Back in the 1990s, as Apple struggled to build an industrial strength operating system to take it into the 21st century, they were exhorted to make sure preemptive multitasking was implemented. In those days, Macs had cooperative multitasking, which meant that each app had to play nicely with other apps and make sure they didn’t use too many resources when not frontmost.

Now in the real world, the Classic Mac OS worked pretty well. Sure there were times the system would come crashing down and you had to restart. There were times when it would just get so damned slow, you couldn’t get any productive work done. That usually happened when lots of apps were opened and the primitive virtual memory system was working overtime swapping code from hard drive to RAM and back again.

It was so bad, you had to wonder why Macs were so heavily used for content creation. But, wait a minute! In the real world, only power users cared. For regular people, so long as your Mac could run your favorite apps with decent performance and without crashing too often, the fineries of the operating system’s plumbing didn’t make a difference.

But you had to care about what the Mac OS lacked. The tech pundits told you so, and how can you ignore them?

Certainly the ongoing soap opera over Copland — that failed operating system project — made it seem as if Apple was doomed on the spot if they didn’t change. True, they got to the point of hemorrhaging loads of money, but due to other reasons, including poor promotion, poor product planning, and a proliferation of models that would make Dell proud.

As you know, even after Apple bought NeXT, and Steve Jobs returned to the fold, it took several years to build Mac OS X. At first, Apple tried to take the original NeXT OS, make it look more Mac-like, and get it out the door. But developers balked, because they didn’t want to be forced to rebuild all their apps in a very different programming language. When the likes of Adobe and Microsoft and loads of lesser companies said no, Apple got the message and created Carbon and the Aqua interface to create at least a decent simulation of the Mac OS.

Even then, the first concerns expressed after Mac OS X landed — other than the expected complaints about performance and various instabilities — were about the loss of certain features the power users demanded. From a configurable Apple menu to the legacy WindowShade feature, where a single click collapses a window to the title bar rather than shrink with a visual flourish to the Dock, the list of what you lost was endless. Yes, I know you can get these and more from third party utility developers.

At the same time, I got to talk with lots of regular Mac users as Mac OS X matured, and I can’t recall anyone clamoring for those features. Yes, our Comments section offered suggestions of one sort or another, but what portion of the overall Mac community ever concerned themselves over what was lost?

That takes us to the iPhone. When it arrived, you read endless commentaries about the features Apple must add yesterday. Some, such as cut, copy and paste, made loads of sense and I’m not altogether convinced that Apple was right in giving this capability a lower priority than loads of others. I chafed at its lack, and I’m glad it’s here, although the implementation is still somewhat flaky.

Multitasking remains front and center. Other smartphones have it. Why not Apple? Why are the interface police keeping this important feature from our grasp? Is this not one of those arbitrary power grabs in which Apple engages for reasons we cannot fathom, perhaps because they just want to exert higher levels of control on their user base?

Of course, such suspicions don’t make a bit of sense. I mean, if Apple felt they could offer multitasking efficiently for the apps they didn’t write, and that most users would even care, they would have done it long before now. There would be no delay. It would be there, front and center!

The real issue is that the tech writing community doesn’t routinely conduct scientific surveys of a full cross-section of the user base to figure out what real people want. At best, they’re just guessing, or perhaps talking amongst themselves to gauge public reaction.

No, I don’t mean those informal polls that you see on many Web sites, where you just click and vote. That’s a random poll as far from scientific as you can get. I don’t want to prejudge the results either, but I bet that if you asked about many of the iPhone and Mac OS X features that the power users demand, you will get a “What’s that?” response most of the time.

But Apple knows its market, and they understand quite well what features to add to their products and, more important, which ones to omit or postpone until a better implementation is devised. Yes, folks, let’s give them the benefit of knowing something for once.

If you believe the reports that have been widely circulated by Mac sites and such mainstream media resources as Fortune, an estimated 190,000 orders have been received by Apple for its new portable computing gadget as of the time I’m writing this issue, but the initial flurry has seriously subsided. That raises the larger question as to just how well this new product will fare in the marketplace.

Understand that these figures do not come from Apple, and nobody outside of the company has actual access to the ordering information. So how were these figures determined? Well, Fortune bases its tallies in information provided by “Daniel Tello, who’s been manning the spreadsheet for AAPL Sanity,” a site that covers Apple’s financials.

How does Tello come by the figures? Evidently readers send him the invoice numbers received from Apple when they place their iPad orders. Using some sort of fuzzy logic, Tello is assuming that those numbers are somehow consecutive, and subtracts what he presumes are the ones that apply to other products. They do not include bulk orders, or units reserved for in-store pickup, and there’s no way to gauge how many of those have been received.

I don’t know if I really need to tear apart the accuracy of such a survey, but I will do so anyway because it is, at best, an extremely rough estimate and shouldn’t be taken too seriously. However, I feel that is precisely what’s going to happen anyway, at least until Apple’s financials for the next quarter are in hand, or Apple touts initial sales in a press release before then.

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If you can believe the critics, Apple penchant for control may be so paranoiac that they deliberately withhold multitasking from their mobile devices. After all, how can you be allowed to run more than one app at a time, unless it’s from Apple of course? Wouldn’t that interfere with — well, something or other?

If you’ve seen one of those recent iPhone spots in the U.S., you’ll notice that Apple is actually extolling the gadget’s multitasking features, by showcasing the ability to take a phone call, and manage email or check a Web site at the same time. So you have someone making a dinner reservation while waiting for someone to answer your call, or perhaps preventing a potential problem with one’s significant other by ordering flowers in time for an anniversary celebration.

The main point of this spot is the fact that you can do that with AT&T’s 3G system, but not the one owned by Verizon Wireless. That’s an issue of network architecture that can’t be changed until Verizon migrates to the next-generation wireless technology, which is when the rumors suggest they’ll get a chance to offer the iPhone too.

However up till now Apple has prohibited third parties from sharing in the multitasking joy. The best they can do is to send a Push Notification message to alert you of, say, an incoming instant message from AIM while you’re working in another app. As limited as this is, that notification arrives when you’re doing something else. It is multitasking, and OS X, the foundation of the iPhone OS, is a classic Unix-based preëmptive multitasking operating system.

So what’s the problem? After all other mobile platforms multitask almost across the board? So why not Apple?

The explanation from Apple — some call it an excuse — is that allowing other apps to run willy-nilly would result in excessive resource use and shortened battery life. Now this is about control, certainly, the desire to provide a seamless user experience. There would be no motive to omit across-the-board multitasking if such concerns weren’t true. After all, what does Apple gain to block such a feature, since competing mobile platforms are using it for bragging rights?

Yes, it’s true. Phones featuring Google’s Android OS and other smartphones let you run multiple apps without apparent restriction. I’ve heard different stories about how well they do. Some suggest the experience is just fine, thank you, while others point out that it’s far too easy to have too many apps working at once, which seriously impairs performance and battery life. Indeed, there are apps that help you manage resources more efficiently, but why should you have to bother yourself with such nonsense? Wouldn’t you rather have something that just works, even if a few frills might be lacking?

Now this doesn’t mean that the iPhone doesn’t manage the multiple app situation in a workable fashion. When you’re running one app and need to start another, you return to Home and then launch the next one. This action will rapidly quit the previous app before the new one is launched. It’s a tribute to the solid programming of the iPhone OS that the existing app switch scheme seems to work fast enough that it’s not so awkward a process.

However, what if you’re using the app that allows you to edit your WordPress blog and then you need to check a new email message, after hearing a notification tone? Well in this case, the WordPress app does a quick save, so you can recover the material you had edited during the previous session. You still have to scroll to the part of the post you were working on, but you don’t lose anything. With AIM, you go back to whatever function you had used on your previous session, and you also have the option to keep your account logged in at AOL’s servers for a preset amount of time. This way, folks who are looking for you online will find you. You’ll get a Push Notification if they try to ping you.

In an ideal world, the app ought to be able to resume at the point you left off, to minimize the delay when its relaunched. At the same time, though, this is certainly a clumsy situation, and those of you with lots of apps that you want to use in rapid fashion are apt to feel constrained.

Now I don’t know how many complaints Apple receives about multitasking, and of those, how many are confined to so-called power users. I wonder if the average user cares so much, so long as everything is running fluidly.

In saying that, however, there are rumors afoot that Apple is working on enhancing iPhone OS multitasking for version 4.0. Certainly it’ll make a load of sense for the far more powerful iPad, where you’re apt to actually want to have several productivity apps open at the same time, such as Pages and Numbers. I’m curious to see if and how Apple expands the ability to run multiple apps.

Of course, whatever solution they devise, some people will just complain anyway.

Let me state from the outset that I’ve never owned an iPhone that arrived in defective condition or developed a defect after heavy use. Unless heavily abused, I expect them to last a fairly long time, other than, of course, the battery. But since most of you probably swap your mobile phones every couple of years anyway, maybe longevity isn’t a deciding factor.

While I realize some of you keep your handheld gadgets in pocket or purse without the safety net provided by some sort of case, I’m sure loads of those accessories are sold. A number of manufacturers are involved in that business, and each of them provide a rich selection of cases and screen coverings.

In light of the report that Apple may be cutting out screen protectors from their retail outlets because they create their own complications if not fitted properly, I got to thinking of my recent efforts to get a slim, secure case with a belt holster, and there aren’t too many of those configurations around.

Since getting my first iPhone in early 2008, I’ve gone through several of those cases. After six or eight months of use, something invariably breaks, usually the holster assembly from the routine process of attaching to a belt, removing it, and being moved around constantly as I go about my daily business.

I can’t say that I’m necessarily more abusive of such accessories than anyone else. I’m not engaged in heavy-duty physical labor, other than my morning exercise routine, involving aerobics and weights, where I’m not running around with an iPhone. Otherwise my working life is fairly sedentary. So I expect most of those cases, other than the ones that are especially thick and heavy, aren’t designed with longevity in mind.

I do welcome your suggestions, however, as to which one to choose next.

However, the worst situation occurred a couple of weeks ago, when I visited a nearby Apple Store to purchase a new case. The selections that include a holster were limited to two or three models. I was about to purchase one of them and placed my iPhone on a table while the clerk was posting the order on her iPhone. As she moved her hands, she apparently struck my iPhone slightly and it fell to the floor. Now my iPhones have fallen to the ground before without visible consequence. This time, the screen was cracked!

When the clerk attempted to deny responsibility, I asked to speak to her manager, who didn’t want to take the blame either. The price to get a replacement iPhone or a screen repair (my choice) was $199. I attempted to appeal to the manager’s sense of logic without result, so I placed a call to Apple’s customer service people, and asked to speak to an executive in charge of support.

No, I didn’t pull rank and tell them I was a long-time tech reporter. It was just a way to get through the bureaucracy as quickly as possible. The Apple representative asked me to describe the situation, and promised to call me back within 30 minutes. Pretty much on schedule, I got that callback, with the assurance that I could return to that store and get a replacement iPhone with the exact configuration of my original.

I still had to get an appointment at the Genius Bar, but they were evidently able to squeeze me in with only a short delay in light of the situation. When I returned to the store, I noticed that the clerk who damaged my iPhone was no longer on the floor. I do hope she didn’t lose her job as the result of my complaint, and perhaps she was only being given a cooling off period or an admonition to be more careful next time. Clearly the destructive act was an unfortunate accident and nothing more.

On the other hand, the personnel at the Apple Store in question seem to have forgotten that classic motto that “the customer is always right.” Indeed, if they were willing to accept half the blame from the outset, and asked me for $99 to repair or replace the iPhone, I probably would have considered the offer, although I have far better uses for my money, as most of you know if you’ve been following my ongoing financial soap opera.

My major concern, though, is that the companies that make those iPhone cases need to work harder to develop products that better withstand the rigors of regular use. That also applies to iPod cases. My son had a few, and none of them lasted more than a few months before we had to shop for a replacement.

Perhaps Apple should be developing its own line of such accessories. Maybe they can show those other companies the way to build a case that’s not just tough, but thin, flexible and, of course, attractive. But as I said, if any of you are aware of a better solution, count me as a willing listener.