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Can anybody clarify the availability of multitasking on an iPhone 3G?

I went through several documents in Apple's HI guidelines, which state that:

Multitasking is available on certain devices running ios4 and later.

What does it actually mean? I have an iPhone 3G which doesn't support multitasking, so now if I upgrade my iPhone 3G to iOS4 or later, will it support multitasking?

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migrated from stackoverflow.com Dec 13 '11 at 7:15

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6 Answers 6

The processor has nothing to do with multitasking capability.

It's a software feature that you can enable by jailbreaking the iPhone.

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The key here is the processor the 3G uses. Only the 3GS and later have a processor capable of supporting iOS's multitasking. As noted, there are options with jailbreaking, if you prefer to go that route.

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Iphone 3G does not support multitasking, even with iOS4. It also does not support voicecontrol or even the last update to iOS4.3. My iphone 3G only updates to iOS4.2.1 :(

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As Rob Mayoff said, Only iPhone 3GS and later support multitasking. iPhone 3G does not.

However there is a method to enable multitasking on iphone 3G.To enable multitasking on Iphone 3G. You have to download Red Snow on PC and after that download iphone Firmware 4.0(recommended) or later.Plug in your iphone to PC. Install Red Snow in your PC. Then install the iphone firmware 4.0 in your iphone. The iphone will be jailbreaked and will now support multitasking.

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Easy way to check: double-press home button and if a bar slides up from the bottom, you've got "multitasking".

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Only iPhone 3GS and later support multitasking. iPhone 3G does not, regardless of which version of iOS is installed, unless you jailbreak it.

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