Android Apps - multitasking and/or running in background

Does anyone know how (or whether) Android App multitasking and/or running in the background really works.

Examples:

1) If I load up an Android alarm clock app and set an alarm, then close the app player, will the alarm sound?

2) If I load the same alarm app and then switch to say an Android ebook reader, is the alarm still running in the background and will the alarm sound?

My experience is that the apps don't do their thing unless they are the only Android app loaded - ie, BeyondPod won't download scheduled podcasts unless it is loaded at the scheduled download time.

Any insight would be appreciated.

Cheers
The REAL Joe

In my experience,

If you are using the beta 2.1.0.840, then the android apps behave just like any "native" playbook app.

for example, if you opened a pb alarm app then closed it, of course the app will not sound because it is closed. But if you minimze it then the alarm will sound no matter how many other apps are running. ie "multitasking"

background tasks are severely limited right now. the alarm would have to be running to operate i think.

You can run multiple android apps simultaneously in beta 2.1, but only one at a time in 2.0. So the answer depends on what OS you're running.

That is not true. I think if you use the QNX built in alarm, it will work. Anything else, i'm not certain.

The QNX built in alarm is not an android app. That's not his question.

I am not sure about this particular situation.. But I believe there is some amount of background activity with the android runtime..
Cos whenever I connect my charger (and I am running some other android app) I get a notification from Battrey Watch..

Will need some research by trial I guess.. But from that one example I would guess you need atleast one android task running. (Speculating here..)

I'm not sure about that. I have the Hotmail android app and with all windows closed, I still get email notifications. The Hotmail app uses push notifications, so that might be the exception to the rule.

I also notice that Tapatalk also displays notifications when the window is closed. I didn't think it used push notifications.

It might have to do more with how the Android app was developed than just the app player on the PB.

Originally Posted by Xopher

I'm not sure about that. I have the Hotmail android app and with all windows closed, I still get email notifications. The Hotmail app uses push notifications, so that might be the exception to the rule.

I also notice that Tapatalk also displays notifications when the window is closed. I didn't think it used push notifications.

It might have to do more with how the Android app was developed than just the app player on the PB.

Yes.. Very much possible..

It seems a little crazy to me for us all to speculate about the OP specific example. He's got the android alarm clock (I have two alarm clocks installed but they're both native) and all he has to do is open the clock, set the alarm 5 minutes ahead, close the app, and see if the alarm goes off.

On occasion I will get a Notification from Words/with/friends when NO android app is running - well, none are running obviously. It does not happen all of the time - sometimes I have to open that app or have another android app loaded (not necessarily foreground) but there have been times only Battery Guru is running and I get a Notice from W/W/Fs.

Originally Posted by pacoman03

It seems a little crazy to me for us all to speculate about the OP specific example. He's got the android alarm clock (I have two alarm clocks installed but they're both native) and all he has to do is open the clock, set the alarm 5 minutes ahead, close the app, and see if the alarm goes off.

On 2.0, when I close BeyondPod it doesn't download the podcasts on schedule, so I guess the answer is no, the app needs to be running in the background.

And the other answer I gleaned from here is that if I switch to another Android App (say Moon+) that effectively closes BeyondPod with the same result, so for the time being I'm limited to running one Android app at a time if I need it to be doing something, but on OS 2.1 it should be possible to run multiple Android apps at the same time.

Thanks for all the input.
Cheers
The REAL Joe