Apple Reiterates: Force Quitting iOS Apps Doesn’t Help Battery Life

[manu chao]

I can't comment on battery life, but quitting background apps absolutely reduces safari tabs reloading (iPad 2).

Well, somebody has to decide whether to purge older Safari tabs or older apps from memory. Somebody might prefer that when Safari is open, all other apps are purged completely from memory when needed. Others might prefer that older Safari tabs are purged instead of a recently used app (which you would have to wait to start over from scratch when you switch back to the app).

Nope, absolutely not true on my device.

Really? You never switch back to an app used earlier and it essentially starts afresh instead of showing you exactly what it had on-screen when you left it?

 

[C DM]

How often do people clear the 'Recent Items' entries in the Apple menu on the Mac?
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Yeah, killing an app that misbehaves is a good idea. Not using an app that misbehaves is an even better idea.
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Did it show up high in the list of of apps in the Battery section of the Settings?
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Do you also routinely clear the list of 'Recent Items' (under the Apple menu) on your Mac? Do you also routinely clear the list of recently open documents in all the applications you use? Do you want to cover your tracks so that nobody can see which apps you have recently used? Or does the list of recently used apps offend your sense of aesthetics?


Do you also routinely clear the history in your browser?



Which is why you can prevent an app from using location services (or depending on the app to only allow it when the app is in the foreground) and why you can prevent them from using background app refresh. Where appropriate, you can also stop individual apps from using cellular data.

I personally don't even use recent items list and don't even have one on my Mac. I'm sure there are many others like that or those that clear that out here and there. Same goes for browsers. Doesn't really seem all that crazy as different people have different ways of using things, it doesn't necessarily make something right or wrong or good or bad (in some cases, sure, it can, but in many case, no, not really).

 

[manu chao]

Other background processes the user can't control at all, such as the ability of Mail to receive push notifications.

Well, actually you can. Under Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Fetch New Data you can enable or disable Push for emails.
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I personally don't even use recent items list and don't even have one on my Mac.

Really? You have hacked OS X so the 'Recent Items' list is not generated?

Doesn't really seem all that crazy as different people have different ways of using things, it doesn't necessarily make something right or wrong or good or bad (in some cases, sure, it can, but in many case, no, not really).

Catering to the obsessive-compulsive desires of some users in regard to visuals is not crazy?

 

[C DM]

Well, actually you can. Under Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Fetch New Data you can enable or disable Push for emails.
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Really? You have hacked OS X so the 'Recent Items' list is not generated?


Catering to the obsessive-compulsive desires of some users in regard to visuals is not crazy?

At some point when I was configuring options using System Preferences I selected "none" for Recent Items in the General section as I don't use them anyway. Some serious "hacking" there. Clearly all those things have already been catered to as they are fairly regular things that many people do, which is why the option not to even use recent items, let alone to clear them, already exist and have been around for some time.

 

[manu chao]

I guess you just have a different definition of "needs more memory". Sure, it frees up memory when the alternative is that the device would completely crash. I'm saying it doesn't free up memory when low memory causes consistent, obvious degradation in performance. Personally I consider that "needing more memory".

Unless your usage keeps using the same data all-over all the time (eg, same websites with the same static content), every system will run out of memory. The question is what do you gain by keeping free memory around (on OS X you might save the time it takes to swap out existing memory when you need new memory and don't have any free memory but iOS doesn't swap out memory to disk it just deletes it)? What you loose is that if you need anything that was cleared from memory again, you have to wait for it to be read from disk, downloaded or computed.

 

[IJ Reilly]

You can see the time split between actual usage and background usage as well, which can provide a good amount of useful information. So if an app you are not really using much is appearing as having used a fair bit amount of battery then certainly that can be an indicator of something, and looking at the time of actual usage vs. background usage can provide more insight into it as far as perhaps explaining it.

I learned that my Podcast app runs quite a bit in the background, which because I know that is what it is designed to do, bothers me not at all. But if a person didn't know that was a feature they might become convinced that it was a bug or something nefarious. Someone with a fairly high degree of technical knowledge might be able to catch some Stupid Programming Tricks, but for everyone else, they are probably wasting their time. That's why I put this in the "a little knowledge can be dangerous" category. Just use it and be happy that someone else figured out to optimize your experience so you don't have to.

 

[manu chao]

The only thing that makes your battery life stay strong is to never update to a new major number iOS version. There was a time when Apple OS updates didn't add heavy features nor bloat, but that era ended in SL and iOS 5. Everything released later than that was designed to "suggest" you to buy new hardware. This is how the Apple I was used to died.

So funny that several major OS versions actually increased battery life. Apple reflected that in their ratings (ie, the same device sold before the OS upgrade would be listed with a shorter battery life than the same device sold after the OS upgrade). And people that actually ran tests with both OS versions replicated such improvements. Not every OS upgrade did so but I remember especially Mavericks but also iOS 9 (which offers the Low Power mode on top).

 

[valkraider]

You can see the time split between actual usage and background usage as well, which can provide a good amount of useful information. So if an app you are not really using much is appearing as having used a fair bit amount of battery then certainly that can be an indicator of something, and looking at the time of actual usage vs. background usage can provide more insight into it as far as perhaps explaining it.

Exactly. If an app says 3 minutes foreground and 4 hours background - yet I am not benefitting from it in the background (some apps are good to run in the background) - that means either something has gone wrong or I should kill that app.

 

[wizard]

Better answer would be: No and no, unless the app you are closing is Facebook.

Killing facebook is the only known way how to avoid it sucking battery in the background. (turning off background refresh won't help)

This is the thing in normal operation with well behaved apps no and no would be the right answer. Run Facebook and you will kill your battery faster than normal, this isn't even debatable and has been proven again and again. There are other crap apps out there so people need to understand that there are no absolutes

 

[manu chao]

At some point when I was configuring options using System Preferences I selected "none" for Recent Items in the General section as I don't use them anyway. Some serious "hacking" there.

That's one of those setting that essentially nobody knows about, because essentially nobody cares about it. How often do people even bother to open the 'Recent Items' list? You have to actively navigate to it to even see its contents.

 

[C DM]

I learned that my Podcast app runs quite a bit in the background, which because I know that is what it is designed to do, bothers me not at all. But if a person didn't know that was a feature they might become convinced that it was a bug or something nefarious. Someone with a fairly high degree of technical knowledge might be able to catch some Stupid Programming Tricks, but for everyone else, they are probably wasting their time. That's why I put this in the "a little knowledge can be dangerous" category. Just use it and be happy that someone else figured out to optimize your experience so you don't have to.

If someone is seeing their battery drained more than usual or just quicker than it should and would like to troubleshoot things, seems fairly reasonable. Could someone misunderstand or misuse something? Sure, of course they can, just like that is the case with anything in life. That doesn't mean that everything has to be just at the lowest common denominator level (sure that level could/should be accounted for in some way often, but it doesn't mean things just stay there and don't go any further).

 

[manu chao]

Exactly. If an app says 3 minutes foreground and 4 hours background - yet I am not benefitting from it in the background (some apps are good to run in the background) - that means either something has gone wrong or I should kill that app.

Well, I'd first try to cut it off from background app refresh. Much less work than to constantly having to kill it.
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So why do my battery statistics show background activity draining battery when I'm not quitting, and not showing it when I am?

Because you allowed the app to do background app refresh (and/or background location services access).

 

[C DM]

That's one of those setting that essentially nobody knows about, because essentially nobody cares about it. How often do people even bother to open the 'Recent Items' list? You have to actively navigate to it to even see its contents.

So don't worry about the list because you don't even use it? Why is it there then? And why do options to clear it or to configure it (how many items it has or basically to turn it off) exist then?

Someone doesn't care about it, nothing wrong with that, someone might for whatever reason, nothing wrong with that either.

 

[wizard]

Same thing here - i've argued with Apple Store employees about this before.

Apple store employees do this because it can solve problems. some apps are notorious with respect to background power usage. Plus it isn't impossible for poorly written apps to get hung up with their background processing. As a habit it is a waste of time to exit from apps constantly, that doesn't mean however that bad apps don't cause problems. Exit apps when you machine demonstrates performance problems or when you run a known bad app such as Facebook.

 

[C DM]

Well, I'd first try to cut it off from background app refresh. Much less work than to constantly having to kill it.
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Because you allowed the app to do background app refresh (and/or background location services access).

And some apps will do it regardless of Background App Refresh.

 

[manu chao]

Love those Jobsian Apple exec answers. The real answer is "sometimes/it depends", but it's better to lie and just reiterate the fiction everything Apple is always fine.

There is default behaviour (the app gets frozen) and then their are exceptions from that default behaviour. It clearly makes sense to start with the default behaviour when explaining things.
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And some apps will do it regardless of Background App Refresh.

Yes, for about a maximum of 5 min (called task completion), or if they have been allowed to use location services in the background or if they are playing audio. Apps don't do things regardless, they don't do things just because they feel like it, they do things because they qualify for exceptions. Closing off the exceptions is much easier than constantly quitting them.
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So don't worry about the list because you don't even use it? Why is it there then? And why do options to clear it or to configure it (how many items it has or basically to turn it off) exist then?

Well, I guess you would get a heard attack if you ever opened the Console app, so much logging of stuff that has happened.

 

[C DM]

There is default behaviour (the app gets frozen) and then their are exceptions from that default behaviour. It clearly makes sense to start with the default behaviour when explaining things.
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Yes, for about a maximum of 5 min (called task completion), or if they have been allowed to use location services in the background or if they are playing audio. Apps don't do things regardless, they don't do things just because they feel like it, they do things because they qualify for exceptions. Closing off the exceptions is much easier than constantly quitting them.
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Well, I guess you would get a heard attack if you ever opened the Console app, so much logging of stuff that has happened.

Typical apps get a few minutes (up to 10 as I recall), but various apps can go on for more and basically indefinitely, and there are also some apps that shouldn't be able to do more than typical apps and yet do something that they aren't supposed to (in one way or another) and stay doing things for longer as well.

As for the Console app, whatever is there is different and unrelated to something like the recent apps list on iOS. So that's basically neither here nor there as far as that aspect of it goes.

 

[manu chao]

I agree - especially the camera app.
On all of my phones, regardless of OS version, I find that keeping the camera in the background is a huge drain on the battery.

As others have said in this thread, this is no longer the case in iOS 9 (or does it show up in the list of battery usage?).

 

[oldmacs]

On my iPad 2, quitting some apps does save battery life. I've used my iPad 2 for a longgggg time and I'm very well aware of how the battery handles with and without quitting certain apps.

 

[manu chao]

Typical apps get a few minutes, but various apps can go on for more and basically indefinitely, and there are also some apps that shouldn't be able to do more than typical apps and yet do something that they aren't supposed to (in one way or another) and stay doing things for longer as well.

That task completion option has a hard time limit imposed by iOS (the precise number of minutes has changed between OS versions, the last number I had heard from developers was 5 min). We all know about the silent audio trick but any app that uses it should get the boot as it clearly cheats at the cost of your battery life. And as people find ways to jail-break iPhones, some apps will hack their way into staying alive in the background.

Your approach sounds like saying why bother with any encryption as any system can somehow be hacked anyway.

 

[C DM]

That task completion option has a hard time limit imposed by iOS (the precise number of minutes has changed between OS versions, the last number I had heard from developers was 5 min). We all know about the silent audio trick but any app that uses it should get the boot as it clearly cheats at the cost of your battery life. And as people find ways to jail-break iPhones, some apps will hack their way into staying alive in the background.

Your approach sounds like saying why bother with any encryption as any system can somehow be hacked anyway.

I'm not sure what approach you are talking about.

 

[Tech198]

A better answer and more direct would have been "There is no way to quit an app on iOS".

Mail checks for messages anyway even if the app is not launched. While u have background app refresh, turning that off *will* save battery life, or most efficient...

I guess u may save a bit since the app is not on screen, but its probably so small not worth going into.

Alternative, it could be just Craig didn't wanna answer and put this to rest as well just simple, and lets get him outta here.

 

[C DM]

Craig is wrong... A better answer and more direct would have been "There is no way to quit an app on iOS".

Mail checks for messages anyway.

Of course there is a way to close apps in iOS. That doesn't mean various system and related processes related to some things can be (or should be) exited, but there's certainly a way to close an app.

 

[StyxMaker]

In my experience quitting apps that are running in the backdrop absolutely improves battery life...

I suspect confirmation bias.

 

[Tech198]

Process is still there.