trying to defend your position that WP7 is a steaming pile of sh*t.
As for your comments on the level of engineering that hasn’t gone into WP7, lemme know where inside the windows phone dev team you actually work and we can go from there.
Somehow I don’t think the capability of the OS played as crucial a role as WP being an entry key to the M$ ecosystem. With WP, Nokia must also believe it can better monetize its services as well as share in certain other revenue channels not previously available under the Symbian/Meego/Qt Open Source strategy. Outside of this argument, it is hard to believe Symbian/Qt is not competitive in terms of performance/scalability. It needed a revamped UI…but Nokia lost that opportunity 2+ years ago. IMO, it’s too late at this point to resurrect the Symbian brand. Blame it on OPK and his vision-less management team for shooting Symbian in the head.
No comments yet because it takes so long to read it all
I’ll admit that this was too much for me right now at least 
Can you shorten it down for me, whats it about?^^
There’s a video
As much as I struggle to understand (not blaming for the writer, just 5.00 am) We can run ebuddy in the background without it being disconnect (I think) and we can do surfing. And when someone will message you on ebuddy you will be notify and you can switch over there and reply and return to surfing.
And it will not eat up the battery having so many apps “running” in the background because many of those will be frozen like maybe ebooks and games maybe. And some will be partially active such as messengers and feed readers that can update dynamically.
I hope I cover basics of it?
How does it work if you download an app and do something else?
Or using GPS and a call comes through?
Or VoIP/IM and a text comes through?
Those are my only concerns, i agree not everything needs to run at once and those are where performance will be affected.
You can already download apps and do tons of other stuff between playing games, making calls etc.
GPS and a call coming through shouldn’t matter but for obvious reasons there likely won’t be a voice prompt over the voice call. I could be wrong though.
If you’re using VOIP and IM and a text comes through from the same person you’re talking to over VOIP, the text will be added to that same conversation thread
If not then you either address the toast notification or dismiss it and deal with it later.
So basically nothing will be stopped or disrupted with this multitasking?
I ask because i have the Focus now and intend to upgrade to Nokia’s WP7 when released, but coming from N900 i don’t want to regress with multitasking. If the non-live-progress processes are paused and the aforementioned kept live, that could be the perfect implementation of multitasking.
It’s not quite to the level of the N900 by any means but apps that don’t need or are deemed not to require background processing will be paused, I.e. games etc whereas those that do will be run at certain intervals when on battery power and very regularly or heavily when on AC power.
Albeit for something like a stopwatch, I doubt it’ll run properly in the background. Although, to be fair to WP7 stop watches don’t really work on Symbian in the background either.
I also have the Focus and yearn for Nokia build quality and a few other things.
Oh i know it’s not up to N900′s level but that’s fine, i don’t need games to stay live or a static webpage to keep using processes. My only concern is if i’m using GPS and someone calls or texts etc.
Yeah the Focus is pretty dire build-wise, i can’t believe how popular Samsung is a hardware maker. I miss the notification light, the camera is pretty bad, the cheap plasticky feel isn’t reassuring, and i dropped it the other day and it’s scratched the screen UNDER the protector – wtf?! Bring on Nokia WP7 and i’ll be real happy, and my N900 will be used to divert work calls and act as a universal remote and other neat fun stuff.
Really hope rumours of the WP7 N8 are true…
I noticed more manufacturers joining the party. I’m confused how this affects Nokia – will Nokia’s additions and possible software inclusions be universal or specific to Nokia-only devices?
Their inclusions may be universal but rest assured Nokia will get a good deal for it.
Financially maybe but it won’t help their marketshare if they have no distinguishing features.
Their brand will be on things like Ovi Maps we’re told, so I wouldn’t be too worried about distinguishing features.
You mean Nokia Maps
Yeah but i mean actually if someone is sitting there and the LG has all the features of Nokia, why would they choose Nokia? If their phones don’t contain anything unique, their marketshare is just as precarious
Video doesn’t play on my end..
I just linked to the stream because the embed was causing issues.
Nice Breakdown and it’s good to hear about. A co-worker of mine was very unimpressed by the WP7 announcements today and said there was little good news for developers in it. It was all OS improvements that for him excluded or reduced opportunities for 3rd part apps. however, this sounds like a good thing for 3rd party apps and I’m looking forward to playing with the SDK and trying to write a few apps myself in the near future .
Good article, but typical Microsoft – an overly complex, badly implemented mess, written by people who don’t really understand mobile, or what they’re trying to build, or take the “Microsoft-view” of it – non standard, overly complex.
Sorry but unless it works as well as Symbian I’m not interested. And it’s not even close (having said that iOS and Android aren’t even close to Symbian either).
When you’re only leg to stand on is usability and stability, you have to make sacrifices in order to maintain it when adding new features.
This overly complex mess was/is only complex to those that had to make it. For users and developers the only responses I can foresee will be positive ones.
Wow!!!really appreciate you taking time and effort to introduce concepts like pipelining and context switching as tools to make people admire the kind of work that goes into making stuff happen…Not to play the devil but i feel that using pipeline of a dual issue processor to validate multitasking’s existence is not entirely accurate. Both the instructions shown in the pipeline could belong to a single thread while the user feels that there is more than one process being executed. So just like ARM11 architectures, only a single instruction stream belonging to a single thread might be getting processed. What I want to convey is that just because ARMv7 is dual issue doesn’t imply that multitasking will be inherently implemented. OS level context switching still has to happen much in the same way as it was being done on ARM11 architecture. OSs generally switch contexts on the order of millisecond frequency (an eternity when clock cycles are in the nanosecond range or less).
These are the kinds of comments I like seeing as opposed to people slating me for not saying Symbian is perfect in everything.
I agree with everything you mentioned and those are things I strongly considered mentioning in my post as well but figured that on top of EVERYTHING else mentioned I might lose a few. We’ve actually been cooking up a little post explaining a bit more the importance of differences in CPU architecture and relative modern-ness for a few days. Keep an eye out for it
Thanks
That’s very nice to know, I’m looking forward to it!
guys off topic
nokia oro pics on facebook page
Very informing article, Thank You!
Looking forward to more such articles.
Symbian ^3 browser is luggish because of arm11 processor ?
CPU is processing information from net and rendering pages same time.
Very interesting article.
Just a side note:
“.. less about Symbian lately (partly because I no longer use it and thus can’t speak much to its merits in the present tense).. ”
^ It’s OK if you’re not using it, that’s a personal choice. But maybe someone else should do the posts.. those who have a Nokia device as their primary phone. This blog is called “My” “Nokia” blog. Just saying =)
Someone else is
I refuse to comment on something I’m not using or haven’t used.
So, where’s the N8 review and the QT guide then?
More than anything, I did the review but was demoralised by feedback to the first impressions post and chose not to publish it.
The Qt guide ran into a problem because I couldn’t find the information I wanted to explain how it worked in the first place.
Fair enough. I would have appreciated the review anyway and I’m sure many others would’ve even if it was a bit late. I’d still happily read it now. If you start reviewing phones on this site, it’ll pretty much tick all the boxes needed for a tech/phone geek kind of site.
The Qt thing would’ve been nice to get an idea of what it was capable of, but I guess it’s not going to be of much use now that Nokia has changed direction.
Cheers for the reply and keep up the good work.
I was one of the users that kept refreshing the first impressions page for some weeks after you published it, waiting for new content to be added. Oh well, I guess I know why it wasn’t updated.
You could still post it if you want and I’d be happy to read it, though. By the way, if you put the N8 ad I tipped on the Tips page in the review, I believe it would create an emotional feeling during the reading.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvKLcEzDPLA
This ad really got me, I was emotionally attached to it. It’s great, the song specially! So beautiful. I kept watching it over and over…
Very detailed post. I like it a lot! I think for the mass user this design makes a lot of sense. Try telling your mom that the phone battery on her n8 drains cause she preased the left button that gets her back to the home screens instead of terminating ovi maps properly. For us heavy users the reason is obvious but most people are a lot less technically focused and since the result is the same they don’t distuingish between the 2 approaches.
Personally i’m also looking forward to coding in the .NET environment since it is so damn easy to come up with a decent app quickly.
The main thing i don’t like on windows is tiles. I still prefer the good old widgets over tiles.
Posted from the portrait keyboard in opera 11 (the 2 main components symbian still lacks: portrait keyboard and a decent browser)…
N8 OR TD-SCDMA ！8MP Symbian Anna NOKIA T7-00 http://www.eprice.com.cn/mobile/talk/4263/
I have exactly the use case that fails in WP7.
Wellness Diary
It runs all the time in the background and uses the sensors to collect step counts.
This is not allowed in WP7 multitasking (no sensors).
Great article, but it could use a little proofreading.
‘I can’t think of a circumstance that couldn’t possibly be covered by a set-up like this, albeit it’ll mean you can’t watch videos in a browser window AND read a document at the same time..’
Thats a shame, i like to listen to iPlayer audio and do other things like Twitter and IM. This can be done with S^3 but not Android, which stops when you leave the browser.
If the BBC decide to make an app, then i guess they could use the agents to make it happen but their current model is to use web based apps.
wow.. this is really huge! thanks for the post. very helpful! and we appreciate it that the page rank is included together with the site description.