Zephyr is a utility for jailbroken iPhone and iPod touch devices running iOS 5 and later. The app currently adds support for two new gestures:

1. You can swipe up from the bottom of the screen to reveal the multitasking app switcher without touching the home button.
2. You can swipe from the left or right edge of the screen to switch between currently running apps without using the task switcher at all.

In other words, Zephyr can save you time if all you want to do is flip back and forth between two apps — but if you often find yourself swiping from the edge of the display to play games or perform other actions you might accidentally end up switching apps. It’s a neat idea, though.

Developer chpwn plans to add support for additional gestures in the future, and you can disable any gesture that you don’t like in your devices settings.

You can purchase Zephyr from the Cydia store for jailbroken devices for $2.99.
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You know how some iPhone apps which aren’t optimized for the iPad’s larger display can be run in a small window in the center of your iPad? Independent developer Aaron Ash decided to go one step further and see if he could run two iPhone apps side by side on an iPad.

Surprisingly, the answer is yes. He’s working on an app that will let you run two apps at once, although you’ll clearly need to jailbreak your iPad to get it working. The project is still a work in progress. Audio doesn’t currently work and there are accelerometer problems.

Clearly there’s little reason to actually run two games of Angry Birds at the same time as shown off in the screenshot Ash has shared. But imagine running a web browser in one window while watching a video in another. It’s something that Windows 8 will support, but mobile platforms including iOS, Android, webOS, and BlackBerry Tablet OS all require you to look at one window at a time, even if you have other apps running in the background.

It could be a few months before Ash releases his app for running multiple programs side-by-side on the iPad.

via MacStories

Google Android was designed first and foremost for smartphones with small displays and low power processors. So it’s no surprise that apps are typically designed to run in full screen mode and when you switch between running apps, most apps will go into a sort of suspend mode in the background (with the exception of some multimedia apps such as music players). But when you put Android on a tablet or another device with a large display, what’s to stop you from opening multiple apps side-by-side in separate windows?

Actually, the operating system pretty much stops you from doing that. But the folks at Ixonos have developed software that runs on top of Android to give the OS a more desktop-like feel.

Here’s how it works. Each app runs in its own window, which you can drag and drop anywhere on the screen. This lets you run a web browser in one window and a notepad app in the other. Or you can have a calendar open in one window and an email app in the next. You can also maximize windows to take up the whole screen. The Ixonos software also prevents apps from going into suspend mode when you switch between them, allowing you to continue watching a video in one window while performing another task in a separate window.

Ixonos also showed how the software could work on tablets with dual screen displays, letting you run one app in a left window and a second in the right.

via Engadget

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Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is talking up Windows Phone 7 during his keynote at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona today. The first major update for the operating system is due out in March, bringing support for copy and paste functionality. But even bigger things are due out later this year, including:

• Internet Explorer 9 with enhanced web browsing experience
• New multitasking applications
• Support for Office documents in the cloud using Windows Live SkyDrive
• Twitter integration in the People Hub

Microsoft says the company sold 2 million Windows Phone 7 licenses in the first two months, and the OS is available on devices from 60 mobile operators in 30 countries. That’s still just a drop in the smartphone bucket, but Microsoft describes the smartphone arms race as a marathon rather than a sprint.

Engadget grabbed some photos of the new multitasking functionality coming later this year, and you know what? It looks exactly like multitasking on webOS or on the BlackBerry Playbook’s QNX software. Basically you zoom out to see a series of “cards” showing running apps. Each card shows the state of the running application, allowing you to easily find the app you’re looking for.

To be fair, webOS wasn’t the first OS to use thumbnail icons to show running apps. Arguably the Windows alt+tab or OS X expose features offer something similar. So it’s not surprising to see that thumbnails are becoming something of a standard for sifting through running tabs on devices that aren’t running iOS or Android (although Android 3.0 Honeycomb’s recent apps menu also shows thumbnails in a non-card-like way).

When Windows Phone 7 launched it had very limited support for multitasking to help reduce the amount of energy used by apps running in the background. The company says it’s addressed the power draw issue and will be able to enable support for wider multitasking later this year without dramatically affecting battery life. We don’t have any real details on whether this means true multitasking like you have in webOS and QNX, or a save-state/fast app switching system like the one Apple uses for iOS 4.x.

My bet is on the latter, since the company says it will add “the ability to switch quickly between applications, run applications win the background (such as listening to music)” and other features in the second half of 2011.

Microsoft also says support for CDMA networks including Sprint and Verizon is coming in the first half of 2011.

Amazon has pushed an updated version of Amazon MP3 to the Android Market which includes changes that could help prolong battery life and reduce bandwidth usage on Android phones.

Many Android devices come with Amazon MP3 preloaded. As one of the default apps that comes with your phone, the app has a tendency to auto-start int he background, and while the app isn’t much of a resource hog, there’s really no reason for it to be running if you’re not shopping for music or downloading purchases.

Now version 1.8.29 is available for Android 1.6 and up. The key change in this version is that the app no longer auto-starts. If you want to run Amazon MP3, you’ll have to launch it manually.

The second change is that the “auto-resume downloads” setting is disabled by default, which I imagine is intended to prevent your phone from using your internet connection when you’re not paying attention.

You can download the latest version of Amazon MP3 from the Android Market. Since there’s no easy way to uninstall the app if it came preloaded on your phone, downloading the update is the next best thing.

via reddit

Apple launched iOS 4.2.1 for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad today. It’s available for download today — just connect your mobile device to your computer and launch iTunes. If you don’t get an update notice, select your mobile device from iTunes and click the Update button to check for the latest software update.

While the update brings a number of new features to iPhone and iPod touch users, the big news is iPad support. This is the first version of iOS 4.x that will run on the iPad, which means that iPad users will finally be able to multitask, group apps into folders, change the home screen background, and perform other actions that have been available on smaller devices for months. It also means that Game Center will be available for the iPad.

Apple is also bringing AirPlay technology to all three devices, allowing users to stream music, videos, and photos from an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad to an AppleTV.

As we’d been hearing, it looks like AirPrint functionality will be available — but it will only allow you to send print jobs from iOS to a supported WiFi-enabled printer including several recent models from HP. The press release doesn’t make any mention of sending print jobs to your Windows or Mac PC to pass along to a connected printer.

In a surprise announcement, Apple has also removed the Find My iPhone feature from the subscription-based MobileMe service. Users can now find missing devices from the web by installing the free Find My iPhone app on and iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad. The app will help show where your mobile device is on a web-based map, and it will also let you display a message or play a sound on your phone.

The OS update also adds support for TV program rentals.

Apple says iOS 4.2 will work with the iPad, iPhone 3G and newer services, second, third, and fourth generation iPod touch models. Multitasking and some other features will only work on the iPhond 3GS and up and the 3rd generation iPod touch or newer. Find My iPhone is only available on the latest devices including the iPad, newest iPod touch, and the iPhone 4.

Apple has posted an updated beta version of iOS 4.2 for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. If you happen to have an Apple developer account, you can download it now.

There’s no official change log, but some users are reporting that the OS seems more stable, the YouTube app works better, there’s a new animation effect for multitasking, there’s an indicator in the App Store letting you know which apps work with the Game center, and there are new features allowing you to mark YouTube uploads as public, private, or unlisted.

You can check out a video showing the new multitasking animations below, courtesy of MacStories.

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Been waiting (im)patiently for the Apple iPad to gain the multitasking capabilities that are already available for the iPhone and iPod touch? It looks like you might have to wait a little longer. Apple says the next update for the iPad will be iOS 4.2, which will also be available for the iPhone and iPod touch later this year.

The new operating system includes all the features in iOS 4.1, such as HDR photos, TV show retnals, and Game Center. But it also has some new features, including:

• Wireless printing
• AirPlay for streaming audio, video, and photos over WiFi to other devices

This will also be the first version of iOS for the iPad that supports multitasking, folders, and other iOS 4.x features.

Apple says OS 4.2 will be available in November for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.