iPhone OS 3.0 to allow background apps?

Mac Rumors, middlingly credulous, host of many playful Apple mutterings from around the web, claims that the iPhone still hasn't delivered push notification because app-running backgrounds are going to be a big part of iPhone 3.0:

By now, it's clear that something is holding up the Push notification service. While we aren't sure what the specific issues are, we've heard that as an alternative Apple is considering allowing apps to run as user selectable background processes. If so, this feature would likely come in the rumored iPhone 3.0 software update but would be limited to only one or two processes on current hardware. The next generation iPhone, however, would likely see less restricted background process support due to its improved hardware.

A background running IM app, at least, would be extraordinarily welcome on my iPhone, although Pairingo offers that functionality a bit, keeping you logged in on their servers for several minutes even when you've switched out of the app.

Apple to allow background tasks on iPhone [Mac Rumors]

[#1 posted by zuzu , February 4, 2009 9:41 AM]

So... what ever happened to the iPhone version of OSX being a real OSX?

As development goes on, it looks more and more like Apple's take on Windows Mobile, rather than dovetailing with 10.6 anytime soon.

(Same goes for Google Android removing root / superuser, by the way.)

[#2 posted by gruppler , February 4, 2009 10:17 AM]

If you've jailbroken your device, you can use the latest version of Backgrounder, which is very nice. They finally added an interface for selecting apps you want to run in the background by default. Unfortunately, what the device really lacks is virtual memory.

[#3 posted by mazerrackham , February 4, 2009 10:20 AM]

Palringo seems like they're taking steps toward security, but I'm wary of those proxy apps that actually store your IM account credentials on their servers.

[#4 posted by g.park , February 4, 2009 11:05 AM]

Can't it be both? I'd really like push notification, because the app i've been longing for the most is Growl. I'd like to be able to beam growl notifications from my home computer to my iPhone to let me know what's happening on the home front.

I get updates from my BT client when torrents finish downloading, or when they finish seeding via Growl, along with IM notifications, Facebook updates... the works. I've been longing for my iPhone to display these updates.

True, that could be accomplished via a background app, but I wouldn't want to wast resources on something that could be much more easily accomplished via push.

[#5 posted by bardfinn , February 4, 2009 12:51 PM]

My impression of why Push hasn't occurred is due to the limitations of the battery life, CPU, and the memory. With the current architecture, even the overhead of connecting to a WiFi network in the background taxes the OS significantly, and Push - for a reason of the OS design - can't be connection-agnostic if they write it as an OS service, even using non-public API.

[#6 posted by ivan256 , February 5, 2009 8:03 AM]

@Bardfinn

Push already exists on the iPhone. It's how you receive SMS messages and phone calls. Push notifications through a centralized server, as was initially proposed by Apple, should have exactly zero impact on battery life, CPU, or memory.

I expect that the reasons we haven't seen it yet are either a realization of how much the infrastructure would cost to run the centralized push servers, or push-back from AT&T (any sort of push support would completely cannibalize their SMS revenues, and probably their Blackberry up-charges too).