[BrianGoldsmith]

Personally, I use my phone's multitasking abilities all the time and I consider the ability to have one or more applications open in the background an absolute necessity. I use my phone like a computer.

In fact, my phone is so competent that I often use it instead of my computer when I don't have any heavy duty stuff to do, even when I am at home. I can open up an MSN client and leave that in the background while I do some light browsing or e-mail or do almost anything else I want, and I can listen to music or stream it off the web at the same time if I want. When I get an MSN message, I get an unobtrusive notification in the corner of my screen and I can address it at my leisure.

Having the ability to multitask just makes sense. You can do without it, but why should you have to? Insofar as the iPhone is concerned, the OS has the ability to multitask. I cannot fathom why it's not being capitalized upon when every other smartphone can do it - obviously the battery life explanation is bunk.