Windows Phone Thoughts: A Video Look at App Switching on Windows Phone 7

Be sure to register in our forums! Share your opinions, help others, and enter our contests.


Digital Home Thoughts

Loading feed...

Laptop Thoughts

Loading feed...

Android Thoughts

Loading feed...



Friday, October 22, 2010

A Video Look at App Switching on Windows Phone 7

Posted by Jason Dunn in "Windows Phone Developer" @ 12:16 PM

A bunch of us reviewers with devices are trying to wrap our heads around how the back button works in relation to applications. There's a bit of controversy here, because a few people are saying that this behaviour is correct - that re-launching the application from scratch is the proper behaviour, while others are saying there's a lack of proper state saving. From my experience using an iPod Touch (pre-multitasking), some apps save the state (also called "Tombstoning") very nicely; if I'm typing an email, and I hit the home button and check a Web site, then hit the home button again, and go back into the email app, the email I was typing is right there. Other apps, such as games, don't handle that same scenario very gracefully, but that's not surprising.

Ultimately I think this issue comes down to Windows Phone 7 developers not fully understanding how to save the state on their apps; hopefully over the next few months they'll figure this out. Microsoft needs to do a better job though of making it crystal clear how apps are ideally supposed to work; this is the first mobile OS from Microsoft in a very long time that hasn't allowed for traditional multi-tasking, so developers might not be thinking about things in the right way.

One thing is indisputable though: the fact that Windows Phone 7 has a back button means it introduces a completely different method of thinking about application states and moving between apps. Microsoft needs to work with their development partners to bring a level of consistency to this experience, or customers are going to be confused - because some reviewers already are!


Reviews & Articles

Loading feed...

News

Loading feed...

Reviews & Articles

Loading feed...

News

Loading feed...

Reviews & Articles

Loading feed...

News

Loading feed...

Reviews & Articles

Loading feed...

News

Loading feed...

Reviews & Articles

Loading feed...

News

Loading feed...