I Want iPhone Multitasking. Now!

While folders were my #1 most desired feature for the iPhone, multitasking was more of a nice-to-have for me.  Those days are long gone however as I now find myself wanting multitasking for more and more apps by the week.

It use to be that I couldn't read someone demanding for iPhone multitasking without the first (and usually only) example listed was so that they could keep listening to Pandora while switching to use other apps.  While I started using Pandora years ago and it was one of the first iPhone apps that I downloaded, my personal listening habits are such that I rarely use it.  And whatever my old iPhone usage habits were, it seemed the lack of 3rd party app multitasking (since the Apple apps included with the iPhone already have it, which is why you can listen to the iPod app while using any other non-music app with your phone) wasn't that big of a deal.  But lately I've been using WunderRadio a lot and it stinks that I can't do something as simple as look up the current song I'm listening to in the iPhone's iTunes app without cutting the music.  Or check up on my bank accounts with Mint, check sports scores on ESPN ScoreCenter, check my twitter account on Twitterific...you get the idea.

So while I respect Apple's reasons for being slow to adopt 3rd party app multitasking for the iPhone and - with up to 7 different APIs for developers to choose from to best suit their app - I'm very enthused about how Apple is implementing it, I'm getting anxious - if not foaming at the mouth - waiting for this feature to arrive.

It will be a great leap forward for the iPhone and its users.  Take the example I used above with being able to pull up iTunes from any radio app.  The possibilities for apps working with other apps in a symbiotic fashion are exciting and can only make the iPhone platform more appealing for developers and users alike.

So not only can I not wait for app-wide multitasking on the iPhone, I also can't wait to see how it expands the possibilities of what some of my favorite apps can already do.