Exclusive: Fast app switching and full multitasking on Windows Phone 7 (Video)
Posted on 04-06-11 05:40 pm

Our own developer Jaxbot is up to his tricks again, and this time, it's paid off: Finder of a hack that brought instant resuming to Windows Phone 7, he has been developing a full fast app switching/multitasking solution for Windows Phone 7.

Shown in the video above, the preview of the application is triggered by pressing the half shutter button (pressing the camera button halfway, not to the point where the camera would launch), and allows the user to jump between desired applications. The applications run in the background to a degree, as shown with the timer, and no time is required to bring the applications back from their background state. It's all very technical, but rest assure that he will be sharing some more details in the future.

Keep in mind the application is a preview-the interface and how it functions may very well change before release, and no release date is available. But if you're interested in having it on your device, share some thoughts about how you think it should look, function, etc, in the comments below.

Without further ado, watch the video above for a demonstration of fast app switching on Windows Phone 7.

[Update-A note for the techies: This solution actually does allow full multitasking. Threads can run in the background, and perform tasks on the phone (display a message, navigate to a page, etc) while in the background. The reason why the timer jumps from 50 to 80 is because the text block that displays the current time stamp (read from the thread) is updated by a timer that ticks every second the application is in focus. It's technical mumbo-jumbo, but something I'd like to clarify: tasks can indeed run in the background.]




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