Double press home button - close all

[Piggie]

Hmm....I feel a little bit left out, here.

For some strange reason, I can't get it out of my head that any app in that Tray is "running" in one way or another, and taking just a bit of my precious RAM or CPU. For this reason, every time I close out of an App, unless I am specifically planning on going right back to it, I always close them in my tray. I rarely have more than 2 or 3 apps in the tray, and it never gets over 5.

I realize it doesn't actually matter, but I guess it's just the same way I use a computer. If I am not using a program, I always close it (<cmd> + Q) because I don't like the idea of it running when not being used.

I guess I'm alone in this thought process?

I'm not sure how a Mac works, On a PC of course, which like a Mac, and even going back as far as the good old Amiga, does really multitask, on a PC I may run Photoshop and Chrome and other programs and minimise them down to the taskbar as I want to use them later, but they are still there taking up memory, but not really talking up and CPU power as they are just sitting waiting for me. Of course, they could be running like Handbrake, and taking up my CPU power in the background.

Like you on your Mac, I close down programs I'm not going to want to run for a while as there's no point in leaving them running and using system resources. As I have 8GB of memory, or course, I can be less worried about this

 

[Runt888]

I don't think this is entirely true. Certain apps - possibly ones which don't "multitask" properly? - launch differently depending if they're on the "tray" or not. Example - some apps resume where they left off when you launch them from the tray. But if you delete them from the tray and launch them from the home screen they will start from the splash screen rather than resuming. So there is a difference (sometimes) .

I see now that the way I worded my response was confusing - what I intended to say is that it doesn't matter if you select the app from the tray or from the home screen, it does the same thing, assuming the app is in the tray.

If the app isn't in the tray (either it's never been run before or it's been manually removed), then it can't take advantage of the fast app switching features of iOS.

 

[blackNBUK]

I agree. After one or two swipes, it's pointless scanning through a practically random sequence of icons.

Makes you wonder what they were thinking? Unless it's going to be developed in future such that it does have a practical use? Not sure what that would be, though.

I wouldn't call the list pointless, I find it useful for swapping back and forth between a few Apps. For example if I get sent a link in an email, I can look at it and then use the "Recently Used" list to quickly get back to my email. However I agree that after a couple of pages the list stops being useful. I think that this is simply these are Apps I used a while ago and knowing what order I used them in is simply not useful. Personally I would simply limit the list to the first two pages.

I think that Apple haven't really helped matters by confusing the "Recently Used" list with multitasking. A "Recently Used" list would have been useful back in the iOS3 days before multitasking was introduced. However Apple choose to conflate this concept with multitasking and now people expect the "bar" to do things it was never intended to do.

I don't think this is entirely true. Certain apps - possibly ones which don't "multitask" properly? - launch differently depending if they're on the "tray" or not. Example - some apps resume where they left off when you launch them from the tray. But if you delete them from the tray and launch them from the home screen they will start from the splash screen rather than resuming. So there is a difference (sometimes) .

I think your getting confused by the combination of "Recently Used" and multitasking. Removing an App from the "tray" does two things; it removes the App from the list of recently used Apps and it unloads the App if the App is suspended. These are two vaguely related concepts that Apple have choose to combine into one operation. Whether you see a splash screen or not should be solely dependant on whether the App was suspended in memory before you selected it; whether you use the home page or the "tray" should have no effect.

 

[Runt888]

Indeed it is. As many have said, Apples core stuff like the OS, the music playback, notifications ect are multitasking, no-one questions that.

What's incorrect though is Apple saying the Task Freezing and the app saving it's state so that when it's next run it can restore itself, hopefully, at the point it was when you left it, is multitasking, when it obviously is not.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_multitasking

3rd party apps on the "Multitasking which isn't - Bar" are not running, they are just a history of what you have been using for quick future selection.

It just seems very naughty and blatantly wrong that Apple try and mislead the non technical customers that's this is actually multitasking.

Apple isn't misleading customers - iOS provides "real" multitasking in every definition of the word. It's just limited to certain types of apps that actually make sense have running in the background. For the majority of apps, it doesn't make sense to have them running in the background, since you can only be viewing one app at a time. For these types of apps, it's preferable to have the app stop running until the user decides to go back to it.

But you're missing the point - customers don't need to and shouldn't care what type of multitasking paradigm is being used.

 

[ZilogZ80]

I think your getting confused by the combination of "Recently Used" and multitasking. Removing an App from the "tray" does two things; it removes the App from the list of recently used Apps and it unloads the App if the App is suspended. These are two vaguely related concepts that Apple have choose to combine into one operation. Whether you see a splash screen or not should be solely dependant on whether the App was suspended in memory before you selected it; whether you use the home page or the "tray" should have no effect.

Yes, perhaps. I see why Apple have combined these concepts - they want to remove distinction between loaded/unloaded apps. I think it would be better though if the tray limited the number of apps that it held.

 

[darngooddesign]

3rd party apps on the "Multitasking which isn't - Bar" are not running, they are just a history of what you have been using for quick future selection.

It just seems very naughty and blatantly wrong that Apple try and mislead the non technical customers that's this is actually multitasking.

What exactly would full multitasking give you that is missing in iOS? Use Pandora as an example, how would running the entire app in the background enhance the experience that only running the audio playback portion doesn't?

I know its not full multitasking, but in this implementation, its good enough for me. Why isn't it for you?

 

[Piggie]

Just to make my position clear as I think I'm not being understood.

3rd party Apps do not live in a multitasking environment as it's defined in normal computing terms. A move should still be playing when I'm typing a letter, or I'm browsing the web and a game is still animating.

That's what multitasking should be, and what PC's and Mac's do.

However, just to make myself clear. I don't need that on the iPad. I'm not saying I have a problem with the task freezing as it works fine. It's just calling it multitasking that's wrong.

I'm generally happy with what it does, just call it what it is.

However, this is only the case as it runs everything full screen, start to run things in windows on the desktop, perhaps in the future and that will open up a whole new can of worms.

One thing I'm not sure about, IM programs, Do these multitask? as they should.

I should be able to have something like MSN running, and a popup window comes up over say a safari window, so I can answer someone back and then carry on browsing.
As far as I'm aware the apps I have I either have to run and chat, or quit and they don't work.

 

[blackberrypilot]

I sometimes close apps in the tray manually as well.... I just can't get the idea them using memory in some kind of way.

 

[dejo]

3rd party Apps do not live in a multitasking environment as it's defined in normal computing terms.

So, you've gone from "all understandings of the term" to "normal computing terms" as your criteria. Thanks for qualifying that.

 

[Piggie]

So, you've gone from "all understandings of the term" to "normal computing terms" as your criteria. Thanks for qualifying that.

You know what I mean full well

The processor is supposed to jump from app to app to app to app, doing a little bit to each app as it goes, but very quickly, so the human eye, it appears that they are all running, "multitasking" at the same time.

Mind you, now we have multiple core CPU's I guess we can really REALLY have multitasking when one core deals with some things and another core deals with other things.

Whichever way you want to paint it. Saving a programs state and freezing it, ain't, by any stretch of the imagination multitasking!

 

[dejo]

Whichever way you want to paint it. Saving a programs state and freezing it, ain't, by any stretch of the imagination multitasking!

Based on the specific definition that you are espousing. But it is multitasking based on a different (shall we say: imagination-stretching?) definition. And really, IMHO, the average user doesn't care, as long as it works. (Case in point: https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/11783207/)

 

[Consultant]

Hear, hear. That single mechanical point of failure has always worried me.

Hopefully, they'll quickly figure out how to make the four/five fingered "Home" gesture work, rendering the button obsolete.

2007 iPhone still work great for many people. The home button must be a point of failure.

 

[Zcott]

I don't get what all the fuss is about here. I home-button out of an app, then load it again and it's just like the way it was. Who cares if that's not multitasking? It does what I need it to do.