Okay Geek Farm
No multitasking for non-3GS iPhones - For no reason
Brandon Davenport
Why can’t we use multitasking on an iPhone 3G, or an iPod Touch 2nd gen? - The answer was simple at first, hardware limitations and lack of resources to run the apps. What confuses me is when Steve said “We have found a way to run multiple apps without effecting battery or speed” and he said it right in the keynote. He is right, but when he explains himself, he is wrong.
After Thursday’s iPhone OS 4.0 event, when asked why multitasking was being excluded on devices older than the iPhone 3GS, Apple said that the older devices just couldn’t do it, and the hardware was not up to snuff. At first Developers were a bit peeved, but naturally they used the magic of white-hat hacking (and Dr. Pepper) and low and behold, Multitasking on the iPhone 3G and iTouch 2G!
Multitasking on an iPhone 3G
Somebody found the goodies behind Apple’s smoke and mirrors, and it looks like you can switch it on by tweaking one file on your own iPhone (which will require jailbreak). This will give you full access to the Multitasking system on every device, but is it slow, like Apple suggests? Nope. It seems to be pretty stable and usable, and I have found no complaints.
More info - Make multitasking work on a 3G - iTouch 2G
Finish your dinner, then desert
Apple has always been like this, making something so amazing, so fantastical that it is so hard to believe, and then in the fine print (and a muffled *things to note* from Steve), users see that Apple is screwing the people with the old hardware. Again.
Never mind the iPhone 1G users who can’t even upgrade at all, but the fact Apple is treating us like a bunch of cattle, herding us into the next pen and all the straggling 3G owners are given a bribe, or carrot, to pay up and buy a 3GS is upsetting. The saddest part is, Apple is still selling the 3G publicly, so the users who are buying new iPhone 3G’s from Apple today, are not getting what they are paying for, which is a smartphone which is completely capable of multitasking, that does not do it, and they will keep buying them, and Apple will be laughing during their daily regime of rolling in money.
