Maybe this is something you already know, but then again, maybe you’re just like me and this will be news to you…
I told a friend of ours who works at the Apple Store about an iPhone app that I’m beta testing; it drains huge amounts of my battery when the phone isn’t in use. He asked me if I’m closing the app. I said something intelligent, like, “Huh?” and he proceeded to explain that just because you stop using an app, it doesn’t mean that it’s shut down.
Mac users know that while x-ing out of a program on a PC closes it, it isn’t truly closed on a Mac until you “quit” it. Apparently the same is true on iPhones with the newest operating system, IOS4. We now have the ability to multi-task—leave an app without quitting it—but unless you actually go in and quit those apps they’re running all the time.
There are two ways to access those open apps. I see my most recently used apps all the time when I hold the home button down a little too long. You can also access them by double-clicking the home button. It will look like this, with your most recently used apps in a row along the bottom of the screen:
Apps that appear in that row, however, are actually open. If you press and hold any of those icons, red circled “minus” buttons will appear, like this:
Just tap that red minus button and you quit the app (unlike tapping a red “x” button, which deletes it).
My husband had 53 open apps; he didn’t realize he even had that many on his phone. I stopped counting in the 60s, but I’m sure every. single. app. on my phone was open, the equivalent of using a computer with all programs running.
I’m not going to freak out and shut them down constantly now, but the end of each day or two should suffice. It’s certainly better than never.
Did you realize you needed to quit your apps?
YES – but only because my wonderful 20 something son told me!
Thanks
Have been looking for a way to shut down apps without shutting down phone!
jeff
Hmm….wonder if the same is true for the ipad. I’ll have to check it out.
I just learned this last week from my husband. I had complained of my battery seeming to run down quickly. Ended up being the bajillion games my children had open 🙂 Hooray for continuing ed!
I’m guess this doesn’t apply to the 3GS? That’s what I have and I don’t think it’s the same.
But what I really want to know…do you really have 282 unread e-mails??? lol!
Becky, isn’t it amazing how the kids know everything?
Jolanthe – yes! It looks like it works for iPad, too.
Donetta, I don’t think it’s the phone model, but the operating system. My husband has a 3GS and he quit all of his apps. Unfortunately, yes on the emails. 🙂
Ah! That makes sense. Maybe I don’t have that OS then. A good reason not to upgrade maybe?? 😉
Wow. That’s a lot of emails! 😛
So thankful for my AT&T sales guy who showed me that when I bought it! It is a super important, helpful tip!!!
hey they are really useful tips to use Iphone for those who have newly purchased the as well for the non tech buddies. Me a non tech buddy I will surely follow these tips to make great use of the phone.
I learned of this useful information a while, after I asked someone why my battery wasn’t lasting as long. I couldn’t believe how may apps I had open in the background!
Donetta, it’s handy to have the ability to multi-task—for the apps not to automatically shut down when you switch—you just need to close them out occasionally. 🙂
This does not work. iOS does not support true multitasking of user applications. Only certain resources may be held open by an application after the application view has been poped(removed from the screen) unless an app is using one of these resources, it’s state is saved by the persistence manager and dumped to cache. Upon reload or selecting the application the persisted state is then reloaded. These apps are not truly running in the background. So you really wont be saving anything by removing the persistence states(Clicking the little red x).
I just did what my friend who works at the Apple Store told me to do. 🙂