thanks so much for teaching me about this!
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I’l have to see if I can write that up as a tip, since it may not be as well known as it should be.
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Does this also mean that if you swipe away an app you are pretty certain you will not need for a week or two, that will increase the chance that the apps you do use regularly will remain in memory?
I doubt it. An app that hasn’t done anything for several weeks has probably already been removed from memory. In that situation, swiping it away is going to be purely cosmetic - it will remove the app from the list but do nothing else.
And will release whatever memory or storage was being used to retain the last screen image that was kept for the app.
I wonder if there is a normal “Quit”. Nobody ever mentioned that.
There is no Quit command that is exposed to the user. iOS is designed for the user to expect not to quit an app. iOS and iPadOS are not MacOS.
However, it is true that apps are supposed to have an internal function to gracefully quit when the OS signals that it is closing an app (whether from a force quit by the user or because the OS needs the resources used by an app that hasn’t been used for a while.)
Yes, I remember there was a time when the Genius Bar would suggest this, but that was a long time ago.
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On the more global topic, I now have 19 apps open when I hit the Switcher (pull screen up half-way to scroll to next app): Messages, Instagram Mail, DEVONthink Pro, OmniFocus, Numbers, Weather apps, Timer on the Clock, Safari, Numbers, not to mention utilities and Map and Phone, Quicken, Calculator, Pedometer, bank apps, investment apps, stock ticker, YouTube… You get the picture. I may use most of these only once per week and after a while it is cumbersome to quickly locate my 5 core apps that I use all day, everyday.
I never realized I was harming my IOS device by force quitting. I’ve continued NOT force quitting since this first appeared a few weeks ago. But it would be great if an app would go away after 3-4 days of non-use. Thanks for sharing how to do it correctly to add longevity to our device.
PS: I did read the earlier posts and don’t claim to have insight into each nuance. My takeaway is that if I force quit an app I use infrequently all I’m really doing is robbing more CPU and battery when I launch it next time. It seems logical to me that if I leave an app unused for several days and it has essentially released its CPU and Memory that when I select its page to use it again (it has remained open for days) it is going to need CPU and Memory from somewhere that it has not required for days. Perhaps not as much as a complete “open” from scratch. At the end of the day it seems like more of a behavioral decision. I’m still learning…thanks for the encouragement and patience.
Great point. I added to my post after your response. While I get the idea I am probably wrong, it seems to me if I don’t worry about using more CPU, Memory, or Battery what’s the harm with quitting and app. I’ll just need to recharge 2 minutes sooner.
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I realize this discussion is excessively long, but it has been brought up more than once and the answer is no, there is only one way for a user to quit.
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No, the more important point is that your battery is limited by the number of charge cycles it goes through, so that 2 minutes of extra charge will also mean you will need to replace the battery or the iDevice that much sooner.
While that might be technically true assuming that Apple’s technote is accurate and not just what a few people at Apple have decided is “best practice”…the overall effect is likely negligible. If you plan on keeping your device for 5 years…2 minutes of extra charging every day is about 60 extra hours over 5 years which is maybe 12 to 15 charge cycles or about 1.5% of the 1,000 minimum it is designed for…which doesn’t seem like anything significant to me. Most iOS devices are replaced more than every 5 years is my guess…so the actual net effect is almost non existent or negligible. If one uses the Program Switcher as your launcher/commonly used apps finder…that negligible reduction in battery capacity is probably just fine…it is to me and although I only force quit misbehaving apps I can see the attraction in keeping the number of apps in the Switcher to a low number…particularly if you’re concerned about privacy as we well know that many apps track you even if only while using is checked…FB for instance. GPS or mapping apps can also be an issue if you never actually arrive at your destination according to the GPS because you pulled into the driveway and the map thinks the address is 30 yards down the street because that’s the center of the Walmart’s address block.
My contention remains…we must all be really bored because we are spending way too much effort in minutiae…but it ain’t just here…my Ugly Hedgehog photo forum has a debate going on about whether a photo has integrity if you post process it and whether adjusting exposure is more or less bad than replacing the sky or cloning out a piece of trash…that thread has going on 100 or more long winded passionate disagreements about something that doesn’t matter either.
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That would seem reasonable in that case; but I am talking about an app that I launch, use, then swipe away immediately I am done with it — eg because I know it is a monthly task I do with it.
This is a bit off-topic. The examples below usually but not always involve pages from the National Weather Service, and the device is an iPad Air 2.
When I choose Safari from the app switcher, it sometimes appears to refresh each tab as I cycle through them. (Infrequently, it will appear to refresh only some tabs.) When Safari does this, it often moves the displayed part of the page down, so that I need to move it back up to see what interests me. The movement seems to be consistent for each page, but will vary from page to page. (I restore it by pressing the arrow key on the external keyboard, and different pages require different numbers of presses on the arrow key.) Why?
More importantly, the refresh often does not fetch an updated page. For example, when first selected, the hour-by-hour forecast tab will show a blank window, the thermometer bar will move across the bottom of the address bar, and then the tab will show hours-old information. Often, command-R will do the repeat the exercise, again showing the old information. In that case, a second command-R will reload the page, much more quickly and with current information. What odd caching behavior is causing this? By the way, if the iPad does not have an internet connection, the first (and subsequent, of course) attempts to refresh will fail. Since Safari is evidently grabbing the information from the internet, why isn’t it grabbing current information? And if it cannot grab information from the internet, why not show me the old information? Thanks for any explanation, and especially for a solution that results in current information the first time or showing the old information when there is no internet connection.
The amount of memory or storage for the screen image is essentially zero. (Technically it obviously has some value, but it’s so tiny in comparison to the resources available, practically it is zero.)
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Well, I started following this advice on my iPad, offending as it is to my sense of order, and it’s made a very noticeable difference. I don’t use the iPad a lot, mostly just in the evening to avoid my desktop (which is also my work computer), but even so I had to recharge it every 2-3 nights. It now lasts maybe twice as long.
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This may be a bit off topic, but often I kill apps that (1) have access to sensitive information such as banking apps, and (2) apps that I suspect to call home, for whatever reason, in the background. Many news outlets entice you to download their proper apps, but when you use them you have no control whatsoever on how these apps manage cookies or how they behave themselves when in the background.
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Settings > General > Background App Refresh
Settings > Privacy > Location Services
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Yes, indeed, thanks for pointing that out. One can cut off many apps using these settings, that is right. I would have shut background activity down altogether if there weren’t a few apps that I actually want to run in the background. I haven’t visited this setting for a while, and I was a bit shocked by the number of apps that have requested to remain active…
As to the specific apps that news sites want you to use instead of a generic browser, I don’t think you have any say over what cookies they use, even if they aren’t active in the background.
I’ve been very interested in this thread and am amused to see that it continues to stimulate replies.
Not to unduly prolong the discussion, it sees to me that the main contentions are
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‘quitting’ apps using the app switcher causes undue drain on battery and resources because iOS manages these better than humans
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anyway, you can control background app function in iOS Settings > …
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and you can use the ‘Home Screen’ to quickly switch between apps. [My devices have a physical ‘Home’ button.]
With reference to #1, I’ll add that on my iPad I’ve recently noticed an unusually fast battery drain when I do not ‘quit’ the apps I would normally quit, such as Facebook, any news app, or others I don’t want to have continuously conversing with ‘home base’ when I’m not using them. [I have not performed a controlled experiment, just anecdotal observation.]
With reference to #2, I have limited most apps to ‘While Using’, but does this include while in the app switcher?
With reference to #3, as I think I’ve said before, organizing apps on screens is somewhat annoying and assumes that you primarily use a single screen full of apps, or that you are willing to hunt through your many screens to find the apps, or that you are willing to constantly rearrange your apps on your screens. For me the app switcher lets me switch between the few apps I am currently using and change that mix quickly by ‘quitting’ apps I’m using less frequently.
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