Opportunistic Multitasking

• US 20110252422A1
• Filed: 08/26/2010
• Published: 10/13/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 04/07/2010
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Albert, Eric, Mason, Henry G., Myszewski, David, Rothert, Curtis, Chapman, Gregory R., Novick, Gregory
• Application Number:
  US12/869,385
• Publication Number:
  US 20110252422A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/100
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/485 Task life-cycle, e.g. stopping, restarting, resuming execution G06F9/4881 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5011 the resources being hardware resources other than CPUs, Servers and Terminals
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/542 Event management; Broadcasting; Multicasting; Notifications

Abstract

Services for a personal electronic device are provided through which a form of background processing or multitasking is supported. The disclosed services permit user applications to take advantage of background processing without significant negative consequences to a user'"'"'s experience of the foreground process or the personal electronic device'"'"'s power resources. To effect the disclosed multitasking, one or more operational restrictions may be enforced. A consequence of such restrictions, a process may not be able to do in the background state, what it may be able to do if it were in the foreground state. In one embodiment, while a background task may be permitted to complete a first task, it may not be permitted start a new task—being suspended after completion of the first task. Implementation of the disclosed services may be substantially transparent to the executing user applications.

Claims

1. A multitasking method, comprising:

identifying a first user application executing in foreground state;

receiving user input directing that a second user application is to be placed into the foreground state;

placing the first user application in background state in response to the received user input only if the first user application has identified itself as a user application that can execute in the background state; and

placing the second user application into the foreground state.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising placing the first user application in a non-executing state if the first user application has not identified itself as a user application that can execute in the background state.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising placing the first user application in a non-executing state after it has been placed into the background state if the first user application attempts to access a specified hardware resource.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein a specified hardware resource comprises a graphics processing unit.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein a specified hardware resource comprises a camera device.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising moving the first user application into a suspended state after the first user process completes a task, said task being the task the first user application was executing when it was placed into the background state.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising moving the first user application into a suspended state after the first user process has executed a specified amount of time while in the background state.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the first user process was, at the time the first user process was moved into the background state, performing an operation selected from the group consisting of:

a network upload operation, a network download operation, a disk storage operation, and a disk retrieval operation.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising moving the first user application from the background state into a terminated state if the first user application obtains a lock on a shared system resource.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the shared system resource comprises a shared file descriptor.

11. A program storage device, readable by a programmable control device, comprising instructions stored thereon for causing the programmable control device to perform a method in accordance with claim 1.

12. A personal electronic device, comprising:

memory;

computer program instructions, stored in the memory; and

a programmable control device operatively coupled to the memory and configured to execute the computer program instructions to cause the programmable control device to—

identify a first user application executing in a foreground state;

receive user input directing that a second user application is to be placed into the foreground state;

place the first user application in a background state in response to the received user input only if the first user application has identified itself as a user application that can execute in the background state; and

placing the second user application into the foreground state.

13. The personal electronic device of claim 12, wherein the personal electronic device comprises a personal electronic device selected from the group consisting of:

a mobile telephone, a personal digital assistant, a hand-held entertainment device, a pad system and a set top box.