Do apps always go into the multitask area every time now?

[Piggie]

After last nights update.

Every time I quit an app it goes into the new multi task bar.

For some reason I had assumed you had to to something special to put an app in there you wished to come back to in a minute.

But it seems that every app I run, and then close (by pressing home) goes in there.

So I have a long line of icons left in there that I don't need or wish to go back to rather than just the ones I do want.

Is this normal, or am I doing something wrong?

 

[Mitchrapp]

Normal.

 

[Aduntu]

After last nights update.

Every time I quit an app it goes into the new multi task bar.

For some reason I had assumed you had to to something special to put an app in there you wished to come back to in a minute.

But it seems that every app I run, and then close (by pressing home) goes in there.

So I have a long line of icons left in there that I don't need or wish to go back to rather than just the ones I do want.

Is this normal, or am I doing something wrong?

Imagine that area as more of a "recently opened" section. Launching an app from the multitasking bar does the same thing as launching it from its normal location. Apps have to be updated to support background services or fast app switching to actually benefit from "multitasking."

 

[lelisa13p]

If you don't want to leave an app running in the multi-task area, hold your finger on it until the icons shake and then touch the minus sign of the one/ones that you want to remove. Press the Home button to return icons to normal use.

 

[blackNBUK]

I think that now would be a sensible time to link to an earlier post that I made

The "tl;dr" version is that iOS multitasking is automatic in the sense that the user does not have to manually close Apps after they are finished using them. As most Apps are paused and not running when in the background this shouldn't effect the battery life. When iOS needs memory for other things it will close old Apps for you.

It is possible to override this system by pressing and holding on an icon in the tray and then selecting the red stop signs for the Apps you want to quit. However so far I've not seen much reason to do this as iOS seems to do a good enough job by itself. The one exception is that it feels like it prefers to keep Apps around instead of keeping web pages in memory. I keep meaning to try out iCab seriously to see whether it works better for me.

 

[Riemann Zeta]

It would be beneficial if Apple provided some sort of visual cue of apps that are currently "background suspended." Right now, the multi-app launch bar mainly serves as a list of the last n apps run. Yet Apple seems to be going in the opposite direction, as they have removed visual indications of which Applications are running from the dock in OS 10.7 as well. I guess they really don't want people to be able to tell what is currently going on with their machine.

 

[Zcott]

It would be beneficial if Apple provided some sort of visual cue of apps that are currently "background suspended." Right now, the multi-app launch bar mainly serves as a list of the last n apps run. Yet Apple seems to be going in the opposite direction, as they have removed visual indications of which Applications are running from the dock in OS 10.7 as well. I guess they really don't want people to be able to tell what is currently going on with their machine.

For power users, this would be a great idea. But for the average daily user, does it really matter? Even when an app is closed, if it's been well written it'll still remember the state it was in when it had to be closed to free up memory. Apple are moving in a direction where they're taking away unnecessary computing "stuff" like complete control over the file system, and so far it's working well for them.

 

[ngenerator]

Hahaha, yes. This is normal (and stupid) multitasking behavior from Apple. Enjoy 4.2!

 

[kdarling]

It is possible to override this system by pressing and holding on an icon in the tray and then selecting the red stop signs for the Apps you want to quit. However so far I've not seen much reason to do this as iOS seems to do a good enough job by itself. The one exception is that it feels like it prefers to keep Apps around instead of keeping web pages in memory. I keep meaning to try out iCab seriously to see whether it works better for me.

Correct, in theory there should never be a need to close out an app using the recently-used-apps bar.

However, it's handy in case you need to kill a rogue app still using GPS, or not updating, etc because it was not written for 4.0.

To paraphrase a famous salesman, "If people realize it's a task manager, you blew it."