PC World - Multitasking is generally understood as the ability of an operating system to run several applications at once. While the definition is fairly simple, as we've seen with releases of Android OS and Apple iOS4, the reality can be significantly more complex.
While the basic idea behind multitasking is the same on your smartphone as it is on your PC, how it works - both under the hood and in terms of the interface - can be drastically different.
When it comes to mobile operating systems, "multitasking" is used to refer to two separate features: the ability to run applications in the "background" (that is, apps running behind the current app, as is the case on a PC), and the ability to save the state of apps to disk (effectively pausing them).
Generally speaking, apps that continue to run in the background require more system resources (memory, processing power, etc) than an app that has been "paused," so managing these behaviors can be critical to keeping your smartphone responsive, and preventing its battery from draining too quickly.
A simple example might be a music-playing application; you'll probably expect it to continually run in the background, playing music, regardless of what other apps you've opened since you started playing music. On the other hand, a calendar application may only need to be updated every few minutes to check for upcoming appointments. In between periodic updates, the app may be paused rather than continue to actively consume resources.
In its most recent iteration, Apple's iPhone OS (iOS4) now includes support for more multitasking behaviors, which had been one of the most-requested features since the release of the original iPhone in 2007.
Meanwhile, in 2008 the HTC G1 (aka "Dream") was released with the first release of the Android OS, featuring native multitasking - including support for apps that run in the background - which at the time the iPhone lacked.
To make matters worse, Apple had been cracking down on hackers that released unofficial "jailbreak" versions of the iPhone OS that featured more robust multitasking than what Apple offered. It seemed to many that Apple was fundamentally opposed to multitasking, and if one were to believe that, it might seem as if they have added multitasking under pressure from Android.
From a technical perspective, multitasking in iOS4 is markedly different than what is featured in Android. As with many technologies adopted by Apple, multitasking in iOS4 has been implemented with a very specific user experience in mind.
Android lets the entire app continue to run in the background. A good example is the Nintendo emulators by Youngh. If you use one of these apps then switch to something else, it'll keep running in the background, sound and all, until you decide to close it or your phone runs out of memory.
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