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iPod touch Quitting Apps in IOS

A

Absolute-Zero

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 16, 2010
23
0
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

Is there any point or advantage in quitting apps in IOS? You know when you double click the home button. Does it save battery or something? Kind of like quitting apps in OS X.
 
Apple... said:
Frees up RAM, conserves battery life. I kill my apps constantly.
Click to expand...

It does neither of these things because none of those apps are running unless they fall under a very limited scope of purposes.
 
Apple... said:
Really? Then why does my system slow down when I have more apps running?
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System? Are you talking about iOS or OSX?

iOS doesn't have "true" multitasking (with very few specific exceptions), instead it basically puts apps on pause (these are layman's terms by the way) until they are launched again.
 
NT1440 said:
System? Are you talking about iOS or OSX?

iOS doesn't have "true" multitasking (with very few specific exceptions), instead it basically puts apps on pause (these are layman's terms by the way) until they are launched again.
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iOS - sorry. I know it doesn't have "real" multitasking (only WebOS does ;)), but that doesn't mean RAM or battery life doesn't get used up. To a certain degree, it's still multitasking.
 
Apple... said:
iOS - sorry. I know it doesn't have "real" multitasking (only WebOS does ;)), but that doesn't mean RAM or battery life doesn't get used up. To a certain degree, it's still multitasking.
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The apps aren't running, so if the OS needs more RAM, it will dump one of the "backgrounding" apps. There is literally no draw on the battery because the app simply isn't running, with the exception of apps that are finishing a task, or VOIP or music streaming/playing apps.
 
im sorry, but what is TRUE multitasking? is it like have more than one window open?
 
Last edited:
Blakeco123 said:
im sorry, but what is TRUE multitasking? is it like have more than one window open?
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Its the name people here have assigned to a system capable of running more than one app at a time and have it actually running in the background. Very few mobile OS's currently do this because of battery and cpu limitations.
 
NT1440 said:
The apps aren't running, so if the OS needs more RAM, it will dump one of the "backgrounding" apps. There is literally no draw on the battery because the app simply isn't running, with the exception of apps that are finishing a task, or VOIP or music streaming/playing apps.
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I realize that. Still...

NT1440 said:
Its the name people here have assigned to a system capable of running more than one app at a time and have it actually running in the background. Very few mobile OS's currently do this because of battery and cpu limitations.
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Palm/ HP's WebOS is a perfect example of what you'd call "true" multitasking.
 
Apple... said:
I realize that. Still...


Palm/ HP's WebOS is a perfect example of what you'd call "true" multitasking.
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Yup, but even that system has a few limitations on it.

As for the "Still...", still what?
 
TuffLuffJimmy said:
Because the applications still live in the RAM until that RAM is needed at which point the OS will clear out any RAM it has to in order to make room for the current application. This uses little to no battery life.
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Okay. Maybe I'm just being stupid tonight (it's quite late where I am), but I feel like I made this thread longer than what it should've been. Sorry - and thanks!
 
I can attest to the fact that the "backgrounded" apps do use at least some memory to hold their save state and launch quickly. I have experienced lag coming from the OS with many apps "backgrounded" on the iPad. Opening the task bar and manually quitting them remedied the issue. Coincidence, I don't think so... but maybe.

Now, the fact that the iPad has half the RAM that the iPhone 4 does may be why this happened, as I have never experienced this on my iPhone. But I can't imagine that the iPad version of the OS wouldn't know to make up for the hardware difference.
 
thegman1234 said:
I can attest to the fact that the "backgrounded" apps do use at least some memory to hold their save state and launch quickly. I have experienced lag coming from the OS with many apps "backgrounded" on the iPad. Opening the task bar and manually quitting them remedied the issue. Coincidence, I don't think so... but maybe.

Now, the fact that the iPad has half the RAM that the iPhone 4 does may be why this happened, as I have never experienced this on my iPhone. But I can't imagine that the iPad version of the OS wouldn't know to make up for the hardware difference.
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Exactly what I was trying to explain!
 
Apple... said:
Exactly what I was trying to explain!
Click to expand...

I don't care what the continuous belief is of how multitasking really works in iOS 4, if I'm experiencing lag whilst many apps are open in the task bar and it's remedied by manually closing those apps, I think it's a safe assumption to say that those backgrounded apps are using at least some RAM.
 
thegman1234 said:
I don't care what the continuous belief is of how multitasking really works in iOS 4, if I'm experiencing lag whilst many apps are open in the task bar and it's remedied by manually closing those apps, I think it's a safe assumption to say that those backgrounded apps are using at least some RAM.
Click to expand...

They are. And then that RAM is freed when a different foreground application needs it.
 
TuffLuffJimmy said:
They are. And then that RAM is freed when a different foreground application needs it.
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Evidently it's a slow and less than perfect process because I've remedied apps that became sluggish by stopping, closing programs, and then restarting the app. Angry Birds comes to mind.

Also, I had a RPG (don't remember the name) that would often display a message on start up that would say something to the effect of "Not enough memory. Close some applications and restart game."
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

My point exactly.
 
of course the backgrounded apps are using ram. thats where they are stored...in ram. There's no paging in iOS. Yea the lag happens b/c the foreground app needs more ram...iOS sees that, eliminates the contents of ram and gives the foreground app the necessary amount of ram of what was just cleared. the lag happens b/c that process of clearing and reallocating takes a second or two. As for battery life, it is not effected by the "saved" apps. They just sit in Ram doing nothing.
 
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