Stop telling people that they shouldn't close apps

[elpamyelhsa]

Yes, we've all read the blog about how closing apps doesn't help with battery life [1][2][3]. This is not the only reason to close apps! so get off your high horse about it.

Reasons to close apps:

• You want to keep only a few apps readily available for switching
• You want to keep privacy so the screenshot of an app is not shown in the switcher
• You have apps that behave badly and don't close out background network connections, etc...
• You need to refresh data from the network but the app doesn't have "pull down to refresh"
  
• You have an app that is badly written and has frozen up

With saving battery life, I have no doubt that technically reloading the data from flash takes more time and energy, but you'd be hard-pressed to demonstrate this in a real-world scenario, and certainly not enough to keep beating the drum about it. Battery life will be affected by many other factors before this one.

If you see people spreading the false information that closing apps saves battery life, go ahead and dispel the notion, but please stop jumping on people at the mere mention of closing apps with no other context.


[1] http://www.speirs.org/blog/2012/1/2/misconceptions-about-ios-multitasking.html
[2] https://daringfireball.net/2012/01/ios_multitasking
[3] https://daringfireball.net/2017/07/you_should_not_force_quit_apps

Developer and Apple Service Technician chiming in here.

Don’t forget turning off Background App Refresh (either entirely or at least Facebook) is the proper way to stop backgrounded apps running. All other backgrounded apps are suspended by iOS after a minute or two depending on app demand. The app state is then moved to flash memory as required.

Like you say, Removing the stored app state is useful for restoring buggy app functionality. This process also forces the app to use more CPU to reload thus slowing its next launch.

My only advice for a buggy or non-functional app would be to remove it and find a replacement by a better developer.

App switching previews should not be a privacy concern if you are using biometrics to protect your device properly. Apple prides itself on device security, make sure you are taking advantage of it.

It may be helpful to organise your commonly used app icons for quick access to avoid the need to use the app switcher.

I’ve always tried to work with technology as it’s designed to be used. I find it hard to change habits, but fighting against it is generally inefficient.

Hope this helps.

 

[Altis]

... Don’t forget turning off Background App Refresh (either entirely or at least Facebook) is the proper way to stop backgrounded apps running. All other backgrounded apps are suspended by iOS after a minute or two depending on app demand. The app state is then moved to flash memory as required...

From what I've gathered, some apps (notably Facebook) trick iOS into letting the app keep going by posing an a VoIP app.

My battery life improved quite significantly having removed the Facebook apps (which had become terrible anyways).

 

[Knowlege Bomb]

I find this thread amusing because I used to be (and still am to some extent) one of those that tries to help people understand how their phone works and offer advice to improve the experience. This is a subject that I've kind of given up on and the reason is that nobody seems to care.

It's almost like a nervous tick for some people. My wife is one of them. Every time I see her do it my eye twitches a little because she constantly complains about battery life and I've explained this whole thing dozens of times but she completely ignores it. A good friend of mine is another. I've actually convinced his wife and she's started giving him **** about it but he continues doing it anyway. So I've given up.

 

[naturalstar]

Wait. This a real argument? People want to regulate how a person operates their phone? Hilarious.

While I’ve definitely had performance issues on my old 6+, like tab reloads or occasional slow loads in Safari, I’ve never noticed a battery life issue around apps being open or closed regardless of how I operated it. All except Facebook... sweet baby Jesus, that app was a killer at one point — or maybe I just have too many active friends and groups. Either way, after it was clear their updates were NOT improving performance, I stopped using the FB app on my phone.

 

[orev]

Ironic considering that is exactly what your OP was.

If any of that were true, there would be no such thing as software development.

Yes, I do get to tell what you should or shouldn't do because there are objective reasons to do things one way or the other. If you want to invent new reasons that you assign a value - fine. But they have no bearing on the real world. No one needs to close apps for any of the reasons cited (except you).

If an app misbehaves or becomes unresponsive, close it. That is precisely the only reason why you are able to close apps at all.

Please learn reading comprehension. That is not AT ALL what this thread is about. This thread is about how every holier-than-thou fanboy who once read a blog post will pile-on to anyone who mentions the idea of closing apps in the app switcher. They use the blog post as a cudgel to make themselves feel important while deriding others for closing apps because "it doesn't save battery life", when in reality there are other reasons people might want to close apps.

Developer and Apple Service Technician chiming in here.

Don’t forget turning off Background App Refresh (either entirely or at least Facebook) is the proper way to stop backgrounded apps running. All other backgrounded apps are suspended by iOS after a minute or two depending on app demand. The app state is then moved to flash memory as required.

Like you say, Removing the stored app state is useful for restoring buggy app functionality. This process also forces the app to use more CPU to reload thus slowing its next launch.

My only advice for a buggy or non-functional app would be to remove it and find a replacement by a better developer.

App switching previews should not be a privacy concern if you are using biometrics to protect your device properly. Apple prides itself on device security, make sure you are taking advantage of it.

It may be helpful to organise your commonly used app icons for quick access to avoid the need to use the app switcher.

I’ve always tried to work with technology as it’s designed to be used. I find it hard to change habits, but fighting against it is generally inefficient.

Hope this helps.

Typical IT person changing requirements to meet their argument. You might have your phone out already and showing someone something, like pictures, etc..., and then go to switch apps to something else. You might not want iMessage with a discussion with your romantic partner showing up then. It's not always about someone stealing your phone and trying to go through it.

I find this thread amusing because I used to be (and still am to some extent) one of those that tries to help people understand how their phone works and offer advice to improve the experience. This is a subject that I've kind of given up on and the reason is that nobody seems to care.

It's almost like a nervous tick for some people. My wife is one of them. Every time I see her do it my eye twitches a little because she constantly complains about battery life and I've explained this whole thing dozens of times but she completely ignores it. A good friend of mine is another. I've actually convinced his wife and she's started giving him **** about it but he continues doing it anyway. So I've given up.

As I said in my OP, the whole battery life thing, even if theoretically true, is a red herring. Closing apps will have almost ZERO impact on battery life when compared to other things using power on the phone, like a very bright screen, lots of wifi/lte usage, video watching, games, etc... The power needed to load a few megabytes from flash storage vs RAM is laughably small. You eye twitching is your problem and getting so worked up about it makes no sense because this realistically has no impact on battery life.

Wait. This a real argument? People want to regulate how a person operates their phone? Hilarious.

While I’ve definitely had performance issues on my old 6+, like tab reloads or occasional slow loads in Safari, I’ve never noticed a battery life issue around apps being open or closed regardless of how I operated it. All except Facebook... sweet baby Jesus, that app was a killer at one point — or maybe I just have too many active friends and groups. Either way, after it was clear their updates were NOT improving performance, I stopped using the FB app on my phone.

Yes, every time someone mentions anything about closing apps, that holier-than-though fanboys who once read a blog post come out and start deriding people for trying to keep the app switcher organized.

 

[Knowlege Bomb]

As I said in my OP, the whole battery life thing, even if theoretically true, is a red herring. Closing apps will have almost ZERO impact on battery life when compared to other things using power on the phone, like a very bright screen, lots of wifi/lte usage, video watching, games, etc... The power needed to load a few megabytes from flash storage vs RAM is laughably small. You eye twitching is your problem and getting so worked up about it makes no sense because this realistically has no impact on battery life.

My eye twitch has nothing to do with the actual closing of the apps and everything to do with her being non-technical yet still ignoring what I've told her. As I said, I've let it go. Sounds like you may be the one getting worked up over it. If someone on a forum wants to offer helpful advice, let them. You do you.

 

[C DM]

None of these very compelling at all. Sure, they are reasons. Just...poor ones.

Poor to you, different to others. That's how something subjective works. Pretty simple.
[doublepost=1510768713][/doublepost]

Lol, no.

Refer me to all the threads you like, there is no good reason to routinely close all apps. Doing so only decreases your battery life and wastes time.

Reasons are listed in this thread. How much they might matter to someone is something subjective and personal basically. Just because they might not matter to someone doesn't mean they can't matter to someone else.

 

[Dented]

Poor to you, different to others. That's how something subjective works. Pretty simple.
[doublepost=1510768713][/doublepost]
Reasons are listed in this thread. How much they might matter to someone is something subjective and personal basically. Just because they might not matter to someone doesn't mean they can't matter to someone else.

None of them are good reasons to be routinely closing *all* apps (which is what “relentless power” has dragged me in here about). Some of them are very good reasons for weeding out specific badly written apps that are causing you problems, but they should be dealt with individually, and deleted/replaced ideally - not cause you to habitually manage your phone to the detriment of everything else.