iPad Background app refresh

[Samtb]

What does this actually do? I tried it with a few apps for a few days then tried it without for a few days and saw no difference in practical use.

 

[FatPuppy]

What does this actually do? I tried it with a few apps for a few days then tried it without for a few days and saw no difference in practical use.

I am gonna give you a simple example: the yahoo sports app has live updates regarding the scores and other stuff. Say that you watch a football game and it's 2-1. If you close the app and you have background app turned on, it will update the score even when you are not using the app. If you disable this feature, if you exit that app and come back after a while, the score will update only when you are in that app.

 

[Samtb]

I am gonna give you a simple example: the yahoo sports app has live updates regarding the scores and other stuff. Say that you watch a football game and it's 2-1. If you close the app and you have background app turned on, it will update the score even when you are not using the app. If you disable this feature, if you exit that app and come back after a while, the score will update only when you are in that app.

So it makes a difference in apps like sports apps where every second counts.

 

[FatPuppy]

So it makes a difference in apps like sports apps where every second counts.

Yeah, weather apps, facebook, twitter, basically every app that needs an internet connection

 

[laudern]

I personally don't use it. How hard is it to pull down on the apps screen to refresh?

But if the iPad didn't run on a battery constantly, I'd surely use it.

 

[Samtb]

I personally don't use it. How hard is it to pull down on the apps screen to refresh?

But if the iPad didn't run on a battery constantly, I'd surely use it.

I thought they update anyway when you reopen them.

 

[laudern]

I thought they update anyway when you reopen them.

Well yeah most of them do. Even less reason for background refresh.

 

[ron7624]

What does this actually do? I tried it with a few apps for a few days then tried it without for a few days and saw no difference in practical use.

I see no practical reason either. When you open an app, it refreshes anyway as far as I can tell. Maybe it would work in conjunction with notifications but I haven't noticed. I have it turned off on my iPad Air but on on my iPad rMini. I don't see any difference.

 

[Abazigal]

I personally don't use it. How hard is it to pull down on the apps screen to refresh?

But if the iPad didn't run on a battery constantly, I'd surely use it.

It usually means that the app will have the data loaded for you when you open the app, rather than have to wait those few seconds for it to pull in the data.

I agree that the benefit seems quite minimal. The only time it was handy was when I entered a place with no signal coverage. I opened tweetbot, and there were a few tweets that had been pre-downloaded a while back, so I was able to read those.

I haven't really noticed a significant battery drain, so I enable it for some of the apps i use more frequently. It does give the impression that your device is running slightly more snappy than it otherwise is though.