As if any more proof was needed of Symbian OS's multitasking prowess (following the 62 apps on the i8910 HD last week), Jay spotted this YouTube video, embedded below, showing 66 full apps running at the same time on an unmodified Nokia N82. It was going to be 65, but there was still 11MB of RAM left and the videographer spotted an app that he had installed which wasn't running yet 8-) If a few more apps had been physically installed, surely we could have been up to 70 or more? And, impressively, the interface still seemed to be running smoothly. So.... any advance on 66?
Read on in the full article.
It's not necessarily all about the numbers of app you could run at once. It has always been a downside in the Symbian platform - when apps do not run very responsively, lag free; most importantly, the complex menu means average user won't get there as soon as they need an app. It 'just works' one may say, but normal user may expect more. The software is the limit in this context - i8910 is suppose to have run much faster than the likes of 5800, thanks to a much faster CPU. However, in real world the difference just isn't there.
Other OS are far more hardware dependent. Take for example Apple's iPhone OS. Where as I struggle to live with iPhone 3G (powered by old ARM 11 core), even opening 'Contact' is not as smooth as one'd like, - when I use 3G S, (which has the same basic hardware as i8910) I can genuinely feel, even see the difference.
Let's face it the current 5th ED is just the age old 3RD ED with Touch enabled. It runs fine on low end hardware, but just doesn't take advantage of the latest hardware, it's loss. The more expensive, latest hardware are effectively wasted. When the cheap and high end mobile feels the same running Symbian S60, then something's not right, as far as one should be concerned. Why even pay the extra cost, for the fancy hardware - if the OS fails to yield better performance?
Hopefully Symbian V3 could do something about the utility and user interface performance.
Also, this makes for a interesting reading:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2010/mar/03/smartphone-users-disappointed
I noticed that RAM hungry apps as Web and Maps are not in use...
tbh who really cares no one is ever goin g to need 66 apps open at once or even close ti it and it wouldnt be practical you would be just as easy switching between apps in the menu