Kill Apps on the multitasking doc

[maflynn]

I'll kill an app from time to time, but for iOs there's limited benefit. Because iOS doesn't have full multitasking but rather just a handful of APIs, you'll not notice a difference if you do kill off an app.

Even in android where it had full multitasking. The consensus is that you don't kill off apps because the OS can manage the apps in a way that it doesn't affect battery life

I'd not worry too much about killing an app unless its misbehaving

 

[dccorona]

I constantly killed everything for the first month, because I was being OCD and wanted nothing but the phone,messages,mail in my multitask bar. Then I got lazy and stopped, and the phone still worked fine.

I switch between an iPhone 4 and an HTC surround...never turn off the iPhone when it isn't being used, but when it sits dormant for a while, I notice it needs to be restarted to run smoothly. Not sure what the cause of that is though

 

[iceterminal]

I was under the impression that restarting the iPhone would kill off any apps that were running/in the task switcher.

However, after restarting my iphone like 4 different time it always comes back up and all the apps are still in the task switcher.

Is this normal? I always thought a restart would kill off those apps.

 

[ssdeg7]

Closing them will not help battery. Closing them does nothing but free up memory and forces the app to take longer to open next time you need it. It's really a waste of time to close apps.

I agree it should work this way, but really if it were like that then why doesn't the iPhone just keep apps running all of the time and close those which haven't been used in a long time so it reopens fast?

I've noticed that when I don't close apps the battery reduces drastically, like when using Meebo for chatting, some apps keep some processes on the background all of the time.

Yes I know this is not multitasking but fast app switch but I think it doesn't work like publicized.

 

[grapes911]

I agree it should work this way, but really if it were like that then why doesn't the iPhone just keep apps running all of the time and close those which haven't been used in a long time so it reopens fast?

If the apps ran all the time, the battery would drain fast. By saving their state in memory, they do not.

 

[saberahul]

I kill those [apps], which demolish my RAM.

Oh, Pandora
Here art thou?
Thy am alone
Shower thy sound
Oh, Pandora
But [you] cannot
Thy commith blood [murder]
For thy apps, sin [the] memory
Oh Pandora,
Shower thy sound

 

[ssdeg7]

If the apps ran all the time, the battery would drain fast. By saving their state in memory, they do not.

Why not save their state in memory always then?

 

[grapes911]

Why not save their state in memory always then?

For the most part, iOS does save the apps state in memory when you exit out of it. The only time this isn't true is when the developer doesn't compile the app with the API to support it. In that case, iOS just closes the application.

 

[sim667]

The only app ive got which needs the ram clearing before use is djay on the ipad. I just restart it quickly.

 

[profets]

Remember the Q&A after the iOS4 preview last year

Q: How do you close applications when multitasking?
A: (Scott Forstall) You don't have to. The user just uses things and doesn't ever have to worry about it.
A: (Steve Jobs) It's like we said on the iPad, if you see a stylus, they blew it. In multitasking, if you see a task manager... they blew it. Users shouldn't ever have to think about it.

I never never worry about "closing" apps. 0 effect on battery its had for me. Actually the iPhone 4 is already excellent with the amount of RAM it has and how well the battery lasts. Even while 'multitasking' with streaming music and using gps navigation for a few hours I notice the battery doesn't drain much.

 

[Phil A.]

I was under the impression that restarting the iPhone would kill off any apps that were running/in the task switcher.

However, after restarting my iphone like 4 different time it always comes back up and all the apps are still in the task switcher.

Is this normal? I always thought a restart would kill off those apps.

Yes, it's perfectly normal because it's just a list of recently opened apps - it's a mistake to think of it as a multi-tasking bar: Apps in there could be in one of three states:
1) Actively multi-tasking (e.g. Pandora, Spotify, Tom-Tom)
2) Suspended but using system memory (most apps)
3) Completely unloaded from memory but recently used

There's no way to tell which app is in which state

 

[nitekram]

Question: are they ever going to create an application (without jailbreaking) that will close all open applications - rather than clicking the minus sign for each of the applications?