Windows Phone 8 has fast resume for multitasking

There has been a lot of chatter about the multitasking capabilities of Windows Phone 8, or rather the lack of it. People have been complaining that its capabilities pale in comparison to that of iOS and Android. That said users can actually toggle between up to eight apps on Windows Phone 8 which should be ample for most. In spite of this, Microsoft has revealed a previously unknown feature
of the platform courtesy the SDK, which is now available for download called Fast App Resume.
This is a Windows Phone 8 only feature so it will not trickle down to current Windows Phone devices in the 7.8 update as it is hardware centric. Basically, when one switches between apps using the back key or the task switcher, the app’s state gets preserved in the memory and that enables fast resume when the user goes back to the app. This is similar to the ‘tomb stoning’ multitasking on iOS.
Developers need to enable this feature in their apps with a slight change in the app manifest file and Microsoft has detailed a walkthrough on its dev center. But for users, it basically means multitasking will be there. However, since the SDK became available to developers only yesterday, majority of apps available on Windows Phone 8 currently don’t support this feature.