My biggest gripe with the iPhone thus far has been the inability to run apps in the background. It’s something I’ve become accustomed to after having been a loyal Sidekick user and now BlackBerry user. Sure, Apple’s argument against it makes perfect sense, but it’s a necessity for power users like you and me. It was revealed at WWDC that Apple would soon push out a service that allows for applications to run in the background, but in a different manner than what we’re used to with other smart phones. The Push Notification Service doesn’t run in the same manner as Windows Mobile task manager, though. The PNS connects to a server that watches the threads through a persistent IP connection that would push out notifications, so you can close out AIM, for instance, and go about your business until someone IMs you.
Of course, you know all about this having paid close attention to our live WWDC coverage. The new news here is that the API has been doled out to a handful of developers and will surely be pushed out when iPhone OS 2.1 rolls out.