Multitasking - why are none of my apps quitting?
Updated to iOS4 on my 3GS - first impressions are very positive - runs very fast, looks great, etc, etc.
BUT, one very confusing thing: Every app I run sits in the multitasking drawer after I close it. All of them. Currently I am at my home screen and when I double click I see Weather, Phone, Calculator, Messages, Safari, Facebook, Clock and Settings in there. Why are they all there? I understand why Mail would perhaps be there, but surely Calculator (and most of the others) isn't doing something in the background??
So, is it a bug? Or am i missing something? Is this happening to other people?
I just ran Notes, then hit the home button, and lo and behold it's in the multitasking drawer. Waited a few minutes - still there. What's it doing?
: confused :
I can hold down and hit all the red quit icons manually, but that feels an awful lot like my old horrible Windows Mobile 6 phone in which I constantly had to quit apps manually.
BUT, one very confusing thing: Every app I run sits in the multitasking drawer after I close it. All of them. Currently I am at my home screen and when I double click I see Weather, Phone, Calculator, Messages, Safari, Facebook, Clock and Settings in there. Why are they all there? I understand why Mail would perhaps be there, but surely Calculator (and most of the others) isn't doing something in the background??
So, is it a bug? Or am i missing something? Is this happening to other people?
I just ran Notes, then hit the home button, and lo and behold it's in the multitasking drawer. Waited a few minutes - still there. What's it doing?
: confused :
I can hold down and hit all the red quit icons manually, but that feels an awful lot like my old horrible Windows Mobile 6 phone in which I constantly had to quit apps manually.
Comments
They are all in the multitasking drawer. I now have 6 drawer screens to scroll through.
Is this how it's supposed to work? Surely only the apps that request to do something in the background should stay in the drawer, and all others should quit like in iOS <= 3
I like iOS4, but based on what they showed us about multitasking, the way it works when it comes to quitting an app is somewhat weird.
Anyone else have any ideas on this? I think it is a workaround because for all apps that are out there, there's no "quit app" button on any app
Apple was so determined to have multitasking and claim that they "did it right" they "force-ON" all multitasking for every app even if it doesn't actually do multitasking
To really "support" iOS multitasking, app must declare to OS that it require to stay in memory for "freeze" or need a processor time to do something or access a comunication stack for network activity in background.
AFAIK, if app does not support iOS multitasking, it just place a "shortcut" in multitasking drawer. There is no memory or processor consumed. Nothing to care about.
To really "support" iOS multitasking, app must declare to OS that it require to stay in memory for "freeze" or need a processor time to do something or access a comunication stack for network activity in background.
Well if you what you say is accurate, then I need not worry about resources being consumed, which is good.
But disagree that it is "nothing to care about". This would mean that after a week or so of using many different apps on the iPhone, that the multitasking drawer would become packed full of all these "shortcuts" - dozens of them. It would basically end up replicating the home screens, but with only four icons per page. Which completely defeats the purpose of it even being there in my opinion. It's very un-Apple-like.
Steve Jobs said: "In multitasking, if you see a task manager... they blew it"
To me, this drawer full of every app I've ever run, with little quit buttons, looks just like a task manager.
Well if you what you say is accurate, then I need not worry about resources being consumed, which is good.
But disagree that it is "nothing to care about". This would mean that after a week or so of using many different apps on the iPhone, that the multitasking drawer would become packed full of all these "shortcuts" - dozens of them. It would basically end up replicating the home screens, but with only four icons per page. Which completely defeats the purpose of it even being there in my opinion. It's very un-Apple-like.
Steve Jobs said: "In multitasking, if you see a task manager... they blew it"
To me, this drawer full of every app I've ever run, with little quit buttons, looks just like a task manager.
What Stevie meant was if you need to kill an app with a task manger (a different thing then a app launcher which is what it does now) to save battery something is wrong. The user can't really kill apps the OS does that but certain app classes are allowed to keep running if the developer updates them. Now with that said the drawer can get very full and make it hard to find things. You can delete the icons if you wish.
AFAIK, if app does not support iOS multitasking, it just place a "shortcut" in multitasking drawer. There is no memory or processor consumed. Nothing to care about.
To really "support" iOS multitasking, app must declare to OS that it require to stay in memory for "freeze" or need a processor time to do something or access a comunication stack for network activity in background.
Thats what I thought, apps need to support iOS Multitasking, just like the new twitter app that has been released.
Thats what I thought, apps need to support iOS Multitasking, just like the new twitter app that has been released.
Yeah, it's easy to test app "freezing". Start the app, go to a different screen/ function in the app. Press home button. Go back to app. If app is at screen where you left it, it supports multitasking. If app is clearly seen loading from start, it doesn't.
Well if you what you say is accurate, then I need not worry about resources being consumed, which is good.
But disagree that it is "nothing to care about". This would mean that after a week or so of using many different apps on the iPhone, that the multitasking drawer would become packed full of all these "shortcuts" - dozens of them. It would basically end up replicating the home screens, but with only four icons per page. Which completely defeats the purpose of it even being there in my opinion. It's very un-Apple-like.
Steve Jobs said: "In multitasking, if you see a task manager... they blew it"
To me, this drawer full of every app I've ever run, with little quit buttons, looks just like a task manager.
What Stevie meant was if you need to kill an app with a task manger (a different thing then a app launcher which is what it does now) to save battery something is wrong. The user can't really kill apps the OS does that but certain app classes are allowed to keep running if the developer updates them. Now with that said the drawer can get very full and make it hard to find things. You can delete the icons if you wish.
It looks like a task manager, it acts like a task manager. I like iOS4, for sure, but... multitasking is done a little weird. I think they did it as a workaround because there's no "quit" of an app, "quit" was always just pressing the Home button.
The multi-tasking bar also lets you close apps if you use the same action as you would to arrange or delete icons on the home screen. It creates a minus sign which will close down the app.
The general idea is that you shouldn't worry about apps in the taskbar as they have limited resources they can use so they shouldn't impact battery life. Even if the bar gets full, it orders the icons by the most frequently used apps first.
I would have quite liked the multi-tasking bar to slide icons up to close them instead of the hold, wobble, delete but people would have said it was too much like the Pre.
I think they did it as a workaround because there's no "quit" of an app, "quit" was always just pressing the Home button.
From the task manager bar, press and hold an icon. Press the minus symbol. That is quit.