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Question about background app refresh

J

jww062

macrumors member
Original poster
Dec 1, 2012
75
7
I see everybody is saying turn background app refresh services completely off. (I agree with it just from the logical premise that of course stuff running in the background is going to eat battery.)

My question is -- are there apps that actually need background services on to operate? For example, if I turn off background services and use Apple Maps, will it still give me the banner at the top with directions and whatnot as it did with iOS 6 if I switch to a different app? Or if I'm running and open a text messages while I'm using RunKeeper, will RunKeeper still keep going in the background?

I guess my question is, what is background app refresh vs. running in the background, if any differences exist?

Thanks.
 
Last edited:
H

hafr

macrumors 68030
Sep 21, 2011
2,743
9
As far as I gather, apps still have the ten minute window of running in the background just like in iOS 6, even if you turn BAR off (completely or for specific apps). BAR is for allowing apps to function after those ten minutes are up.

For instance, I've seen some people say that turning BAR off for RunKeeper still tracks the time and all that, but the gps-tracked route will be pretty much a straight line from start to finish. But I haven't tried it myself and others say it works with BAR turned off...
 
Armen

Armen

macrumors 604
Apr 30, 2013
7,405
2,274
Los Angeles
jww062 said:
I see everybody is saying turn background app refresh services completely off. (I agree with it just from the logical premise that of course stuff running in the background is going to eat battery.)

My question is -- are there apps that actually need background services on to operate? For example, if I turn off background services and use Apple Maps, will it still give me the banner at the top with directions and whatnot as it did with iOS 6 if I switch to a different app? Or if I'm running and open a text messages while I'm using RunKeeper, will RunKeeper still keep going in the background?

I guess my question is, what is background app refresh vs. running in the background, if any differences exist?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

I leave background refresh ON all the time.

I manually turned it off for Stocks but have it on for Weather and Find My Friends app (because it requires it)
 
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