(okay, it SELECTIVELY multitasks)
In a nutshell, Apple doesn't want you to multitask for a very good reason. A real life story ensues.
Being my procrastinating self, I was laying in my bed this morning on my iPhone, doing failure-type things such as listening to music and reading today's FMLs.
As I had not bought a particular song that I had been wanting to buy for some time now, and right then, I felt like hearing it, I decided to go on YouTube to hear it.
Now, music videos never contain any footage worth watching (I'll give the odd exception, particularly to Trace Adkins), so I decided that I wanted to hear the song, but finish up the FMLs while hearing it, and that's when I started thinking to myself that I should really be heading off to work.
Out of reflex, once the song was playing, I pressed the home button expecting to keep hearing the song while performing another task. Instead, it faded out.
That's when I remembered, the iPhone doesn't multitask.
But then it occured to me that just earlier, I was, indeed multitasking. I was listening to music already loaded to the iPhone, as well as doing other things, such as reading the FMLs.
This didn't add up. Maybe its my iPhone telling me to quit being idle, I don't need to hear that song, and to get up and go to work.
Smart as the iPhone is, I draw the line of its potential abilities at nagging me. Not like it hasn't nagged me before about charging its battery, but I have no sympathy for its terrible battery life. That's just not my problem.
Rather, its Apple telling me to buy the darned song! They don't need people like me mooching off the marginally-legal content on YouTube at the expense of their profit. If I want to hear a song and do something else such as browse the web or do emails, I must pay for the hearing privileges. Can't have it both ways.
And pay, I did! I went right to the iTunes app and bought the song, landing in my library 60 seconds later (don't you just love technology? Seems to me that it was only about ten years ago that people were excited to get up, go to the record store, and buy a whole album to play on their walkman, rather than just pay $0.99 for one song and hear it right away).
So, 99 cents later, I had my wish, and headed off to work, satisfied.
The bottom line... Apple doesn't let you multitask because they don't WANT you to multitask. They're only OK with music that you paid for to be playing in the background.
Expensive handset and high monthly costs aside, it sure isn't cheap owning an iPhone!
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2 comments:
I don't really think that Apple wont let you multitask because they want you to head into iTunes and buy the music. What about Spotify? That is a perfectly legal option to listen to music, but still you cannot minimize the application and do other stuff with the phone.
What about streaming radio? Apple can't sell that so why wouldn't they let you run eg Fstreame in the background?
The fact that Apple is stubbornly not implementing full blown multitasking capability is just plain stupid and really cripples the iPhone as a multimedia device.
Anton;
I understand what you're saying about radio being free... But note how radio differs from YouTube.
Radio plays a schedule of songs unknown to the listener, typically specific to a particular genre. I happen to positively love country music, and as such, could listen to a country music station all day long.
Though I consider myself to be a country music buff, I certainly do not know every artist or song out there, and would be pleased to find out about new songs or artists.
You can't do that by just searching for "country music" on YouTube. You have to know the artist or song.
An example of how radio has helped me in this regard is when I was at work. Being a telemarketer, I'm put on hold quite frequently. I heard a country music song that I liked, so I noted down the lyrics to google later. I discovered that the song was "Alcohol" by Brad Paisley. I bought not one, not two, but three of Brad's songs that evening.
In fact, that's how I developed my love for Country Music in the first place. I heard my first "Big and Rich" song on an airplane's radio in 2001. They've received a lot of song purchases from me ever since, as well as two concert ticket purchases.
Now, this wasn't anything to do with the iPhone and multitasking. But it's to show what radio does for discovering new music.
What did those two scenarios have in common? They both resulted in multiple sales for Apple.
As I said, if you're on YouTube looking for music, you know what you're looking for. You've found your song of choice, and are forgoing the opportunity to purchase the song. Apple doesn't want that.
Even though a radio playing doesn't immediately result in profit for Apple, if I hear something I like on the radio, I'll want to hear it again. I can't control the radio's playlist. I can only control my own playlist.
THAT is when I go onto iTunes to purchase my desired song (the name of which is conveniently mentioned once the song is finished playing on the radio), and for a mere $0.99, I own the song forever, and can listen to it whenever I want.
Sure, you can listen to the radio station all day long, but there's two problems.
1. It requires data usage, which costs money, and will wear down your battery. If you're on wifi, then you can only listen while in a wifi zone.
2. There's going to be a song you'll want to hear again. Whether its one in 10, 50, 100, 1,000 or 10,000 songs, a sale is a sale. As millions of iPhones and iPod Touches are out there, those few purchases per user will add up very, very quickly, to very desirable amounts. It doesn't cost Apple anything to let users play radio anyway. The app developer pays for the app to be built, you paid for your iPod/iPhone, and you're paying money for wifi or mobile data so that you can listen to the radio. Apple bears zero cost. So if they sell only one song, that's still profit for them. They've already made their money off of you, so why not allow a cost-free opportunity to make more money?
YouTube on the other hand, never results in a sale. So they have no reason to let you listen to songs you already like, when you haven't paid them for it. Don't like it? You'll have to listen to randomized tracks on the radio. Choice isn't free.
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