No, I didn't waste my time on an MBA. Marketing and advertising are two very different things, but I am interested in both. Anyway, since this forum doesn't have any particular topic nor format, I thought it would just make for interesting continued discussion.

As far as being able to run multiple applications on the iPhone... You can run the iPod software while you're running any third party application. Mail continues to run as well. Like I said previously, you can't necessarily run any arbitrary set of applications concurrently, but you're not limited to having only one task active at one time.

There are actually very few things I'd like to keep "running" concurrently, as opposed to caching out or suspending. Many applications can gracefully quit and start and do so very quickly on the 3GS. I'd hate to have to purposefully use some different command to quit every single app instead of just tossing it into the background. Hopefully continued pressure will be kept on Apple for them to allow at least some third party apps to run at all times (such as navigation/mapping apps) - I just don't know how they're going to decide which ones. The whole App Store approval process is already a bit of a land mine.

That said, I don't believe this "feature" of the Pre is significant enough to sway someone one way or the other (between it and the iPhone). I mean, running multiple applications isn't all it's cracked up to be anyway when you've only got 30 total to choose from.