Yeah, it could be better.

As I’ve mentioned, I’m not one to hop onto the hot-button topics. I just don’t see the point. Why state what’s obvious to everyone?

But, in the case of multitasking on the iPhone, I’ve felt for quite a while now that nobody is really putting a finger on what multitasking could mean for the iPhone, were it to show up tomorrow. And I think a large part of that is because everyone knows the core iPhone apps so well, at this point, that there is no real novel way to look at the problem. People try to sell us on the idea of multitasking by pointing at the Jailbreak community, but seriously: HIC SVNT DRACONES.

But today, I had a pretty nice revelation: there is a hidden multitaskable app on the iPhone 3GS, which I’ve known was there all along, yet never had any interest in using. It’s the Nike+ app, and it is switched off in Settings.app by default. The problem is, without investing in the dongle, you’ll never get a chance to see how excellent and unique this app is.

Lately, I had gotten myself involved in using RunKeeper Pro, after having bought it nearly a year ago in a flash of wishful thinking. Everything was going wonderfully, until one day I had a minor problem with one of RunKeeper’s features. I eventually got it solved, but that moment of uncertainty made my eyes wander. I looked on CraigsList for a used Nike+ kit, and I googled around for some first-hand comparisons. I’m no dummy: just because Nike+ has been around longer and is much more widely-accepted, doesn’t mean it’s actually a better tool for the job. I’ll leave it at that, as this isn’t an app review blog.

So, while looking through the Nike+ config panel in Settings.app, and in reading Apple’s knowledge base article on Nike+, I was reminded of the fact that this app has access to the contents of the lockscreen while the iPhone is asleep — similar to what iPod.app does, but there’s a major difference. With Nike+, if the screen is asleep and you click the home button, the custom workout screen is displayed, and your current run stats are recited to you, over your music (if it’s playing). This stats screen will be there even if you have exited the Nike+ app, since it is a multitasking app. So, the take-away is that, when the screen is asleep, the user is given the option to send a function call to the Nike+ app by pressing the home button once, even if the app isn’t running in the foreground. This is unique to only this app on iPhone. The only comparable lock-screen functionality I can think of is the double-tap for iPod controls — which, incidentally, still work while the Nike+ lockscreen is active, but the layout of the controls is seamlessly integrated into a modified Nike+ lockscreen.

Also, similar to the “call in progress” (green) and “tethering is active” (blue) banners, Nike+ has its own banner (red) when it’s active in the background. When you take a phone call, the red banner is replaced with green, and the workout is paused. I believe the same is also true when a call comes in and you’re tethering, but the tethering does not disconnect. So, as a UI guideline, there is only one pulsating banner at the top of the iPhone screen at any given time.

Anyway, it’s been mentioned once or twice lately — on at least one blog (yeah, I’m taking it all with huge grains of salt) — that we could potentially see “rationed multitasking” in whatever forthcoming iPhone OS release we may see this year. If that’s the case, I sincerely hope that an updated SDK will allow third-party developers to manipulate the lockscreen (and its home button behavior) and “announcement banners” (for lack of a better term). Because, as much as I kinda prefer RunKeeper over Nike+ as a runner’s service, I’m thoroughly impressed with the OS-level integration that comes from this quasi-third-party app. And it’s kind of exciting that its impressiveness has been hiding directly under my nose.

Also, just as an afterthought: Even though the Nike+ app is technically not deletable, it’s super-nice that we can just flip a switch in Settings.app if we want it to be gone from the home screen. Technically, the same can be done for Safari, iTunes, AppStore and YouTube, via Restrictions. But it would be really nice if every non-deletable app had a similar switch within the Restrictions panel.