how important is closing apps?

[ThereGoesJB]

its easy to ignore apps that are 'running' in the background but how much are they actually running? will this seriously affect battery a lot? i tend to only think of it once every few days.

 

[xav8tor]

its easy to ignore apps that are 'running' in the background but how much are they actually running? will this seriously affect battery a lot? i tend to only think of it once every few days.

I think it is pretty darn important, but of course, it depends on the app (location services etc.). My wife is really bad about leaving apps open, and every time she complains about battery life, I look and find 15 or 20 open apps. I close them and she doesn't complain again until she leaves another dozen or more running in the background. Personally, once a day, when I'm done using the phone I close everything I don't need running and I have never had a battery issue, even with the 4S.

 

[szolr]

I close apps whenever I'm finished with them for the next 10 minutes really. So I don't recall ever having more than 4 apps open at once I believe.

 

[urkel]

I close apps because despite people claiming open apps doesn't affect battery, it sure seems like they do.

Anywa, I think iOS is really missing a Kill ALL switch in the notification slide or even a quicker way to shut an app immediately after use because the process of killing apps individually is annoying.

 

[APlotdevice]

The apps themselves are not actually running in the background. When you switch to another app or go to the home screen the app you were previously running enters a suspended state. This means its is still in memory, but it's not using the processor. It will remain this way until you either reopen it or iOS automatically closes it to free up memory as necessary. Note that the app's icon will remain in the multitasking bar even after the operating system has closed it.

Now while apps do not run, iOS does have a number of services built-in that allow an app to continue certain tasks while in the background. "Closing" the app will discontinue these services.

 

[Small White Car]

There's no reason to regularly close apps manually. Anyone who does so was mislead by a friend sometime in the past.

 

[jmcrutch]

I remember when app switching was first release Apple said that they weren't using any processor power in the background. Yet, when I went to the Genius Bar at my local Apple Store several months ago to complain about a home button on my iPhone 4 that wasn't working properly, the first thing the Genius did was check to see how many Apps I had open. He closed them all and told me that the issue with my home button was actually lag caused by having too many apps running.

I said that I didn't think apps actually "ran" in the background and he gave me some answer that didn't satisfy me. Regardless, I found it odd that an Apple Genius was suggesting closing apps when the original presentation given by Apple HQ said you didn't have to worry about it.

 

[applefan289]

Sorry if I sound like an idiot, but how exactly do you "close" an app? I didn't know this was possible! I usually just go to the home screen when I'm done.

 

[Almy]

When the multi task dock is up press and hold an icon til they wiggle, like when moving icons on the homescreen.

 

[LIVEFRMNYC]

First thing I do when an app starts to act buggy or become unresponsive is close the specific app or all apps. This solves the problem 99.9% of the time. Cause of this I never had any reason to reboot.

 

[applefan289]

When the multi task dock is up press and hold an icon til they wiggle, like when moving icons on the homescreen.

First I hear of this! I'm never doing it though because it takes the fun out of iOS. I definitely like closing apps I don't use in Lion though.