Why do Apple Geniuses recommend killing apps manually?

[Armen]

Nope. IOS manages its own ram and shuts down apps long before lack of memory comes anywhere close to affecting the system. Your iPhone will NEVER "shut off" due to having too many apps open, because IOS will never leave more than a few apps open under any circumstances. This isn't my opinion, it's fact.

The majority of apps you think you're "closing" in the app manager are actually dead already, frozen in a completely passive state. All you're doing is removing them from a list of recent apps, and freeing up virtually zero ram.

If your phone is "slowing to a crawl" there's either something wrong with it or, more likely, you have one or two rubbish apps that are causing you specific problems. Do some detective work and get rid.

To add to what you're saying on the flip side when Android starts to hit under 100MB of free RAM the entire system starts to bog down. This is why people habitually do this in Android and when they come over to the iPhone they continue that ritual. I've see my iphone hit 50MB free RAM and the system doesn't even stutter.

 

[rw3]

Apple Geniuses are as good as Wireless carrier store employees and the people who work at Best Buy. There is always 1 or 2 people who really know their stuff and the rest just give out whatever info they want because nothing is checked for accuracy.

This made me laugh.....only difference, an employee at a carrier store is paid commission where a Genius is not, nor is any Apple Store employee.....

 

[Tech guy]

It saves battery and improves preform emcee, same thing goes for other smart phones but no reason to obsess about it
Why you need to close apps

 

[C DM]

Closing apps frees up RAM. Without RAM, a phone will eventually shut off. I close apps manually when I notice my phone coming to a crawl. Unlike with android, I can't use a back button to close an app. This is my only way outside a full reboot.

You don't really run out of RAM and things just stop, RAM just gets used for whatever is needed, so things get loaded and unloaded from it. Keeping RAM empty doesn't really do anything one way or another, it's there to be used essentially.

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In practice there are misbehaving apps that don't comply with the theory and can mess things up.. But I maintain the solution is to weed them out and replace them if you encounter those sorts of issues, not get into some pointless daily routine of shutting down a hundred perfectly functioning (and mostly completely inactive) apps just to work around that one bad egg.

The assumption there would that these are extremely rare or at least even just rare exceptions, while the reality (for some people at least) might be that it's not all that rare, for one reason or another.

It seems that people even claim Facebook would do weird stuff like that, and that's a very prominent app that likely gets a lot of eyes on it and a lot of use, and if it still does something non-conforming like that (assuming those claims are true), then really who knows what else might be going on.

 

[Dented]

The assumption there would that these are extremely rare or at least even just rare exceptions, while the reality (for some people at least) might be that it's not all that rare, for one reason or another.

It seems that people even claim Facebook would do weird stuff like that, and that's a very prominent app that likely gets a lot of eyes on it and a lot of use, and if it still does something non-conforming like that (assuming those claims are true), then really who knows what else might be going on.

Fair points I guess; I have to say I use the Facebook app plenty and don't have any problems with it, but that doesn't prove much really. My feeling from my own experience is that the kinds of apps that are really problematic and likely to hammer the battery etc are pretty rare and usually easy to spot, and a half decent developer will generally be on the case and fix things with an update shortly anyway. It would be nice if Apple were tighter on this at the approval stage though.

 

[C DM]

Fair points I guess; I have to say I use the Facebook app plenty and don't have any problems with it, but that doesn't prove much really. My feeling from my own experience is that the kinds of apps that are really problematic and likely to hammer the battery etc are pretty rare and usually easy to spot, and a half decent developer will generally be on the case and fix things with an update shortly anyway. It would be nice if Apple were tighter on this at the approval stage though.

My Facebook experience has been mostly the same as yours, but I've come across a number of claims of it working otherwise for different people, including a link to a fairly deep investigation of it. Now, it's certainly possible (and maybe even likely) that it's only like that in some cases perhaps--in certain configurations/conditions and/or with certain settings), but it seems like cases like that can and do exist most likely.

But, yes, in general, there's usually nothing to worry about, but if you do see something odd--basically something different than usual, or just that the usual is quite poor in some noticeable way, then some things like this are certainly worth a try to see if there's a difference (even if in theory there usually shouldn't be).

 

[cynics]

Why do Apple Geniuses recommend killing apps manually?

To add to what you're saying on the flip side when Android starts to hit under 100MB of free RAM the entire system starts to bog down. This is why people habitually do this in Android and when they come over to the iPhone they continue that ritual. I've see my iphone hit 50MB free RAM and the system doesn't even stutter.

That's not so. First any mobile devices that's doing anything will have less then 100 mb of RAM available. It's not uncommon to have less then 5 mb. Here is a screen shot of me using iOS right now.

Native app closing is a somewhat new thing for Android. It wasn't until honeycomb if not later that you could even close an app without a 3rd party app or diving into the settings menu to manually kill it. And Google and certain devs advised against using 3rd party task killers. Processes can be shared with Android, closing one app can effect another. Here's an interesting article, it's a bit dated to touch on Android prior to native app closing.

http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/04/multitasking-android-way.html?m=1

Within that article are some even more interesting links.

Regardless it's not uncommon for an iOS and Android device to be hovering around just above 0 free RAM. Which is per design, why have free RAM? It's not used like in a computer if it's free then it's wasted.

Edit: I pulled out my old Android tablet to play with the multitasking and recent apps. It's pretty interesting really in comparison to iOS. Recent app list is simply that. Closing a music player from the recent app list won't stop it, it will reside in the menu even with no recent apps. Not sure if I like that or not.

I can also get it to suspend apps better, less worrying about an app refreshing. This is a constant issue with me and tapatalk, I'll goto safari to grab a link and tapatalk reloads. I can have what appears to be an infinite number of tabs open in the browser without them refreshing too.

 

[PNutts]

Nope. IOS manages its own ram and shuts down apps long before lack of memory comes anywhere close to affecting the system.

You are correct about poorly written apps being involved in memory and performance issues. I simply prefer to close apps at the end of the day and not flirt with a low memory condition and the clean-up activity it generates.

From the iOS Apps Programming Guide (emphasis mine):

Because the iOS virtual memory model does not include disk swap space, apps are more limited in the amount of memory they have available for use. Using large amounts of memory can seriously degrade system performance and potentially cause the system to terminate your app. In addition, apps running under multitasking must share system memory with all other running apps.
and

When the system dispatches a low-memory warning to your app, respond immediately. iOS notifies all running apps whenever the amount of free memory dips below a safe threshold. (It does not notify suspended apps.) If your app receives this warning, it must free up as much memory as possible.

 

[John T]

From the iOS Apps Programming Guide (emphasis mine):

Because the iOS virtual memory model does not include disk swap space, apps are more limited in the amount of memory they have available for use. Using large amounts of memory can seriously degrade system performance and potentially cause the system to terminate your app. In addition, apps running under multitasking must share system memory with all other running apps.
and

When the system dispatches a low-memory warning to your app, respond immediately. iOS notifies all running apps whenever the amount of free memory dips below a safe threshold. (It does not notify suspended apps.) If your app receives this warning, it must free up as much memory as possible.

It's refreshing to read a quotation from an official source, rather than from unauthoritative blogs etc. that are so often quoted by the so-called experts.

 

[thegrants82]

It's refreshing to read a quotation from an official source, rather than from unauthoritative blogs etc. that are so often quoted by the so-called experts.

Could not agree more.

 

[cynics]

Why do Apple Geniuses recommend killing apps manually?

It's refreshing to read a quotation from an official source, rather than from unauthoritative blogs etc. that are so often quoted by the so-called experts.

I'm not sure if you are referring to me so please excuse me if I'm mistaken.

However the blog I posted was in reference to Android (obviously).

The other links are from Apple.com and a screenshot of iOS in real life. I don't know how to make a more official source then those.

It's odd to me that someone would ignore Apple.com and a real time screenshot of iOS running normally. Then take a quote from another member as fact with no linked sources. Which isn't untrue btw but "can" and "potentially" are on the opposite side of the spectrum from "will" and "do" aka facts.

Here is another one. Only app running is tapatalk (and memory obviously). iOS can be always low on memory.

Again I apologize if you were referring to someone else's post.

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Btw there is a gray area in this matter. No one is 100% correct really.

However on topic an Apple employee saying you need to close all recent apps for iOS to function properly is admitting defeat.

iOS should sandbox better if it's not it's the fault of iOS. And iOS should suspend apps properly and if not Apple restrictions are too lack.

 

[John T]

I'm not sure if you are referring to me so please excuse me if I'm mistaken.

No! I wasn't referring to you!

My comment was mainly a general one, prompted by PNutts' post.

 

[cynics]

No! I wasn't referring to you!



My comment was mainly a general one, prompted by PNutts' post.

I apologize then for quoting you directly.

 

[Serelus]

Took an iPhone in to the Apple store because the screen went black and couldn't get it to DFU restore. (It has a broken power button and turns out there was lint in the lighting plug so it wouldn't restart on plug in).

They said the reason the phone shut down was because it ran out of memory with too many apps open and it caused the system to freeze. They suggested double tapping then swiping up all the apps to kill them.

Why do they recommend this when it goes against the way Apple describes how multitasking works? It manages background apps memory automatically.

Now my whole family spends time manually closing their apps like it's a computer.

Thanks for those links. It's right there on Apple's website.

"Note: It's typically unnecessary to force an app to close unless the app is unresponsive. You can view all recently used apps by double-clicking the Home button. These apps aren't open; they are in a suspended state."

The question is: Why is Apple's recommendation in the store different? And the reason I care is because when I tell my family they don't need to do that... and the Apple store tells them they do... then they do and are concerned with always closing their apps instead of just using the phone and enjoying it they have to manage it constantly.

You're talking about 2 completely different things here.
When having all these apps open in "Suspended" states they still take up memory regardless of wether they are open or not. When you run out of RAM the phone shuts down. This isn't really odd to say the least i've had plenty of systems stop working because the ram was at it's peak.

The point is you don't have to close apps to improve overal performance, but closing those apps will MOST definitely free up ram for your system to use. I don't get how you expect iOS to "handle this automatically" it has to leave the app state somewhere.

 

[Serelus]

Nope. IOS manages its own ram and shuts down apps long before lack of memory comes anywhere close to affecting the system. Your iPhone will NEVER "shut off" due to having too many apps open, because IOS will never leave more than a few apps open under any circumstances. This isn't my opinion, it's fact.

This is not true, and depends entirely on the quality of apps you're using.

Source

 

[C DM]

You're talking about 2 completely different things here.
When having all these apps open in "Suspended" states they still take up memory regardless of wether they are open or not. When you run out of RAM the phone shuts down. This isn't really odd to say the least i've had plenty of systems stop working because the ram was at it's peak.

The point is you don't have to close apps to improve overal performance, but closing those apps will MOST definitely free up ram for your system to use. I don't get how you expect iOS to "handle this automatically" it has to leave the app state somewhere.

A device doesn't shut down when memory is full, the memory just keeps on getting reassigned as needed and used as needed. When RAM is needed iOS will free up the needed RAM taking it from another app that isn't using it at the moment. A lot of apps don't end up retaining their live state as other apps are being used and memory gets reassigned to them. This is how a lot of OSs do it in general, just not necessarily to the degree of doing it automatically that iOS is designed to do it.

 

[Shuri]

The point is you don't have to close apps to improve overal performance, but closing those apps will MOST definitely free up ram for your system to use. I don't get how you expect iOS to "handle this automatically" it has to leave the app state somewhere.

It actually does handle this automatically and this is quite easy to see.
Open an app. Wait until it loads and then hit the home Button. After a few seconds it will be suspended (unless it's downloading something, or you play music with it etc). Now when you open the app it will be just there, like it hasn't been touched at all; because it wasn't. Now hit the home button again, open as many other apps as you have. Now open the app you opened at first. It has to reload the app, since it has been removed from the RAM. How is this possible? Before suspending an app, iOS gives it a few seconds to bring itself in a save to close state. So it has to save everything important to the Flash.
The app itself in the RAM isn't going to be touched at all, until the System decides that it needs more memory, throwing the app out of it. BTW this is just the same way Android handles these things, but it adds services which are being able to work in the background as long as its save for the whole system.

 

[jabingla2810]

This is not true, and depends entirely on the quality of apps you're using.

Source

From the source: " ...If not enough memory is released—perhaps because your application is leaking or still consuming too much memory—the system may still terminate your application."

iOS is offering developers a way to keep their apps in suspended state for longer if they are willing to release as much memory as possible (caches and other things that can be recreated), if they don't iOS will kill the app.

So yes, iOS manages memory itself.

 

[Armen]

That's not so. First any mobile devices that's doing anything will have less then 100 mb of RAM available. It's not uncommon to have less then 5 mb. Here is a screen shot of me using iOS right now.

Image

Native app closing is a somewhat new thing for Android. It wasn't until honeycomb if not later that you could even close an app without a 3rd party app or diving into the settings menu to manually kill it. And Google and certain devs advised against using 3rd party task killers. Processes can be shared with Android, closing one app can effect another. Here's an interesting article, it's a bit dated to touch on Android prior to native app closing.

http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/04/multitasking-android-way.html?m=1

Within that article are some even more interesting links.

Regardless it's not uncommon for an iOS and Android device to be hovering around just above 0 free RAM. Which is per design, why have free RAM? It's not used like in a computer if it's free then it's wasted.

Edit: I pulled out my old Android tablet to play with the multitasking and recent apps. It's pretty interesting really in comparison to iOS. Recent app list is simply that. Closing a music player from the recent app list won't stop it, it will reside in the menu even with no recent apps. Not sure if I like that or not.

I can also get it to suspend apps better, less worrying about an app refreshing. This is a constant issue with me and tapatalk, I'll goto safari to grab a link and tapatalk reloads. I can have what appears to be an infinite number of tabs open in the browser without them refreshing too.

Well, I guess Android memory management has gotten better than. It was bad in Cupcake and Eclair. Was somewhat ok in Gingerbread although I did see UI slow downs when memory was low.

 

[zorinlynx]

Facebook somehow skirts Apple's rules about being able to run in the background. It wakes up often and accesses the network, burning battery. Turning off background app refresh for it on ios 7 does NOT help.

The only way to stop FB from burning battery in the background is to force kill it. I don't know why Apple lets them get away with this behavior; I guess FB is too popular for them to put their foot down.

 

[Dented]

This is not true, and depends entirely on the quality of apps you're using.

Source

It is true, as the source you've quoted confirms.

Although OS X supports a backing store, iOS does not. In iPhone applications, read-only data that is already on the disk (such as code pages) is simply removed from memory and reloaded from disk as needed. Writable data is never removed from memory by the operating system. Instead, if the amount of free memory drops below a certain threshold, the system asks the running applications to free up memory voluntarily to make room for new data. Applications that fail to free up enough memory are terminated.

My emphasis.

 

[charlituna]

They said the reason the phone shut down was because it ran out of memory with too many apps open and it caused the system to freeze. They suggested double tapping then swiping up all the apps to kill them.

Because what Apple describes only works when the apps have been correctly coded. and not all of them are.

That said, the 'genius' is very possibly wrong in your case. If your screen went black and it was still ringing etc then it wasn't 'shut down' and likely not due to memory issues so much as general software corruption screwing with the auto lock etc. If you have a passcode on the device and thus can't do a normal restore, you can go into iCloud.com and do a remote erase to get the same effect. I've had to do it on a couple of phones at work for various directors etc

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Apple Geniuses are as good as Wireless carrier store employees and the people who work at Best Buy. There is always 1 or 2 people who really know their stuff and the rest just give out whatever info they want because nothing is checked for accuracy.

True that. I remember a 'genius' telling me to never charge my phone until the battery is under 10% because it causes the phone to develop a false memory of the battery capacity.

2 minutes on google will tell you that that isn't true about lithium batteries. if anything full charges are more damaging than partial ones.

 

[SuperPolli]

You Should Always Close Apps Manually

They don't close themselves and multitasking is built in to iOS for a reason. Closing apps manually saves battery life and makes your iOS device run faster and more efficiently. It's EXACTLY like running a computer. The Genius gave perfect advice. Just because it's advice that you hadn't heard of before doesn't mean it's wrong or stupid or unnecessary. The Genius is a Genius because he knows what he is doing and Apple agrees that he knows enough to give sufficient advice. Don't doubt these people.

 

[C DM]

They don't close themselves and multitasking is built in to iOS for a reason. Closing apps manually saves battery life and makes your iOS device run faster and more efficiently. It's EXACTLY like running a computer. The Genius gave perfect advice. Just because it's advice that you hadn't heard of before doesn't mean it's wrong or stupid or unnecessary. The Genius is a Genius because he knows what he is doing and Apple agrees that he knows enough to give sufficient advice. Don't doubt these people.

Except that iOS is designed to automatically stop apps and if needed close them to free up needed resources.

 

[NT1440]

[/COLOR]

True that. I remember a 'genius' telling me to never charge my phone until the battery is under 10% because it causes the phone to develop a false memory of the battery capacity.

2 minutes on google will tell you that that isn't true about lithium batteries. if anything full charges are more damaging than partial ones.

Yup, you'll find a lot of people that learned a fact a decade ago, then just keep repeating it blissfully unaware that the technology has changed.

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They don't close themselves and multitasking is built in to iOS for a reason. Closing apps manually saves battery life and makes your iOS device run faster and more efficiently. It's EXACTLY like running a computer. The Genius gave perfect advice. Just because it's advice that you hadn't heard of before doesn't mean it's wrong or stupid or unnecessary. The Genius is a Genius because he knows what he is doing and Apple agrees that he knows enough to give sufficient advice. Don't doubt these people.

Go watch a WWDC video, or even look into how multitasking works in iOS, seriously, you have no idea what you are talking about.