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Turning Off Apps running in the background - I never knew this!

mdlooker

mdlooker

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Mar 7, 2011
1,227
203
US
Am I the only one that had no clue there was a way to turn off Apps running in the background while leaving the iPad on? I thought I heard before to reboot to close all running Apps and reset the device. Well after I did that, I noticed that all of the Apps were still running, as verified through multi finger gestures.

So now at this point, I'm pretty much thinking there was no way to actually turn off these Apps without some extreme measure. So after googling and finding http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3r3T8TyyiTE, I saw that all I had to do was bring up the multitasking bar and start deleting. That's it, just that easy!

That made my day.
 
A

andybrown44

macrumors regular
Mar 11, 2011
117
0
Hull, UK
I come across this all the time with people I know who own iPhones but don't really understand how they work.
They think I'm some sort of wizard when I show them how to close apps or skip to the top of a page by pressing the clock. I would recommend googling an iOS 4 guide or something as if you weren't aware of that feature, there may well be others that you didn't know about but would like to use!
 
Mac.World

Mac.World

macrumors 68000
Jan 9, 2011
1,819
1
In front of uranus
mdlooker said:
Am I the only one that had no clue there was a way to turn off Apps running in the background while leaving the iPad on? I thought I heard before to reboot to close all running Apps and reset the device. Well after I did that, I noticed that all of the Apps were still running, as verified through multi finger gestures.

So now at this point, I'm pretty much thinking there was no way to actually turn off these Apps without some extreme measure. So after googling and finding http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3r3T8TyyiTE, I saw that all I had to do was bring up the multitasking bar and start deleting. That's it, just that easy!

That made my day.
Click to expand...

And download the Atomic web browser or iCab and start using swipe gestures, just like on a Mac. You'll love that. ;)
 
mdlooker

mdlooker

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Mar 7, 2011
1,227
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One of the big reasons for JB'ing devices is the SBSettings, which turns off the background Apps. But when I just did that, the processes didn't show all of the Apps the multitasking was showing. Hmm... I see there's a lot more out there to discover.
 
S

Shorties

macrumors 6502a
Jul 22, 2007
582
1
Southern California
mdlooker said:
One of the big reasons for JB'ing devices is the SBSettings, which turns off the background Apps. But when I just did that, the processes didn't show all of the Apps the multitasking was showing. Hmm... I see there's a lot more out there to discover.
Click to expand...

A lot of the apps in the multitasking bar aren't using resources and are just there almost as recently used applications. Only certain API's are activated in multitasking anyway so if you don't have an app doing anything in particular, then it's probably not taking up any resources.
 
A

applefanDrew

macrumors 65816
Jul 17, 2010
1,437
4
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8H7 Safari/6533.18.5)

It's been I over a year and people still don't know how multitasking works. The apps aren't "running" in the background unless it's audio, VoIP, or location. No need to worry about "closing" them.
 
mdlooker

mdlooker

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Mar 7, 2011
1,227
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I never linked all of the Apps using resources on the device. What shocked me was how I thought after turning off / on the device, the same non-native Apps were still open. I'm glad to get the input; real good info.

*edit*

Then again, I was thinking that if an App was 'on,' it was considered to be 'running.' I didn't neccessarily think it was using anything against the battery usage per se' but did believe it would be better to have it closed.
 
Last edited:
erayser

erayser

macrumors 65816
Apr 9, 2011
1,252
1,179
San Diego
I used to be anal, and close all the apps running in the background. But... since I enabled multi-touch gesturing on my iPad 2, multitasking works so much better since you don't have to press the home button anymore. Now I leave all my commonly used apps running in the background. Just 4 finger swipe up, and switch apps fast. 5 finger pinch, and start a new app. 4 finger swipe left or right to scroll through all opened apps. If you haven't enabled multi-touch gesturing yet, you have to try it. I hardly ever use the home button anymore. I didn't like how multitasking worked when it first came out on the iPhone, but now I like it a lot on my iPad after enabling gesturing.
 
Piggie

Piggie

macrumors G3
Feb 23, 2010
9,117
4,016
I think Apple need to come up with 2 close app options.

One that just put it down on the multitasking bar, as you many want to go back to it, or it's a frequently used app.

And another that really shuts it down.

A while ago, I had 100 app icons on my multitasking bar. I don't think there is any real reason to automatically put every single app you ever run in this area.
 
peled

peled

macrumors member
Dec 19, 2010
40
0
Israel
There is NO Multitasking on iPAD !!!

Sorry to hear that such a common task was not known to you.
I just do it daily.
I don't want to get to a point that there would not be enough memory for runing a new application
 
D1G1T4L

D1G1T4L

macrumors 68000
Jun 26, 2007
1,724
99
Raleigh, NC
applefanDrew said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8H7 Safari/6533.18.5)

It's been I over a year and people still don't know how multitasking works. The apps aren't "running" in the background unless it's audio, VoIP, or location. No need to worry about "closing" them.
Click to expand...

There is a jailbreak app that I love on my iPhone that I wish I could put on my iPad. It removes all the "recent" apps out of the bar and only leaves the ones running. Helps out when finding out what is running in the background.
 
mdlooker

mdlooker

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Mar 7, 2011
1,227
203
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D1G1T4L said:
There is a jailbreak app that I love on my iPhone that I wish I could put on my iPad. It removes all the "recent" apps out of the bar and only leaves the ones running. Helps out when finding out what is running in the background.
Click to expand...

That sounds pretty useful. What's the name of it?
 
mdlooker

mdlooker

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Mar 7, 2011
1,227
203
US
erayser said:
I used to be anal, and close all the apps running in the background. But... since I enabled multi-touch gesturing on my iPad 2, multitasking works so much better since you don't have to press the home button anymore. Now I leave all my commonly used apps running in the background. Just 4 finger swipe up, and switch apps fast. 5 finger pinch, and start a new app. 4 finger swipe left or right to scroll through all opened apps. If you haven't enabled multi-touch gesturing yet, you have to try it. I hardly ever use the home button anymore. I didn't like how multitasking worked when it first came out on the iPhone, but now I like it a lot on my iPad after enabling gesturing.
Click to expand...

Yes I have it. I have a PC so I had to embed it without the toggle option that is out their for Mac users. It is useful and was blown away when after I turned the iPad off then back on, I was still scrolling to the Apps I thought were turned off.

Okay I'm still an iOS novice. lol
 
kas23

kas23

macrumors 603
Oct 28, 2007
5,629
288
applefanDrew said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8H7 Safari/6533.18.5)

It's been I over a year and people still don't know how multitasking works. The apps aren't "running" in the background unless it's audio, VoIP, or location. No need to worry about "closing" them.
Click to expand...

I think it's quite amazing how, after almost a full year of using an iPhone/iPad, they still believe having many apps in the multitasking tray has no effect on app performance, like games.
 
S

skids94954

macrumors newbie
Mar 17, 2011
23
0
But where under settings on the ipad2 do you find the current usage like they show on the iphone video?
 
A

applefanDrew

macrumors 65816
Jul 17, 2010
1,437
4
kas23 said:
I think it's quite amazing how, after almost a full year of using an iPhone/iPad, they still believe having many apps in the multitasking tray has no effect on app performance, like games.
Click to expand...

It doesn't. If the current game needs more ram the OS kicks some of the others out and thus provides the needed ram to the foreground app. A game may lag initially but after a few seconds it will get better as the OS clears the ram as needed.
 
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