Apps perhaps not REALLY closing when closed.. examples

[samcraig]

Hulu App on my iPhone - opened it... never got past the open screen. Hit home button - same thing. The program didn't open up fully until AFTER I killed it on the multitasking dock

Same thing happened with Pandora and one of my news Apps.

All are supposedly iOS4 updated.

So - and this is just a crude example - that even though the app isn't open nor multitasking - it's using either resources or memory until it's fully closed/cleared out of the multitasking dock.

To me this contradicts the purpose of the multitasking dock "just working" without need to manage it (ie Task Manager). If I have to make sure to close some apps to get them to work properly - it's a negative.

I know most will say (and I can't disagree) it's the App programming. But I think it's a combination of "issues" - and I use issue lightly...

 

[Nykwil]

Hulu App on my iPhone - opened it... never got past the open screen. Hit home button - same thing. The program didn't open up fully until AFTER I killed it on the multitasking dock

Same thing happened with Pandora and one of my news Apps.

All are supposedly iOS4 updated.

So - and this is just a crude example - that even though the app isn't open nor multitasking - it's using either resources or memory until it's fully closed/cleared out of the multitasking dock.

To me this contradicts the purpose of the multitasking dock "just working" without need to manage it (ie Task Manager). If I have to make sure to close some apps to get them to work properly - it's a negative.

I know most will say (and I can't disagree) it's the App programming. But I think it's a combination of "issues" - and I use issue lightly...

the fast app switching tray IMO is not as task manager. just a list of recently used apps.

notice:

I'm at the end of my "task manager" apps i ran a few days ago, and they do not show up in istat

other than using the double tapping of home to access my ipod control and switch to my most recently used app quickly, ive had the task switcher list icons for up to 5 or 6 pages worth of recently used apps, none of which i am sure are running in the background. just stored away in a hibernated state doing nothing to degrade performance

 

[samcraig]

so can you explain why (for example) hulu's app didn't work several times when trying until I closed it via the tray first?

 

[Vertigo50]

This has been covered in multiple threads. The list is the most recently used apps. Many of them do reside in memory, but they don't consume any resources unless they are audio or downloading, etc.

Otherwise, they just stay in memory waiting to open more quickly. When the phone needs more memory, it just clears out the oldest apps.

I repeat, the phone knows when it needs memory and clears them out, requiring no tinkering by the user.

If you want to drive yourself crazy closing apps all the time, you should use a Windows phone. Otherwise, relax and enjoy your phone.

That being said, it sounds like your specific problem had more to do with some glitches.

Try a restart of your phone, which is always a good idea after installing large apps.

 

[Nykwil]

so can you explain why (for example) hulu's app didn't work several times when trying until I closed it via the tray first?

Easy, app wasn't coded properly to utilize the feature. Like someone else just said, a hard restart usually will fix these things. hulu was probably quickly coded n rushed out to take advantage of the iPhone 4 buzz, probably tested on an iOS 3 device like the ipad or iPhone 3GS and not properly tested on an iOS 4 device until after it was submitted and approved by apple.

 

[kas23]

This has been covered in multiple threads. The list is the most recently used apps. Many of them do reside in memory, but they don't consume any resources unless they are audio or downloading, etc.

Otherwise, they just stay in memory waiting to open more quickly. When the phone needs more memory, it just clears out the oldest apps.

I repeat, the phone knows when it needs memory and clears them out, requiring no tinkering by the user.

If you want to drive yourself crazy closing apps all the time, you should use a Windows phone. Otherwise, relax and enjoy your phone.

That being said, it sounds like your specific problem had more to do with some glitches.

Try a restart of your phone, which is always a good idea after installing large apps.

True for the most part, but not completely true. Tom Tom will continue to eat battery if you do not physically close it (even after you have reached your destination). It will keep re-routing you in the background thinking you are still going to Point B. However, you do get a message prompt telling you it is doing this and advised to close app completely.

 

[vbtwo31984]

The phone automatically saves the state of your programs (the ones that were updated for iOS4), and then restores that state when you reopen the program. The program is not running meanwhile.

It's just that it saved the state of Hulu after it broke (due to some bug in Hulu), and then restored the program to that same state - broken.

When you clear out the programs from the recently used list, it also clears out the saved state, so the program relaunches from the beginning.

This is plainly seen in games or apps that take some time to load. If you just switch out and then back in, it will restart in that same place right away. If you clear it out of the recently used list, it will reload all the way from the beginning. In this way, it's kind of like a task manager except that it doesn't manage currently running tasks, but the saved state of your programs.

 

[shadygrove]

I have had issues with an application freezing like safari and the app becomes unresponsive. Hitting home and reopening the application just brings up the same frozen state. But by "force quiting" from the multitask menu like the OP described, result in the the app returning to it's default state thus in freezing the app. Granted his happened only after I first got the phone so I a leading towards a user error, not a bug. Buy honestly I am not sure.

 

[Vertigo50]

True for the most part, but not completely true. Tom Tom will continue to eat battery if you do not physically close it (even after you have reached your destination). It will keep re-routing you in the background thinking you are still going to Point B. However, you do get a message prompt telling you it is doing this and advised to close app completely.

This would be covered by the "etc." in my original post.

 

[dagomike]

True for the most part, but not completely true. Tom Tom will continue to eat battery if you do not physically close it (even after you have reached your destination). It will keep re-routing you in the background thinking you are still going to Point B. However, you do get a message prompt telling you it is doing this and advised to close app completely.

Not quite. TomTom will keep running in the background because you haven't indicated you arrived. Regardless, after a few minutes of inactivity, it alerts you that it is going to sleep. You don't need to do anything.

You should actually end your trip rather than letting it keep running. That's the logical thing to do without the learned behavior from lack of multitasking.

 

[Eso]

Otherwise, they just stay in memory waiting to open more quickly. When the phone needs more memory, it just clears out the oldest apps.

Actually, it's not the oldest apps that are cleared from memory. Apps are cleared based on how much memory they take up in the background, from largest footprint to smallest.

 

[samcraig]

restarting the phone (which I do after installs/etc) isn't an issue. The same apps sometimes glitch.

Yes - most likely the app. But as another thoughtfully said - it's probably because of a bad "save state". That bad "save state" turns the tray into a task manager then unfortunately.

And if I have to restart the phone every time I run/quit the app or it glitches - that, to me, is a work around and even more cloying than killing it on the tray.

I consider myself pretty savvy. So for me - it's easy to debug/fix/work around. But - dare I say - what about all the "general users" whose apps just keep frozen.

No doubt the App developers are going to be getting negative feedback...

 

[dagomike]

Just so I understand, an app crashed on boot, and you're wondering why it's in the app bar? Why shouldn't it? Even if the app indicated a full ready before it went into the app bar, the app is obviously hitting a bug and not working properly.

Sometimes apps misbehave and need to be force quit. It was true before multitasking, it is true now.

 

[TruckdriverSean]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8A293 Safari/6531.22.7)

I think the issue here is not with generic "apps" not closing, but with specific iOS4-updated applications continuing to use their "multitasking" API's after the user wants the app to quit.

For example, if I fire up CoPilot then hit home button, the app "runs" its navigation API in the background (as per iOS4). That's all well and good if I "want" it to do that, (so i can check mail while directions continue for example) The problem is that after I was finished using the app and hit the home button to "close" the app, I noticed the little navigation icon still active at the top of my screen. (cue creepy paranoia). So i had to use the task switcher to "kill" the navigation API (or whatever).

This seems like a developer flaw more than an OS flaw to me though. For example, Apple allows the API to run audio/navigation in the background, but without a way to "quit" or pause (like updated Pandora), you may have to use the taskswitcher to be sure.

Sean

 

[samcraig]

Just so I understand, an app crashed on boot, and you're wondering why it's in the app bar? Why shouldn't it? Even if the app indicated a full ready before it went into the app bar, the app is obviously hitting a bug and not working properly.

Sometimes apps misbehave and need to be force quit. It was true before multitasking, it is true now.

No - I'm not wondering at all why it's in the app bar. My point is that (and it seems to have been answered here) that because the app was "saved" in the "crashed" state, just relaunching didn't work. I had to delete it from the task bar. Then it worked.

And yes - sometimes one needed to restart the phone to "fix" an issue like this. However, in my personal experience (and only my personal experience) - just closing the app and restarting 90 percent of the time worked without a reset. Not so with having "multitasking"

Look - I'm not bashing the OS or anything - I'm merely communicating function or lack of function that I've experienced.

 

[insidmal]

This has been covered in multiple threads. The list is the most recently used apps. Many of them do reside in memory, but they don't consume any resources unless they are audio or downloading, etc.

Otherwise, they just stay in memory waiting to open more quickly. When the phone needs more memory, it just clears out the oldest apps.

I repeat, the phone knows when it needs memory and clears them out, requiring no tinkering by the user.

If you want to drive yourself crazy closing apps all the time, you should use a Windows phone. Otherwise, relax and enjoy your phone.

That being said, it sounds like your specific problem had more to do with some glitches.

Try a restart of your phone, which is always a good idea after installing large apps.

Exact same thing your computer you're using this forum on does.

 

[insidmal]

No - I'm not wondering at all why it's in the app bar. My point is that (and it seems to have been answered here) that because the app was "saved" in the "crashed" state, just relaunching didn't work. I had to delete it from the task bar. Then it worked.

And yes - sometimes one needed to restart the phone to "fix" an issue like this. However, in my personal experience (and only my personal experience) - just closing the app and restarting 90 percent of the time worked without a reset. Not so with having "multitasking"

Look - I'm not bashing the OS or anything - I'm merely communicating function or lack of function that I've experienced.

when you open a program on a computer or a phone or anything, items do not run from hard drive or flash memory, they are copied to ram where they run from, the copy of the program stays there so next time you open it, it doesn't need to be copied again, in your case it was copied corrupted or incorrectly or incompletely so when you opened it, it kept referring to that same corrupt information, what you did was dump it from the memory so it would copy again before loading, in past you had to cut off power to ram to get it to empty, but recently software has been able to dump sections for you

 

[kas23]

This would be covered by the "etc." in my original post.

It's just proof-of-principle that you cannot just simply "relax and enjoy your phone", you need to be quite aware of what your apps are exactly doing in the "background" or they will waste/use resources.

For Tom Tom, if you don't actively force-close the app or indicate you have arrived (which I haven't quite figured out how to do yet), it will run your battery down quickly. For those who have had iPhones for years, it's easy to forget an app is still running in the background.

 

[samcraig]

Well I never believe or believed marketing hype such as "don't worry about the phone."

Machines are not infallible. Neither is software. The very idea that one would believe that they can be "laissez faire" with the device is silly.

 

[Vertigo50]

Actually, it's not the oldest apps that are cleared from memory. Apps are cleared based on how much memory they take up in the background, from largest footprint to smallest.

Fair enough. I didn't know that difference. Good clarification.

 

[dagomike]

No - I'm not wondering at all why it's in the app bar. My point is that (and it seems to have been answered here) that because the app was "saved" in the "crashed" state, just relaunching didn't work. I had to delete it from the task bar. Then it worked.

And yes - sometimes one needed to restart the phone to "fix" an issue like this. However, in my personal experience (and only my personal experience) - just closing the app and restarting 90 percent of the time worked without a reset. Not so with having "multitasking"

Look - I'm not bashing the OS or anything - I'm merely communicating function or lack of function that I've experienced.

Quitting the app doesn't solve it? Whenever an app misbehaves, that seems to work for me.

 

[samcraig]

Quitting the app doesn't solve it? Whenever an app misbehaves, that seems to work for me.

I'm sincerely not trying to be rude - did you read my original post? Maybe it wasn't clear.. in either event - when I close the App (hitting the home button) and restart it - it's still hangs.

Only when I either restart my phone and/or clear it from the task bar will it reload / run correctly.

 

[a.jfred]

I'm not sure I buy the "the stuff sitting in the most-recently-used apps tray isn't using other resources, and is closed out" line. Why? My experience with the mail app.

I have notifications set to OFF. I have "fetch" set to MANUAL (meaning, it's not supposed to automatically go and download email from the server unless I tell it to). Yet some how, magically, it keeps going and grabbing email from the server despite the fact that I've "closed out" the app. Once I delete it from the "most recently used" tray, it stops grabbing emails.

 

[Vertigo50]

I'm not sure I buy the "the stuff sitting in the most-recently-used apps tray isn't using other resources, and is closed out" line. Why? My experience with the mail app.

I have notifications set to OFF. I have "fetch" set to MANUAL (meaning, it's not supposed to automatically go and download email from the server unless I tell it to). Yet some how, magically, it keeps going and grabbing email from the server despite the fact that I've "closed out" the app. Once I delete it from the "most recently used" tray, it stops grabbing emails.

Mail is an entirely different animal. It was running in the background on the original iPhone, long before multi-tasking was allowed by any other apps.

I agree, it's strange that it's doing that when set to manual, but you can't make an argument based on Mail running in the background, because it always has.

Also, apps that are running in the background or loaded in memory are also in the list. I never said the programs in the tray are NEVER running in the background, but if the apps are designed correctly, there is never any reason you should have to manually close them.

 

[samcraig]

Mail is an entirely different animal. It was running in the background on the original iPhone, long before multi-tasking was allowed by any other apps.

I agree, it's strange that it's doing that when set to manual, but you can't make an argument based on Mail running in the background, because it always has.

Also, apps that are running in the background or loaded in memory are also in the list. I never said the programs in the tray are NEVER running in the background, but if the apps are designed correctly, there is never any reason you should have to manually close them.

The OS has changed. It's apples and oranges. Just because the Mail App ran in the background in OS 3.0 doesn't mean it works the same exact way in 4.0 with Multitasking enabled.

Just saying - a does not equal b necessarily.