Complaints Mounting About iOS 13.2 Being 'More Aggressive at Killing Background Apps and Tasks'

[Populus]

If their focus is now on services, they should try to focus in pure stability on the software side, in order to make such experiences (services) more pleasurable and enjoyable. More focus on speed and performance (iOS 12), less in new features that break the operating system (iOS 11, 13).

That doesn't mean I don't appreciate new features, but they should release them in a slower pace in order to guarantee the stability of the system. Sierra and High Sierra are good examples of super stable releases with just a few new features.

 

[stylinexpat]

All Apple had to do is add 2 or 4GB more RAM but they make it seem like it costs $1000 to add 2Gb or 4GB or RAM more to what they currently offer at 4GB of RAM. 8GB of RAM should be the minimum for an iPad Pro carrying a price north of $1000 and upwards of $1700. With 4GB of Ram when smartphones 1/3 the size of an iPad Pro are coming with 8 and 12GB of RAM Apple has some catching up to do.

 

[cfurlin]

It’s seriously not hard to see that this fall’s OS releases have been a ****show, from the rapid-release sequence from iOS 13.0 to iOS 13.1.2 — by far the fastest in iOS’s history — to bricking HomePods, from memory management issues in iOS 13.2 to watchOS 6 initially not being available for Series 1 and 2. Need I go on? Seriously, this is a mess, it’s well beyond the “oh, they do this every year” trope at this point, and I don’t buy for one second that most of it wasn’t widely reported in beta. It’s inexcusable.

If it bothers you that much, then consider another OS. Why anyone would continue using a product they describe as a “mess” is beyond me.

If Apple’s products didn’t do what I expected them to do I’d stop using them. Simple as that. No whimpering. No outrage. No drama posting.

 

[b11051973]

This explains my issues with Overcast and Glympse. Been noticing that when I resume a podcast in Overcast, it starts from a part I already heard. Glympse is completely broken. It sits in the background telling people where I am. I go back to Glympse, and the app starts up, and the Glympse I sent out is dead.

 

[sbailey4]

I don’t like that Apple has public betas. Too many people install it just for the features instead of beta testing.

I think iOS has gotten worse because of public betas.

Even if that were the case how would that make it worse? Its still sending logging and diagnostics from a LOT of different configurations. How would more users running it and sending logs and feedback be a bad thing?

If no one updates, how will we find out about the bugs? Because Apple sure haven't been finding them, nor are the beta testers.

Clearly you have not been reading. This particular issue has been found and WAS reported repeatedly as soon as it started in earlier betas according to a ton of posters. What and when Apple chooses to address it is on them not the folks who are reporting these types of issues.

 

[M5RahuL]

YouTube is now useless on my iPad! The video starts/stops at will 🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬

 

[Ramchi]

Even if that were the case how would that make it worse? Its still sending logging and diagnostics from a LOT of different configurations. How would more users running it and sending logs and feedback be a bad thing?
Clearly you have not been reading. This particular issue has been found and WAS reported repeatedly as soon as it started in earlier betas according to a ton of posters. What and when Apple chooses to address it is on them not the folks who are reporting these types of issues.

As someone mentioned earlier, Apple had access to all sort of massive data! Probably, It just doesn’t know how to productively make use of them like Google does for testing, diagnosing, automating etc... probably, the privacy stuff is preventing a Apple to leapfrog in critical areas of software! Just closing its eyes and ears, shouting that they are privacy champions!!

 

[Radon87000]

Shocked this has still gone unpatched. Every app on my iPad is reloading. Fix this **** Apple.

 

[fairuz]

I don't think Apple can "sunset the language". Too many large scale apps are still written in ObjC.
The documentation (which I find not bad, don't really understand the beef there) is available in both languages.
I've avoided Swift so far primarily because it is still immature and evolving.
If you'd written your app in Swift v1,2,3 etc then you'll have had to re-write it with each new iteration.
That's the cons.
The pros are that Swift compiled code is faster which was my original point about iOS 13.
That's not a significant enough advantage for me to want port my largest app to Swift from ObjC.

You might hate it and prefer Obj C, or like me, not hate it but still prefer Obj C (I've been writing in C for 30 years) but it isn't really that much different from other modern programming languages.

You don't really have to rewrite, just apply some autofixes. Won't be as perfect as if you rewrote, but there's no significant difference. I started a project in Swift 1, which I severely regret because Xcode + Swift + Swift libraries were super broken back then, but updating code to every version afterwards was the one thing that went smoothly. Mainly they just kept changing how the map function works in every minor release for some reason.

 

[Stuart6]

Why does apple think 4GB RAM is adequate is beyond me. IOS is highly optimised and all in the past with what they have done with little RAM, but there will come a time when 4GB is just not enough.

 

[fairuz]

My biggest gripe with CarPlay is of course a little thing that has become a MAJOR annoyance. When I’m about to reach my destination sometimes I’ll go ahead and end the turn by turn .....in order to do that there’s this stupid delay between hitting the little arrow and when you can tap the giant END button. You always have to wait a second.

Do you not have to wait like 10 seconds for the CarPlay splash screen to go away when you plug the phone in? Dunno if it's just the car I use it with, but that alone is enough to make me use the aux instead.

 

[FlyingDutch]

I'm running 13.2 (17B84) on an 11 Pro and not seeing any of this buggy behavior.
And that is with 225 active Safari tabs, YouTube, Messages, Mail, Apple Music, News, Calendar and Settings all up and running. Everything appears to be working as expected (app switching is buttery smooth, picking up exactly where I left off).

Definitely a bug. Likely remedied in days. Hold tight.

No way you can have 225 active tabs on any smartphone.

btw, while I’m not experiencing the issue to the same extent some users are complaining here, there is a bug for sure in memory management, because with some apps the problem is definitely present (YouTube, camera and some websites).

 

[MBX]

Yeah so annoying. really bad now at background apps and tasks handling

 

[apolloa]

On my iPad Pro 9.7” if I have split view with say Safari and You Tube, every single time the device goes to sleep, when I wake it up it goes straight back to the homepage, and when I go back to the split view both apps reload!!...

that’s some God awful memory management there.. on the plus side at least split view seems to be working now to a fashion.. I was excited to see iPad OS and what it could offer, I have to say the endless obvious huge bugs in it have put me off currently, the OS was obviously rushed out the door in beta form still.
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The iOS 13 saga continues.
Was holding off on iOS 13, and just updated my iDevices to 13.1.3, and things seem to be fine.
Now I need to hold off on 13.2 then.

Come on Apple, you’re better than this. Stop putting too much of your attention to become the next Netflix. You’re slipping off your own core competencies.

Whilst this might be true, what was their excuse for the buggy mess that was ios 11? That was so bad it very nearly made me ditch Apple for good. I guess they were all too busy making their new HQ building then? To concentrate on what actually makes them money.

thankfully iOS 12 saved them, but now with iOS 13 Apple’s gone right back to square one.. if iOS 14 fixes all the bugs is this the pattern to be expected now from Apple? Break things then a year later fix them, then a year later break them and so on.. that’s not a very good business model.
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As someone mentioned earlier, Apple had access to all sort of massive data! Probably, It just doesn’t know how to productively make use of them like Google does for testing, diagnosing, automating etc... probably, the privacy stuff is preventing a Apple to leapfrog in critical areas of software! Just closing its eyes and ears, shouting that they are privacy champions!!

I think going by very recent facts, Apple isn’t too concerned with privacy, apart from making false advertising claims about it... if they collect all that data, then have third parties analysis it, but Apple doesn’t then know how to use it, they prove themselves to be incompetent and incapable, they have a lot more money then Google and ergo resources at the end of the day.

 

[apolloa]

Proof that after all these years, Apple still can't multitask. You'd think that with the amount of money they have, they could be more competent today. I'm more disappointed in them than I've ever been.

I think it’s just proof that after all these years Apple is one tight a** corporation that loves to sit on its billions rather then spend it on anything..

 

[Wando64]

Why does apple think 4GB RAM is adequate is beyond me. IOS is highly optimised and all in the past with what they have done with little RAM, but there will come a time when 4GB is just not enough.

I have half that amount on my iPad and everything works fine.
This is clearly something introduced by 13.2 which I have not installed yet.

Just stop blaming lack of Ram for bad OS design.
I mean, you could easily run MacOS with 4gb of RAM. Don’t tell me that it is not enough to keep an app open in the background.

 

[apolloa]

So because so many people are accusing people who have problems of making them up, or having some idiotic “hatred” of Apple, and we know that more ram would only help, I ran a test. I have most of my old iPhones still, never sold them, my iPhone 7+ is on 13.2 along with my 11 pro max. I closed all apps and then opened about 20 on each phone, same exact apps, including mail, YouTube, Instagram, Safari, etc. I opened and closed all of them, then went through all apps again and again. The iPhone 7+ kept all apps open exactly in the same spot, no reloading or anything, kept Instagram and YouTube right where I left off. The iPhone pro however had to reload a few apps, not all, just a few. Now here’s where the iPhone pro failed miserably, I opened the camera app on both phones, took one picture, closed the camera app, and then swiped through my open apps to the beginning. On the 7 every app was open where I left off, not one app had to reload, not so on the 11 pro, it kept a few apps open, that’s it, Instagram, Safari, Mail, and YouTube all lost their places and had to reload the app from scratch. So the fanboys here couldn’t be more wrong, as usual.

I also take issue with people claiming this is a 13.2 bug as this happened on every iteration of iOS 13. I think more people have noticed it now because of this article. I don’t have iOS 13 installed on my other phones so I haven’t been able to test them, but you’d think the new iPhone 11 “pro” could multitask better than a 3 year old iPhone 7.

I do hope there’s something Apple can do in an update to improve this, but it will take a hell of a lot of evidence to convince me this isn’t a hardware issue in the new phones. Sticking with 4gb of ram is clearly not enough for the latest phones and it seems to Be affected the most when you take a picture, maybe something to do with the 3 camera system and all the voodoo going on with them. This phone should have had 6gb of ram at minimum, Apple screwed the pooch on this one.

Thank you for this post, I’ll say this though, your iPhone 7 has 3D Touch, your Pro Max does not... and the major new feature Apple has introduced in iOS 13.. Haptic Touch. Now I have had that on my iPhone XR and iOS 12, and some apps would reload now and then. But nothing like under iOS 13, I also have my iPhone 6S still and again it has 3D Touch, and it doesn’t reload anything either..
Seems like a possible link to me? IMO they should have kept 3D Touch as it worked a damn site better.
More ram is not the issue, Apples coding is or it’s new features are.

 

[Stuart6]

I have half that amount on my iPad and everything works fine.
This is clearly something introduced by 13.2 which I have not installed yet.

Just stop blaming lack of Ram for bad OS design.
I mean, you could easily run MacOS with 4gb of RAM. Don’t tell me that it is not enough to keep an app open in the background.

When did I ever said it could not keep an app open? It is NOT enough to keep many apps open, not 1 app, apologist. What apple has done with little RAM is nice, but more would always be better. You do realise that Mac and iphones use different RAM set-ups right? Mac doesn't use low power DDR RAM.

 

[MartyvH]

Yeah, iOS 13 is still practically in beta. 12.4.1 is doing fine here on iPhone XS and SE.

 

[Daryl98]

I have half that amount on my iPad and everything works fine.
This is clearly something introduced by 13.2 which I have not installed yet.

Just stop blaming lack of Ram for bad OS design.
I mean, you could easily run MacOS with 4gb of RAM. Don’t tell me that it is not enough to keep an app open in the background.

Are you one of those people who settles for mediocrity and don't demand better from companies. Why settle for 2-4 GB RAM when you can have more? I have noticed RAM management issues since IOS 11, and it had stayed that way since IOS 12, and it got worse recently, so this has clearly been an issue of needing more RAM if it had been prevalent for 2 years. Apple can optimise their OS all they want, but more RAM is needed, especially when they are introducing more cameras that are calibrated to match each other and more features like deep fusion. It's common sense that the OS gets heavier. I have the 6GM RAM ipad pro model, and it kept more apps open on IOS 13.2, so 6GB RAM should be the sweet spot, not 4GB. Enjoy your MacOS then, and stop telling us that we don't need more RAM. You don't make any sense at all.

 

[oldmacs]

I have half that amount on my iPad and everything works fine.
This is clearly something introduced by 13.2 which I have not installed yet.

Just stop blaming lack of Ram for bad OS design.
I mean, you could easily run MacOS with 4gb of RAM. Don’t tell me that it is not enough to keep an app open in the background.

MacOS and iOS are different. MacOS uses virtual memory and thus things don't reload, iOS on the other hand doesn't which means once the 4GB is full, then thats it - reload time, and it seems iOS 13 has some sort of memory leak issue, which means the 4GB must fill up super fast thus why it can't keep things opened.

 

[apolloa]

Are you one of those people who settles for mediocrity and don't demand better from companies. Why settle for 2-4 GB RAM when you can have more? I have noticed RAM management issues since IOS 11, and it had stayed that way since IOS 12, and it got worse recently, so this has clearly been an issue of needing more RAM if it had been prevalent for 2 years. Apple can optimise their OS all they want, but more RAM is needed, especially when they are introducing more cameras that are calibrated to match each other and more features like deep fusion. It's common sense that the OS gets heavier. I have the 6GM RAM ipad pro model, and it kept more apps open on IOS 13.2, so 6GB RAM should be the sweet spot, not 4GB. Enjoy your MacOS then, and stop telling us that we don't need more RAM. You don't make any sense at all.

Perhaps because this is Apple, and when ever it gives you ‘more’ it invariably also costs a ‘lot more’.....

You don’t need more RAM for the sake of more RAM to cover up Apples inability to programme an OS properly or put themselves under such stupid timelines they are happy to ship half baked unfinished products. Least so when the last version from LAST YEAR worked perfectly fine!

 

[MBX]

Never had this memory or background apps closing issue before 13.2 in iPadOS.

It was perfect before and now it‘s bad.

Hopefully this is just a bug (not a feature) and Apple will fix it asap.

 

[recoil80]

It has to be related to background activities. I tried with one of my apps that doesn't need to fetch data or perform any operations while in background and it didn't get killed for hours, while other apps like Instagram were purged from memory. Hopefully they'll release a fix soon, as the behaviour is quite annoying

 

[atmuwben]

Where’s the non-retro toggle in settings so my phone stops acting like an iPhone 3G?