With the advent of iOS 4, iPhone applications could finally multitask, allowing users to quickly jump back and forth between applications. In reality, the devices aren't actually multitasking; they're instead saving the state of our application temporarily until the user returns.
However, this save state allows users to jump right back where they left off. This change has brought new user expectations, and our interfaces should respond accordingly.
In this recipe, we'll break down what users expect, and how we can deliver an exceptional multitasking experience in our app.
To understand multitasking, we could get by using the iOS Simulator built into XCode. We would be best off with a capable device on hand, so that we could test the features on an iPhone or iPad, but it isn't a requirement.
iPhone models 3GS and beyond, third generation iPod touch devices and beyond, and all iPad models are capable of multitasking functionality.