Back in Jan. I wrote the following about Apple’s view of multitasking:

Normal users do not want to deal with resource management nor do they understand it.

Today, Steve Jobs confirmed it by saying, “In multitasking, if you see a task manager… they blew it. Users shouldn’t ever have to think about it.”

The problem is that, neither webOS and Android have a task manager (although the first thing that most Android users download is a task manager). Also, webOS has a much better implementation of app switching than iPhone 4.0. Quitting apps on webOS is a simple flick of the finger up while you have to tap and hold an app in the taskbar to quit an app in iPhone 4.0.

By restricting backgrounded apps to one of 7 services, Apple has solved the problem of resource and battery management. The 7 services, audio, VoIP, location, push notifications, local notifications, fast app, and “task” completion, allows for 90% of what most users will need backgrounding for. Sadly, though 4.0 won’t be hitting the iPad until Fall, 6 months or 1/2 the iPad 1.0’s life cycle.