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Multitasking and Re-Arranging Icons

C

Crazysah

macrumors member
Original poster
Hello,

How do I check what apps are open and running in the background?
Also, how do I move icons from one page to the other? And how do I create folders and throw them in their. Like I've seen utilities folder and all before.

Thanks,
Crazysah
 
- Double click the home button, then hold on an app icon to bring up the delete buttons to clear an app from memory.

- Hold on an app to go into edit mode where all the apps are wiggling. Drag it to the side of the screen to move it between pages, and drag it on top of another app to create a folder. This can be a little touchy since if you dont do it right the other app will just move out of the way.

App icon management is still pretty poor right now, Apple needs to implement the things that jailbreakers have done to make it far easier.
 
Crazysah said:
Hello,

How do I check what apps are open and running in the background?
Also, how do I move icons from one page to the other? And how do I create folders and throw them in their. Like I've seen utilities folder and all before.

Thanks,
Crazysah
Click to expand...

Running apps - press the home button (button with square in) twice in quick succession. That will show you apps running. To close one press and hold an icon of something that's running until they all jiggle around. You'll notice little X's appear by all the icons now. Tap the X by the app you want to close.

Move icons - tap and hold an app icon until they all jiggle (edit mode) now tap, hold and drag an icon to the far right or far left of the menu page depending which way you want I move it. One it's at the far end of a page the whole page will flick over whole your still dragging your icon. Now just let go to set the app in that location.

Folders - tap and hold an app icon until they all jiggle (edit mode) now tap an app icon and drag it ontop of another app. Whoila, a folder is created. You can change its name in that window also.

🙂

----------
DS3 said:
- Double click the home button, then hold on an app icon to bring up the delete buttons to clear an app from memory.

- Hold on an app to go into edit mode where all the apps are wiggling. Drag it to the side of the screen to move it between pages, and drag it on top of another app to create a folder. This can be a little touchy since if you dont do it right the other app will just move out of the way.

App icon management is still pretty poor right now, Apple needs to implement the things that jailbreakers have done to make it far easier.
Click to expand...

Beat me to it 😉
 
Since iOS 5.1 you can "swipe up" with 4 fingers to show the task-switcher (and then as other posts say hold any icon to bring up x-to-close). I far prefer this method than using the home button as it doesnt require me to remember which way up the iPad is 🙂

Incidentally you can swipe-right to scroll through each running app...
 
Last edited:
shellbryson said:
Since iOS 5.1 you can "swipe up" with 4 fingers to show the task-switcher (and then as other posts say hold any icon to bring up x-to-close). I far prefer this method than using the home button as it doesnt require me to rember which way up the iPad is 🙂

Incidentally you can swipe-right to scroll through each running app...
Click to expand...

Forgot about that. Good shout.
 
shellbryson said:
While technically true in some respects, from a "user" point if view it is a multitasking environment, and apps "run" in the background.
Click to expand...

I guess so. There's just no reason to close apps out of memory. It doesn't use any processing power when it's not the active app.
 
JBaker122586 said:
There is no such thing as apps running in the background on the iPad, therefore there is no way to check it.
Click to expand...

Yes there is, they don't actively run but many do use up RAM to store its state which will slow things Down and cause crashes if you have too many doing so. Define run however you want but there is a purpose to closing them out.

I think there are a handful of apps that do fully run in the background too. I downloaded a timer app yesterday that said it continues in the background... in some capacity at least.
 
The task switch does not show just the apps running in the background. Jailbreaking is the only way. My iPhone has a tweak so it will only show the apps actively running in the background.

One thing I have noticed is when inside of an app if you use 4 fingers to swipe left or right it appears to only slow the apps currently running in the background.
 
DS3 said:
Yes there is, they don't actively run but many do use up RAM to store its state which will slow things Down and cause crashes if you have too many doing so.

I think there are a handful of apps that do fully run in the background too.
Click to expand...

Nope and nope.
When the system needs more memory it will clear out apps stored in memory.
 
DS3 said:
So why on earth do high memory apps like art rage give you memory warnings that tell you to close apps to improve performance?
Click to expand...

Sounds like its just a poorly programmed app. I've never heard of such a thing. It's certainly not a standard Apple API.
 
shellbryson said:
Since iOS 5.1 you can "swipe up" with 4 fingers to show the task-switcher (and then as other posts say hold any icon to bring up x-to-close). I far prefer this method than using the home button as it doesnt require me to remember which way up the iPad is 🙂

Incidentally you can swipe-right to scroll through each running app...
Click to expand...

*Since 5.0

Also, 5-finger pinch closes the current app (like pressing the home button) 🙂
 
shellbryson said:
Since iOS 5.1 you can "swipe up" with 4 fingers to show the task-switcher (and then as other posts say hold any icon to bring up x-to-close). I far prefer this method than using the home button as it doesnt require me to remember which way up the iPad is 🙂

Incidentally you can swipe-right to scroll through each running app...
Click to expand...

Note: You need to enable this functionality in Settings>General>Multitasking gestures.
 
JBaker122586 said:
Sounds like its just a poorly programmed app. I've never heard of such a thing. It's certainly not a standard Apple API.
Click to expand...

I've run into it on my ipad2. Looking at the Diagnostics and useage stats I see lots of low memory and 'jettisoned' apps. It was causing many, many crashes. It only started with 5.0. It was to the point that i couldn't even use Safari. It would crash costantly. 5.1 brought some improvements though. There are a bunch of threads around about it. The problem was the OS 'jettisoned' the apps but crashed anyway. Looked to me like it just wasn't releasing the memory.

That's the main reason I bought the new iPad. The ram upgrade is most welcome.
 
donnaw said:
I've run into it on my ipad2. Looking at the Diagnostics and useage stats I see lots of low memory and 'jettisoned' apps. It was causing many, many crashes. It only started with 5.0. It was to the point that i couldn't even use Safari. It would crash costantly. 5.1 brought some improvements though. There are a bunch of threads around about it. The problem was the OS 'jettisoned' the apps but crashed anyway. Looked to me like it just wasn't releasing the memory.

That's the main reason I bought the new iPad. The ram upgrade is most welcome.
Click to expand...

There were definitely memory-related issues on 5.0.
Rendered the original iPad almost unusable. But there wasn't really anything you could do to make it run better.
 
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