Stop force closing apps on your iPhone, it's not making it run faster or last longer

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Comments

  • Reply 81 of 236
    bobschlob wrote: »

    If you have 40 Apps opened, how do you know which one is stalled?

    they arent opened. they go into Suspended after a few seconds.

    but the point is, youll notice when you have an app that drops your phone to 0% thru observation and experience. personally, ive never had it happen. ever, since the 3G. but if i did have a bum app, id notice it. normal apps simply cannot and do not do this. if you have a stalled GPS or music app youll notice the pattern.

    but most of you are just being superstitious.
  • Reply 82 of 236
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by NolaMacGuy View Post



    agreed, "closing" non-stalled apps form the app history view is a waste of time.



    from a developer who knows:



    http://www.speirs.org/blog/2012/1/2/misconceptions-about-ios-multitasking.html

     

    This is outdated via the introduction of Background App Refresh.  

     

    I will say you are 100% better off managing Background App Refresh settings than force-closing apps.  Force-closing is a crude way of not managing settings properly.  

  • Reply 83 of 236
    bobschlob wrote: »
    It's just friggin' basic good house keeping.

    no, it's not. no more than taking out all the furniture in a room every time you leave the room is.

    faulty apps side, you DONT NEED to manage apps on ios.
  • Reply 84 of 236
    Have to disagree with the author. I find multiple apps that if left in background will kill my battery overnight. I can repeat this over and over, if I leave them active I can count on no battery in the morning and if I kill them off before bed, I only lose a few percent through the night.

    sounds like you need to alert the app devs to their broken apps.
  • Reply 85 of 236
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member

    I went to pick up my phone that was sitting on the couch for hours and it was hot to the touch. The battery was in the red. This never happens to me. Something was eating the battery. I think it was either the Siri turn by turn directions which I abandoned instead of completing my destination or the camera app both in the background.

  • Reply 86 of 236
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by chadbag View Post

     



    WTF?  Who's Mark and why do you insist that your hearsay is better than my hearsay, or my (and other devs here) technical knowledge?




    http://techcrunch.com/2015/10/15/facebook-working-on-fix-for-ios-app-battery-drain-issue/

     

    Your corporate spokesperson already seems to agree, Mark.

  • Reply 87 of 236
    thrang wrote: »
    Uh, yup, they did, multiple times at different locations in NJ.

    It may have changed, but they absolutely did.

    i think its far more likely you misunderstood them -- the geniuses wont tell you to close every app all the time, just cuz. theyre show you how to close an app if you need to as part of troubleshooting.
  • Reply 88 of 236
    That's an interesting article. And the apparently thorough explanation lends it some credence. However, it's still a 3rd party.  Unfortunately, the Apple Support article you cited is inadequate in its explanation too.  Apple needs to quit talking down to its users and give REAL information.

    youre rejecting both an expert developer and apple itself. thats irrational. therefore, there is nobody on earth who can refute your irrational opinion.
  • Reply 89 of 236
    This is outdated via the introduction of Background App Refresh.

    and BAR can be managed or disabled. the simple solution is to disable BAR, and stop being superstitious or OCD about the last-used app history list.
  • Reply 90 of 236
    mstone wrote: »
    I went to pick up my phone that was sitting on the couch for hours and it was hot to the touch. The battery was in the red. This never happens to me. Something was eating the battery. I think it was either the Siri turn by turn directions which I abandoned instead of completing my destination or the camera app both in the background.

    well duh -- if you leave a GPS app running, it's going to use up energy. what do you expect?

    that doesnt support the argument that users have to manage apps on iOS. they dont.
  • Reply 91 of 236
    Quote:



    Originally Posted by markbyrn View Post

     

    Even if the dubious notion that closing apps will have no effect on performance is correct, it's often just a matter of tidiness in closing out apps so I can more readily find the app card I want to get back to.  


     

    This. I hardly ever close apps because I'm concerned about performance. I close them because I'd rather keep the ones I often need to get to easily accessible, without all the others adding to the clutter.

     

    If the message of the article were "FYI closing apps won't save as much battery life as you may think," then that would be fine. But instead, the message is more like "Don't ever close apps." It's even in the text of the article:

    Quote:


    The only time you should force an app to close is if it becomes unresponsive or erratic.


     

    In reality, the only time you should force an app to close is whenever you damn well feel like it, because it's your phone and you paid for it and you can use it however you want.

  • Reply 92 of 236
    chadbagchadbag Posts: 1,999member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by TheWhiteFalcon View Post

     



    http://techcrunch.com/2015/10/15/facebook-working-on-fix-for-ios-app-battery-drain-issue/

     

    Your corporate spokesperson already seems to agree, Mark.




    Again, who is Mark?  My name is not Mark (it should be obvious from my username who I am in terms of name).

     

    And my experience has been that Facebook is not draining battery in the background.  There may be a distinct release version of Facebook that some have but I am not on where it misbehaves and abuses audio channels or something, but in general Facebook is not draining your battery in the background.

     

    And the article is correct that mass force quitting of apps in the switcher is useless.  Most of the apps are already dead, even if they ask for background time, due to memory constraints and being force quit by the OS to free up RAM etc, excepting audio apps (and maybe VOIP -- I have not done a VOIP app and they get special consideration as well).

     

    Force quitting a misbehaving app has merit, and no one claimed otherwise.

  • Reply 93 of 236
    Wrong- this make a huge difference to performance with a lot of apps. And the notion that just because the apps are still in the switcher somehow negating the process actually validates it.
  • Reply 94 of 236
    this superstitious nonsense is the some sort of passionate, fact-less rhetoric that lead to burning witches and human sacrifices.

    some of you cant be helped. good luck with the OCD. out.
  • Reply 95 of 236
    vfx2k4 wrote: »
    Wrong- this make a huge difference to performance with a lot of apps. And the notion that just because the apps are still in the switcher somehow negating the process actually validates it.

    nope. its not an app switcher -- it's a history of last-used apps, sorted by time. educate yourself:

    http://www.speirs.org/blog/2012/1/2/misconceptions-about-ios-multitasking.html
  • Reply 96 of 236
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by NolaMacGuy View Post





    well duh -- if you leave a GPS app running, it's going to use up energy. what do you expect?

    So in other words I should have gone to the app switcher and killed it, like I'm not supposed to do.

  • Reply 97 of 236
    bobschlobbobschlob Posts: 1,074member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by NolaMacGuy View Post

     
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by BobSchlob View Post





    If you have 40 Apps opened, how do you know which one is stalled?




    they arent opened. they go into Suspended after a few seconds.



    but the point is, youll notice when you have an app that drops your phone to 0% thru observation and experience. personally, ive never had it happen. ever, since the 3G. but if i did have a bum app, id notice it. normal apps simply cannot and do not do this. if you have a stalled GPS or music app youll notice the pattern.



    but most of you are just being superstitious.



    Sounds like you are making "superstitious" mean whatever you want it to mean. Just like "opened" and "force close".

    But beyond all that, still didm't answer how, if an App that does do (and is doing) background processing hangs, how would you know? And out of 40 "OPENED" Apps, how would you know which one it is that has hung?

    Better safe than sorry (tidier too).

  • Reply 98 of 236
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by wizard69 View Post





    This is true but it is also why this article is complete nonsense. It only takes one badly behaved app to siphon off a lot of battery power.

    This largely depends upon the apps involved. However I've not seen many suggest doing this all the time for all apps. Instead the general idea is to avoid running problem apps and then suspending them. The other issue is simply having to many suspended apps in the task bar. I try to keep no more than about a half dozen active in the task bar, too many more just leads to sluggishness.

    In the course of two sentences you both agree and disagree with the author. The reality is this the categorical statement made by the author is completely bogus. IOS needs active app management as much as any other operating system. I can easily go for days or even weeks and never have to manage my phone or iPad but eventually you have too much junk active and have to deal with it manually to get performance back to where it should be.

     

    @wizard69  First, what the h@ll is a task bar???

     

    And, are you for real when you say that iOS needs active app management as much as any other operating system? Seriously? Have you even tried Andork or Windoze? And now I'm only comparing mobile operating systems, but you say any OS. Do you have any proof whatsoever that supports that claim – because I know of a gazillion of stats that indicate the opposite? iOS and its app ecosystem are lightyears ahead of all the others when it comes to stability and constant need for rebooting. I'm not saying iOS is perfect, but as much as any other operating system???

     

    Also, your technical brilliance is blinding: more than half a dozen apps leads to sluggishness. Yeah, everybody knows that it's the number of apps that matters – nothing else.  :no: 

  • Reply 99 of 236

    in IOS9, in settings>general>bckrnd app refresh it states: "Turning off apps may help preserve battery life."

    that's from the horse's mouth!!!!

    how come soooo many people think they know EVERYTHING????

    i'm just going w/the V-ger's (the creator's) instructions.

  • Reply 100 of 236
    xpadxpad Posts: 46member
    Wow, so much nonsense in these comments. It's like everyone chimed in without reading the article or something!

    The author noted every single objection listed. He points out that some apps can continue to run in the background, that some apps run in the background indefinitely, and that some apps may need to be manually closed.

    Even Facebook, the poster boy for the "close all the apps" movement, does not do what people claim. It does not "ignore" the rules to shut down, because this is impossible. Apps don't get to decide whether or not to quit, the OS does it for them (apps are first given a warning that they will be closed, then they are closed whether they like it or not). What Facebook (apparently) is doing for some people is playing a silent audio stream in the background so that it stays active. This, if true, is definitely bad. But a little suspicious. Background data should handle everything Facebook needs.

    And all the other examples, chat apps (which need to use background data, obviously) and GPS apps, all fall under the scope of the article.

    As for the Genius Bar employees, it's a valid troubleshooting mechanism. You're there because something is wrong with your phone, so they are just ruling out all the external variables. It's akin to rebooting.

    tl;dr outside of the occasional glitch, if you force close an app, you're just fooling yourself.
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