Closing apps manually saves battery life and makes your iOS device run faster and more efficiently.
Please provide a source to back this claim.
Closing apps manually saves battery life and makes your iOS device run faster and more efficiently.
Please provide a source to back this claim.
Hmm... Only one of those articles provides any sort of evidence to support the claim, and it's anecdotal. I would love to see some scientific evidence. Then perhaps we can put this controversy to sleep!![]()
That was the only part of your post that I wanted to respond to. My apologies if your opinion felt disregarded. It wasn't. Seems we agree that there's more opinion in this claim than there is proof.Why did you only quote the links? Was my opinion on it disregarded?
I owned all those older devices, from the 3G onwards, and - respectfully - I disagree that your referencing "fact".
The fact is that all versions of IOS were designed to manage their own background processes without user intervention, and that's certainly how I used them without ever having to worry about responsiveness.
Straight from Apple. Let's put this thread to rest once and for all.
https://developer.apple.com/library...uide/TheiOSEnvironment/TheiOSEnvironment.html
The Virtual Memory System
To manage program memory, iOS uses essentially the same virtual memory system found in Mac OS X. In iOS, each program still has its own virtual address space, but unlike Mac OS X, the amount of usable virtual memory is constrained by the amount of physical memory available. This is because iOS does not support paging to disk when memory gets full. Instead, the virtual memory system simply releases read-only memory pages, such as code pages, when it needs more space. Such pages can always be loaded back into memory later if they are needed again.
If memory continues to be constrained, the system may send low-memory notifications to any running apps, asking them to free up additional memory. All apps should respond to this notification and do their part to help relieve the memory pressure. For information on how to handle such notifications in your app, see Observe Low-Memory Warnings.
Just don't assume that the automatically closing of apps preserves enough ram for you to keep your iPhone running smoothly.
This has to be done manually, you don't have to be a developer to know that physical memory isn't always released upon closing applications.
As far as ability to close applications, it's there primarily for cases when an application gets stuck or is experiencing some issue, so that it could be closed (and then restarted) in an attempt to deal with that. It's also there so that some applications that are in fact allowed to run in the background can also be terminated by the user when they desire to, rather than perhaps waiting for the system to do it on its own at a later point when its necessary (rather when desired by the user). And as far as the application switcher itself in general, it's there so that users can switch between tasks in a faster/simpler manner.Certain applications have to be given an order of importance to avoid them from interfering with the users main functions (dialer, etc). There is even a notion from this same source with tools for an application with RAM leaks. So is it not possible that any app has the potential to be the source of contention with RAM? Wouldn't it then be beneficial to self terminate the application?
https://developer.apple.com/library...ual/ManagingMemory/Articles/FindingLeaks.html
Edit: I guess my reasoning would be that if we truly never needed a "Task killer/Process manager", then why would iOS 7 include it? This OS is generally kept minimalistic to avoid any user created catastrophes. I can't see them adding a tool like this unless it's a useful addition to the function of the device.
But even that doesn't mean that the user has to close apps and the system doesn't actually do it at all (in general, when needed), as has been implied by some in earlier posts.iOS doesn't handle RAM to the extend that it's optimized for performance, closing apps does in fact help. iOS also doesn't handle all of these tasks as good as it should, referring to that developer's guide page wasn't a smart thing to do on my part I guess, as you seem to think that the conditions for that method are flawless while they are definitely not.
iOS is designed to keep the system running, and that's good, it's almost impossible to read the specific conditions of every app. Just don't assume that the automatically closing of apps preserves enough ram for you to keep your iPhone running smoothly. This has to be done manually, you don't have to be a developer to know that physical memory isn't always released upon closing applications.
Certain applications have to be given an order of importance to avoid them from interfering with the users main functions (dialer, etc). There is even a notion from this same source with tools for an application with RAM leaks. So is it not possible that any app has the potential to be the source of contention with RAM? Wouldn't it then be beneficial to self terminate the application?
https://developer.apple.com/library...ual/ManagingMemory/Articles/FindingLeaks.html
Edit: I guess my reasoning would be that if we truly never needed a "Task killer/Process manager", then why would iOS 7 include it? This OS is generally kept minimalistic to avoid any user created catastrophes. I can't see them adding a tool like this unless it's a useful addition to the function of the device.
As far as ability to close applications, it's there primarily for cases when an application gets stuck or is experiencing some issue, so that it could be closed (and then restarted) in an attempt to deal with that. It's also there so that some applications that are in fact allowed to run in the background can also be terminated by the user when they desire to, rather than perhaps waiting for the system to do it on its own at a later point when its necessary (rather when desired by the user). And as far as the application switcher itself in general, it's there so that users can switch between tasks in a faster/simpler manner.
Edit: I guess my reasoning would be that if we truly never needed a "Task killer/Process manager", then why would iOS 7 include it? This OS is generally kept minimalistic to avoid any user created catastrophes. I can't see them adding a tool like this unless it's a useful addition to the function of the device.
Could it not be "Getting stuck or experiencing issues" due to the RAM being low? I'm not trying to argue I just can't see all these lines of code as being perfect. There may always be exceptions to the rule right?
Sure, that's a possibility, and perhaps does happen, but it would be if the application is perhaps not coded properly in some way or some other issues are happening with the OS or other applications perhaps.Could it not be "Getting stuck or experiencing issues" due to the RAM being low? I'm not trying to argue I just can't see all these lines of code as being perfect. There may always be exceptions to the rule right?
Except that my iPhone does run perfectly smoothly, without any app-closing intervention on my part, so why on earth wouldn't I assume that?
Sorry but this is nonsense. Think how many IOS devices there are out there in the world, and ponder just how many of those users even know how to access the app switcher, let alone follow this erroneous advice to religiously close down everything they see there. Are all the other phones and iPads out there running like treacle, gasping for resources, as their helpless OS chokes on running apps and maxed out memory? Is that what IOS is generally known for out there, slowness and freezing? I think not. I think most people who have never double clicked the home button in their lives would tell you that IOS runs pretty quick, and if what you're suggesting was even a little bit true, that just wouldn't be possible.
I for one can't remember the last time I restarted my phone, and my recent apps list goes on forever (seriously you'd hate it). Somehow my phone is super responsive and running perfectly. There is one and only one explanation for that; IOS is managing my apps and my memory just fine, thanks.
Actually, it isn't common sense. It's a documented feature which does exactly the opposite to what you think it does.
Your computer doesn't automatically close backgrounded applications when it needs resources. It leaves stuff open and pages (slower) to disk. Your phone, on the other hand, keeps things open as long as possible. If the resources used by an app are required, the app is killed.
Time for an example. Say you currently have 10MB free RAM out of 1GB total. Application x is open in the background and is using 800MB of RAM, and 90% CPU. You now open Application y, which needs 500MB of RAM, and 50% CPU. On a computer, this would cause CPU waiting, and paging to disk, hence why it slows down. On iOS, the phone realises that it needs more resources, and will automatically kill application x, so that the resources are available for application y. Hence there's no slowdown or performance hit.
Please read the API before spreading more crap in this thread about stuff you clearly do not understand.
I am sorry, you seem to assume that iOS can perfectly allocate and predict wether or not an app has released enough memory to keep the system running smoothly. This is ludacris. Not even Large OS's have mastered this way of handling RAM, Mac OS X and Windows 7 all can easily come across these problems and they are way more advanced than iOS. Spare us the it's not happening to me, so it's not happening at all analogy. It doesn't apply for people who use apps of lower quality and who are actually in a situation where they require doing this. Also iPhone 4 and 4S have only 512 MB or ram of which iOS7 already uses half. With apps available in the app store that can easily take up way more than the tiny bit you have left, the method applied by apple is WAY to simplistic to handle those kinds of situations. If you're running an iPhone 5S you're not experiecing this problem obviously. But for those who have a lower grade phone this is a completely normal problem to have. If you know what you're doing however this shouldn't ever be a problem for you.
iOS in this case will continuously keep closing apps throughout your usage as it's needed, do you think reassigning shared memory and releasing virtual memory doesn't take up processing or battery life, especially when it's 40 applications done over time?
As others have said, the desktop
OS's you cite work in a completely different way, by paging memory to disk and allowing everything to run at once, at the cost of performance. IOS simply does not do that, and your assumptions about how it does work are way off the mark.
My current phone is an iPhone 5, there's a 4S in the family too, neither suffer in the slightest from not having their recent apps list pointlessly cleared. As much as you want to dismiss the "it's not happening to me" argument, the fact is that if your assertions about IOS were correct, we would *have* to be shutting down apps to stop our devices becoming unusable, and clearly we don't. If you genuinely do, then there's something else going on with a specific app you're using - not the OS.
Imagin iOS having to shutdown over 40 applications because they are all taking up a tiny bit of ram that is required for an app needing a larger amount of ram.
iOS in this case will continuously keep closing apps throughout your usage as it's needed, do you think reassigning shared memory and releasing virtual memory doesn't take up processing or battery life, especially when it's 40 applications done over time? Seriously people iOS isn't as sophisticated as you think. The system is only as smart as Apple has programmed it to be. Note that apple always tries keeping things simple, even when it comes to code.
There must be some reason why developers can't make a Screencast app for ipad. That would be super cool but is nonexistent.