multifl0w - Pre-like multitasking video released (in Cydia soon)

[dharris]

Thanks.

As for release/bugginess, I should indeed have released this later in a more polished format. The biggest bugs (that of Mail and iPod not showing, in my opinion, were the most complained about) were not caught by myself, as I never use the Mail app (or have it setup to Push) or the iPod. I did my testing by simply putting it through regular use, and these were never caught. I should have tested out all possibilities more extensively, and these bugs would have been exterminated before any public release. Also (probably most importantly) I probably shouldn't have given in to the pressure from the hype. With all the excitement I felt was building around my app, I just gave in and released it. I won't be making that mistake again, as now I have had to scramble to fix things that should have been never seen by the public.

On the memory leak: I know there has to be one, and I'm pretty sure I know where it is, and I'm trying to fix it in addition to work on the close out buttons for the next release. Hopefully I'll fix it soon, maybe I won't, but either way I'm not letting up on the project.

Initially multifl0w just started out as a side project, sort of as a goal I couldn't really envision myself reaching. I figured someone else had to have been working on it, given the obvious popularity it would have, but I worked on it anyway. Little did I suspect, but I eventually became addicted to the project. It's now the only thing I can work on, but I need to keep a balance between this and school work until school lets out in 3 weeks. After that, I can work all day and all night again and I shoot for making this app rock solid.

Initially I wanted to release this for free, but I simply couldn't. If I got a full ride scholarship to a good college somewhere, sure, but I haven't. Before I started working on multifl0w, I was working on a game for Unreal Engine to submit to the Make Something Unreal contest (and I placed!). But after that ended, I wanted to move on to something cooler, so I jailbroke my iPhone and started checking out all the cool stuff that's been released in the jailbreak world. (and there's no WEP cracker! I'm disappointed...) I'm glad that I've chosen a project that people like and find useful, so I'll stick with this until Apple releases a multitasking solution or somehow (but probably and hopefully never) the iPhone is secured so that no jailbreak is possible. Until then, the iPhone will be my project platform of choice. It's so much fun!

Anyway, this ended up being much longer than I intended and I need to start and finish a novel so that I can write an essay on it tomorrow....

Charybdis

You have no need to defend yourself. I have been following you on twitters since before you released your app and your were VERY clear about what it does and does not do (and your Rock and Cydia descriptions CLEARLY state the program had bugs). I think you made a mistake releasing it a little too early but so what, you owned up to it. Alot of these people are quick to criticize but have never developed (nor can they) an application and have no idea about the massive time commitments involved. Unfortunately, this is the market we live in - people want everything for free or when they do pay for something, it is never good enough. Just get use to it and keep some thick skin.

Its clear to me your a young kid in HS and not a full time developer - hence I would not expect this to be worked on 9-7 every day. You have been very responsive to tweets and on the forums and worked very quickly to squash the bugs in your app. Sure you should have done more testing but you learn. There are SOO many apps on cydia that i have paid for which have not been up to snuff for initial release. One piece of advice, and I am not sure if its possible but probably is, sign up a bunch of people to act as your beta testers. Get a core group of say 20-30 people who you can run versions by before you release. Make all the risks clear. Their is your testing ground. It will be invaluable.

Personally, I think you have a first mover advantage here. No one has tried to tackle this problem except Lance and he provided you his code since its Osource. You have a real opportunity to make good money here and I think you should do everything you can to capitalize. I also think your on the right track trying to develop a close feature and fix the memory leak. Youll always want to add more and more features but get the essential down first.

I look forward to more releases and my only other piece of advice (not that you asked for it) is continue to be open about the project. If you need to break from it for 2 weeks because of vaca, tell people. Its easy to do and will keep people loyal to you.

[jboone]

Sorry if i was a little quick to judge, been bitten a few times by pay apps that wern't quite right and had no support or updates. I'm a SysArch which includes a lot of development work for a fortune 50 company and I know there is much work involved. sounds like youre making good progress. Again my apologies for judging you so quickly.

[dharris]

Looks like the new version is out (at least on Cydia) with close functionality. Curious if anyone tried this yet and how it works? If well, i will be buying.

[battlecrushr]

New version is free

[metaserph]

Damn, I already paid for this!!

[battlecrushr]

Sry mislead people not free. Someone told me and I thought it was

[metaserph]

LOL. Allrightythen!

However, I installed this update right after the last post. Everything is working as it should, much improved stability too. I am pleased!

[JHoffy1]

Where is the Rock update?

[metaserph]

Maybe the developers has not made available to Rock their version. 1.2.1 is on Cydia.

[TheOnlyest]

So far this new updated version has been rock solid and working flawlessly. Nice work, would love to be able to change the level of transparency of the background tho.

[dharris]

Great update Dev. Works very well and i havent noticed any memory leak issues. I have to say this app has so much PO. Lots of thought about what you could do to make this more functional - but key is keeping it lightweight and low on resources.

Looking forward to future updates.

[ltjbigshot]

I had the hardest time switching over to this app from kiriake, but after the latest update I dont think i will ever go back. This app is amazing! Cant wait for future updates

[oo3]

is there still a memory leak issue? i find myself having to respring very often because i'm low on memory and freeing the memory via sbsettings isn't doing much.

I've uninstalled multifl0w and installed kirikae to test both, and it seems kirikae is running much better in terms of being able to free up ram.

[dharris]

Yup. I have noticed that something is causing the iphone to not be able to recapture memory. I think memory leak might be the right term but its also overused. Kirikae definitely performs better for some reason - in other words, killing off backgrounded apps recaptures memory appropriately whereas in multifl0w, killing apps and even using SBS does not seem to do so as well.