Folks at AppleInsider are reporting that iPhone OS 4.0, which is expected to be released in June will finally allow third party iPhone apps to run in the background. Multi-tasking is one of the most requested features by iPhone users.

AppleInsider claims that “people with a proven track record in predicting Apple’s technological advances” have told them that Apple has developed a “full-on solution” to multitasking on the iPhone OS.

AppleInsider reports:

People with a proven track record in predicting Apple’s technological advances tell AppleInsider that the Cupertino-based company has developed a “full-on solution” to multitasking on the iPhone OS but offered no specifics on how the technology would optimize resource conservation and battery life — two of the most critical issues surrounding the matter, alongside security.

From a user-facing perspective, Apple plans to deliver a multi-tasking manager that leverages interface technology already bundled with its Mac OS X operating system, according to those same people. It was requested that specifics be withheld at this time, as the iPhone Software 4.0 remains under development and reportedly has a quite ‘way to go’ before it’s ready for prime time.

Apple is expected to release iPhone OS 4.0 in June when it also expected to release the next generation iPhone – iPhone 4G.

Until now, Apple’s argument for not allowing multitasking is that it would drain the battery of the iPhone quite quickly and had introduced Push Notification service in iPhone OS 3.0 as a workaround. But push notifications doesn’t meet the requirements for iPhone apps like Internet radio based iPhone apps like Pandora that should ideally be able to run in the background.

It will be interesting to see how Apple implements the solution when they eventually allow third party iPhone apps to run in the background. They took a long time to implement the copy and paste feature, however we have seen that the solution that they finally implemented was perfect for iPhone’s touch screen interface.

We had suggested that Apple must complement features like multitasking with additional tools like power meter available in Nexus One that would help the users to make a better judgment on how to use their phone.

We have heard quite a few rumors about multitasking coming to the iPhone, let’s hope Apple does not let us down this time.

Update:

As Bob points out in the comments, we have seen jailbreak iPhone apps like Backgrounder, Proswitcher, Multiflow etc that already allow jailbroken iPhone users to run third party iPhone apps in the background.