Why You Shouldn't Make a Habit of Force-Quitting iOS Apps or Restarting iOS Devices (tidbits.com) 90
Adam Engst, writing for TidBITS: Because force-quitting apps and restarting or shutting down devices are necessary only to fix unanticipated problems, there are two notable downsides to engaging in such behavior as a matter of habit: reduced battery life and wasted time. Why would these behaviors reduce battery life? Remember, iOS is a modern operating system that's built on top of Apple's proprietary hardware. Apple has put a great deal of effort into ensuring that iOS knows the best ways to manage the limited hardware resources within your iPhone or iPad. No one, possibly short of an iOS systems engineer armed with Apple's internal diagnostic and debugging tools, would be able to outguess iOS itself on issues like memory usage, power draw, and CPU throttling.
When you invoke the App Switcher in iOS, you can swipe right to see all the apps you've used, possibly since you got your device. (The very first app in my iPhone 11 Pro's App Switcher is Apple's Tips, which I think came up automatically when I turned the iPhone on last year and hasn't been touched since. It's difficult to count apps in the App Switcher, but I probably have at least a hundred in there.) As the number of apps in the App Switcher should indicate, those apps are not necessarily running -- they merely have run at some point in the past. They're much more like the contents of the Mac's Apple > Recent Items menu. In normal usage, iOS devotes the lion's share of CPU and memory resources to the app that you're using. That's sensible -- the performance of that app is paramount. However, the next few apps in the App Switcher may also be consuming some CPU and memory resources. That's because iOS correctly assumes that you're most likely to return to them, and it wants to give you the best experience when you do. The screen shouldn't have to redraw multiple times, Internet-loaded content shouldn't have to update, and so on. [...]
When you invoke the App Switcher in iOS, you can swipe right to see all the apps you've used, possibly since you got your device. (The very first app in my iPhone 11 Pro's App Switcher is Apple's Tips, which I think came up automatically when I turned the iPhone on last year and hasn't been touched since. It's difficult to count apps in the App Switcher, but I probably have at least a hundred in there.) As the number of apps in the App Switcher should indicate, those apps are not necessarily running -- they merely have run at some point in the past. They're much more like the contents of the Mac's Apple > Recent Items menu. In normal usage, iOS devotes the lion's share of CPU and memory resources to the app that you're using. That's sensible -- the performance of that app is paramount. However, the next few apps in the App Switcher may also be consuming some CPU and memory resources. That's because iOS correctly assumes that you're most likely to return to them, and it wants to give you the best experience when you do. The screen shouldn't have to redraw multiple times, Internet-loaded content shouldn't have to update, and so on. [...]
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It's still devoid of any relevant content, so it's all good.
Re: who hacked msmash? (Score:2)
so who hacked the msmash account?
Probably left a malicious App running on his iOS device and it scraped login data as he went to post an article about how you're a horrible person for closing background tasks.
Lack of Actual Testing (Score:5, Insightful)
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I can perhaps buy the premise, but there's no proper testing to substantiate the claims in the article.
I'm sorry, but since when did we need proper testing to substantiate something that has been known about on mobile platforms for the best part of 7 years? I mean what they introduced the shelving of apps in iOS 3 or something like that. There was plenty of testing done at the time which showed that actually starting an app uses far more active CPU time than simply loading a cached suspended app.
Why would that be any different now?
I jumped here in the comments to criticise msmash for posting an article descr
Re: Lack of Actual Testing (Score:3)
It's an Apple thing. Nobody understands it anyway because we all are too stupid to understand the deity Apple.
All this article looks like is a scare from Apple, same thing as to why you can't replace the battery yourself or have it repaired at an independent repair shop.
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He's probably quite right about restarting. Short of the phone malfunctioning (It happens, but its rare), the iPhones and Android devices are platforms designed to be always on and generally are pretty damn stable, all things considered,
But the "dont restart/stop apps" thing. Hogwash. I have a couple of apps I constantly need to restart. An app for controlling the smart lighting in my house, because a stupid flaw in the app means it sometimes wont return to the home page, and the Amazon firestick controller
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Good data with examples like yours is most often ignored. If people would just take some time to dig a hair deeper than reading something and letting it sink in as truth, the world would be a very different place.
Good comment with real-life info, BTW!
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I can perhaps buy the premise, but there's no proper testing to substantiate the claims in the article. The only support they provide is an anecdotal piece of information that was posted by someone in a comments section [tidbits.com] of their website. Not exactly following the scientific method or performing proper experimental design here.
I agree with you. Not to tie my thoughts to yours; this is completely separate but I thought you'd perhaps get a chuckle from it (not a good one)....
The person with "knowledge" saying that it's bad to force-close apps (and BTW a similar thing was said about Android apps but without testing data) PERHAPS, just perhaps, may be tied to either an advertising company OR the data gathering center itself (the phone's OS' manufacturer and data peruser). They might (Android and Apple) just not be happy that the pu
Uh huh (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure. Whatever. Or Apple could realize that by bloating the task switcher menu with literally every app you've ever run since the phone was started, you make it impossible to use, and eventually it becomes worthwhile just to force quite EVERYTHING just so you can get the phone back to a usable base state.
Not to mention the persistent issues where web connections just randomly get "stuck" and refuse to run. Or the random background services that can soft lock such that they'll never run again, but you can't restart them, because there is no proper task manager in iOS. (One great example of this is CarPlay. CarPlay routinely crashes such that the only way to get your phone to talk to your car again is to reboot the phone, because you can't just force quit the hidden CarPlay process. Audio can also fail in a similar way.) So you end up having to restart the phone on a fairly regular basis.
But sure, blame me for trying to keep the task switcher a manageable size and trying to keep basic phone features like "playing a ringtone when receiving a call" functioning. Obviously keeping those working by restarting the phone when they break wastes battery power and is unnecessary.
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you make it impossible to use, and eventually it becomes worthwhile just to force quite EVERYTHING
Or you could realise if what you wanted in the task switcher isn't in the last 3-4 apps you had open it's probably just faster to open it from the app drawer. It has the same effect.
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you make it impossible to use, and eventually it becomes worthwhile just to force quite EVERYTHING
Or you could realise if what you wanted in the task switcher isn't in the last 3-4 apps you had open it's probably just faster to open it from the app drawer. It has the same effect.
I believe the commenter is pointing out that they like task switching and not opening the app from the usual opening place every time. It's data for Apple to take into consideration when designing and redesigning their interface. This is the information and clues that Apple ignores. They try to go for idiot-proofing and stick with that. It isn't working so well, but they keep plugging away at it.
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There's also no way to restart an application when it gets stuck. And sometimes they get stuck. Maybe Apple doesn't like this but my life doesn't revolve around making Apple happy, and neither should anyone else's life.
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This kills the app, this is what the article above is saying you should not do (and I disgree). However if there was a different way to restart the app, or gently poke it, I'd try that first. Had to do it yesterday after writing that post, Outlook just would not get new emails, even with the normal swipe down flick, so I restarted.
All thse actions by the way, the different types of swipes and pinches and whatnot, are not documented. There is no user manual for iOS or Android. All of this is either disco
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The article says you shouldn't do it "as a matter of habit." It isn't saying "never under any circumstances should you kill an app." The first sentence of the summary acknowledges that it can be a necessary step to fix unanticipated problems.
Your second point is just factually incorrect, at least for iOS. Here's a link to the user guide. [apple.com]
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Great link. Too bad there was no manual that came with the phone, or even pointers about where to find this page.
Re: Uh huh (Score:2)
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Apple doesn't cater to people who understand any of these topics.
Have you tried turning it off and back on again?
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My wife's iPhone 11 is currently away for repair because it keeps overheating. It gets too hot to comfortably handle while the screen is off or while she is just using text chat quite regularly.
It seems like pretty much all the Apple hardware she has owned has failed in some way or another, except her iPods which are currently okay bit I'm not holding out much hope. Her iPhone 6 had multiple battery problems including the random shutdown issue and the battery expanding. The touch screen often stopped workin
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I'll cash bet ya they all said "Made in China" on their labels. Crap mass production tied with attempted jailing and idiot-proofing in design leads to....
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Lev Andropov : It's stuck, yes?
Watts : Back off! You don't know the components!
Lev Andropov : [annoyed] Components. American components, Russian Components, ALL MADE IN TAIWAN!
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I know this is too complicated an idea for Apple to take into consideration, but how about a switch in the configuration for "User" and "Knowledgeable computer user". User keeps things the way they are now. The other lets you manage services, app lists, processes, open tasks, memory, etc etc etc. I know I'm just rambling because it's not going to happen, but hey. I like rambling to the intelligent.
This really sounds like (Score:2)
Leaving your devices on seems to benefit just the apps on the device. I usually shut things down.
Force quitting! OK maybe but a well written app should deal with it
Just my 2 cents
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I usually just buy a new iPhone.
Time for lunch. Damn, my fridge is full. Time to buy a new one.
This crap again? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, but no. Apple isn't perfect, and you absolutely should force quit everything and reboot at least once a month, if not once a week. iOS may be less buggy than most operating systems, but that still means millions of unfixed bugs in iOS, and apps are even worse.
You're just going to have a better experience that way.
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When my battery life goes down the shitter, force-quit on everything brings it right back.
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Resetting a system periodically has nothing at all to do with what the article is discussing, which is that you shouldn't force quit apps as soon as you finish using them if you want to maximise battery life.
That fact it something that has been relatively common knowledge since the iPhone 3G came out.
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The GP stated that TFA article is wrong and Apple isn't perfect and that you absolutely need to force close or reboot devices. His concerns are in fact addressed in the first line of TFS, the rest of the GP's comment is off topic.
As to what I was saying, Apple treats apps not running for a few seconds the same way as a computer which is suspended.
Force quitting an app is like shutting down a computer.
Just switching off it is like suspending the computer.
Out of those two, when you want to use your computer a
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Out of those two, when you want to use your computer again which of the two do you think will consume more battery, booting a computer fresh reloading the entire system, or simply resuming the suspended state?
You ask a great question!
Resuming from a suspended state is a wonderful idea and should consume so much less resources than the other options do.
Problem with that. Things hang. Things screw up at the kernel level. They stop working in hidden apps and resource ties. Memory leaks still exist (oh, my). Sometimes that damn thing needs a complete restart.
I thought about mentioning ways to force closures and clear memory space while reducing the processing time needed to do it (requires redesign), but it doe
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Memory leaks are still present from the kernel all the way up to the interface elements. Of course those need reboots to be corrected. (I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm adding).
How about designing a device where the bootloader is hardened and ever-present (pretty much like a heartbeat monitor on motherboards, but different). You gotta restart that damn thing every once in a while, so instead of close, quit, force-quit, FORCE-QUIT DAMNIT, wait, WILL YOU FUCKING COMPLETE YOUR FORCE QUIT ALREADY, wait, har
How to make the App Switcher UI useless (Score:2)
It's difficult to count apps in the App Switcher...
And this is why I continue to always close iOS apps that I'm not using. The App Switcher cache is a cache of my pending work/play on the phone in addition to whatever iOS is doing under the hood to presumably better manage my battery. It's not my life's purpose to help iOS manage my phone's battery life. Never mind several recent and high profile iOS/iPhone blunders by Apple in this area.
Except you're wrong. (Score:4, Informative)
I know that Apple contends that force-quitting apps isn't necessary, but that's absolutely false.
There are a handful of apps I use on a regular basis that eat up CPU and battery when left running in the background. Authenticators tend to be the worst culprits, but there are others. There's at least one that, if I run it in the morning and let it run all day, makes a solid 20% difference in battery drain (instead of a normal 94% or so, it's down near 70%). So I use it and then immediately force-quit.
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When Safari quits leaking memory or whatever it does when websites start having the "problems reloading this site" error, then I won't need to restart.
It happened this morning, in fact. Full shutdown and restart solved the problem.
Re:Except you're wrong. (Score:5, Funny)
You are just holding it wrong.
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Congratulations, TimCunter. You officially have no sense of humour.
P.S. What else will trigger your fragile sensitivities today?
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Congratulations, TimCunter. You officially have no sense of humour.
P.S. What else will trigger your fragile sensitivities today?
Maybe rubbing them differently.
Wait, maybe that's what the original commenter should try! They're rubbing it wrong when swiping the screen. Try doing that differently. :)
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They started out telling everyone they were holding it wrong.
Now they're adding "You're using it wrong".
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You're only allowed to tell Android users that they're holding it wrong.
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You are just saying it wrong. It is "You are just using it wrong."
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There are a handful of apps I use on a regular basis that eat up CPU and battery when left running in the background. Authenticators tend to be the worst culprits, but there are others. There's at least one that, if I run it in the morning and let it run all day, makes a solid 20% difference in battery drain (instead of a normal 94% or so, it's down near 70%).
NPR used to offer (I don't know if they still do, they stopped updating it years ago) an app that you could use to stream NPR shows. Except at some point (I think with the release of iOS 10) it broke such that it would no longer stream anything - but it would keep on using battery constantly if you launched it.
I'm not sure how they managed, but it seemed to be running the phone at near 100% CPU constantly once launched, even if you closed it. I'm fairly sure force-quitting "fixed" the issue, but since the p
Re: Except you're wrong. (Score:1)
I'm not sure how they managed
It was written by the same stupid asshole who selects those godawful samples of "music" they constantly inflict on the listener.
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Was this the old Public Radio or PRX app?
I don't remember the name of the app anymore and of course you can no longer view previously installed apps that are no longer published in app store.
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Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Hearthstone have all run down my battery while in the background at least once in recent memory.
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There are a handful of apps I use on a regular basis that eat up CPU and battery when left running in the background.
There are a couple apps I use on a regular basis which eat up CPU and battery despite not having permission, in Settings -> General -> Background App Refresh, to run in the background. Force-quitting them solves the problem.
iOS seems to have gone steadily downhill since 10.3.x.
Doesn't matter, it's about organization (Score:3)
If the *user* wants to swipe the app out of the list, then it should be swiped out of the list. If the *operating system* finds it would be better to keep that app in memory for future use, then it can do so on its own without bothering the user about it.
Even beyond that sometimes an application is simply having problems and that is currently the only way to make an app start from scratch. The action of forcing an application to be removed from memory will always have to exist until people are able to write perfect applications.
It's perfect, don't touch it! (Score:2)
Oh wait, no they don't. (roll-ii)
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And so you see, this is why Apple gives a 100% refund crash-proof guarantee on everything they sell.
It's only important to mention that in advertising.. with an unreadable disclaimer that every case other than the shipping of a device other than the one purchased, by model number, was different, is excluded. Sell the device, then say.... welcome to support. Our call volume is really high due to COVID. Trust us, it wasn't always high. Really. We did an analysis on call wait times to our foreign call processing center before COVID and realized they were ridiculous, but.... SHIT! I mean we analyzed...
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Amen.
There are other devices (uh, one that I know of anyway that's similar ENOUGH). Force-quitting has been suggested to be unnecessary and resource-consuming, as well as battery-draining due to processing time. But no articles get posted on ./ about those devices. Gee... wonder what made this one such a great one to post.
Light bulb just came on. Perhaps this needs to start happening more. We're just seeing the first in a set of waves. People are getting annoyed with the battery life of their phones a
Background app refresh and tracking (Score:2)
If you don't force quit, don't those apps with background app refresh keep refreshing ?
And what about the ones with "know your location on;y when using the app"? Does it keep updating?
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If you don't force quit, don't those apps with background app refresh keep refreshing ?
And what about the ones with "know your location on;y when using the app"? Does it keep updating?
Maybe that's what's killing my battery cycle time. I don't want my location data being gathered by apps (911 is fine; when I look at Google maps, it's fine; other than that, nunya biz!)
Perhaps leaving location data switched off is causing apps and other device elements that want to actively gather location data by GPS-only to keep using processing time to try and activate the call to GPS even though it's turned off. It just keep cycling and knocks the CPU speed up a notch due to constant usage. Sort of l
I shouldn't what? (Score:1)
If the OS or application can't take a reboot, shutdown, or whatever, it is relatively -poor-
And if it doesn't want to, I'll be annoyed, and pull the plug anyway.
Stupid tech.
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I shut the fuck up an OS or an application when I want to.
I'm the human.
If the OS or application can't take a reboot, shutdown, or whatever, it is relatively -poor-
And if it doesn't want to, I'll be annoyed, and pull the plug anyway.
Stupid tech.
You shouldn't do things like the old school you did them. Don't close programs when you're not using them. Just always leave them open. Somehow they don't consume memory or resources now and leaving them open doesn't mean they're gathering more personal data and passing it off more than just a running service does. Leave them open! In fact, think of it like Windows XP and up - prefetch. Open all of the programs on your phone and go back to the main screen. Leave them all appearing open and it will sa
Safari is a turd (Score:2)
Safari
on news.com.au, every 24 hours of use images refuse to load requiring a forced reboot of safari.
sites like zerohedge (yes, I should know better) and caradvice often crash the browser when loading comments.
I've now started using firefox instead.
Share My Location While Active Only (Score:2)
Some apps, I concede, work much better when they know my location. I allow them access to my location but only when the app is actually launched. If I leave it launched, they're collecting data about me that I don't wish to give them.
I shut down all apps when I'm done using them. It saves battery (especially when away from WiFi), saves data, and is just a bit more private.
You most definitely need to restart IOS devices (Score:2)
After some time(6-8 month normally) of not restarting the device, the alarms stop ringing...
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After some time(6-8 month normally) of not restarting the device, the alarms stop ringing...
My first question is how in the hell did you keep the thing running that long in the first place?? :)
Instead just throw it away? (Score:2)
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And buy a new one?
If it says "Made in China", definitely. Throw. It. Away. Get a new one. Boot it. Open all apps. Leave them open. Let the breeze stimula.... uh... ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H
nonsense (Score:3)
How To Fix iOS Apps or Restarting iOS Devices (Score:1)
I was >this< close to getting it wrong. (Score:3)
Why You Shouldn't Make a Habit of Force-Quitting iOS Apps or Restarting iOS Devices
I used The Force to quit using iOS/Apple devices, so -- whew!
I want an app on off switch (Score:3)
I don't want this to save the battery, reduce data charges, or increase performance of the phone (I grant that the operating system might be able to handle those use cases), I want this because I don't want the application to be tracking me in any way when I have it turned off.
I can do this now, but to turn off the application, I have to uninstall it and then reinstall it when I want to use it again - this is a lot of trouble and I lose my configuration settings when I do this. In addition, there are some applications which I am unable to uninstall (which is another peeve of mine, that would partially be solved if I had a proper application off switch.)
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While I may not be the target audience, what I personally want in my smart phone is to be able to turn on and turn off applications. When I have turned off an application, I expect that no part of the application will ever run, not in the foreground and not in the background; I expect that no network activity will occur. I also expect that the application will not automatically be updated and that nothing other than me explicitly turning the application back on will cause the app to start running again.
I don't want this to save the battery, reduce data charges, or increase performance of the phone (I grant that the operating system might be able to handle those use cases), I want this because I don't want the application to be tracking me in any way when I have it turned off.
I can do this now, but to turn off the application, I have to uninstall it and then reinstall it when I want to use it again - this is a lot of trouble and I lose my configuration settings when I do this. In addition, there are some applications which I am unable to uninstall (which is another peeve of mine, that would partially be solved if I had a proper application off switch.)
I thought there was one on the 'droid called "Titanium Backup" where you can "freeze" an app. It doesn't appear in the app list and isn't a running program anymore... until you 'unfreeze' it. Except when I tried to find out what was using resources on my device, I found it was an app I "froze".
The point I'm getting to is having the option just means you'll feel better but the data gather-mongers will just back-write a way around it and keep it off the books. Well, they'll keep plenty coming into the book
Is this for real? (Score:2)
The two years I carried an iphone, it would get noticeably slower after about three weeks of continuous use. "Noticeably" not in fractions of a second, but in whole second delays before an app would respond. The only thing that would fix it was force quit apps or restart the device.
I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person who had this experience. Test by: If it's not an issue, why do users have to be told not to force quit apps or restart the phone? Do you really think we fumble around with our iphones
LOL whoever wrote that is clueless (Score:3)
What a complete load of pig shit. iOS is working from incomplete data like when you are next likely to use or need the app or whether the excessive use of resources is reasonable or not. Any idiot with half a clue can outguess the best way to conserve resources for an app you know you are never going to use again for the next day week or whenever while iOS has no clue.
reduced battery life and wasted time (Score:2)
Lol, OK.
report: Closing apps in ios more harmful than 5G (Score:1)
Tidbits can suck it (Score:2)
Funniest comment ever (Score:4, Insightful)
Remember, iOS is a modern operating system that's built on top of Apple's proprietary hardware. Apple has put a great deal of effort into ensuring that iOS knows the best ways to manage the limited hardware resources within your iPhone or iPad. No one, possibly short of an iOS systems engineer armed with Apple's internal diagnostic and debugging tools, would be able to outguess iOS itself on issues like memory usage, power draw, and CPU throttling.
"Remember" -- no, I remember no such thing. That's an "assumptive open". Remember, anytime someone says "Of course you know X" that means they're making up X. Of course you know, Trump won the popular vote. Remember, Apple is the best at everything. Etcetera...
"iOS knows the best way to manage" -- no, that's why people kill apps and reboot devices
"No one.. would be able to outguess iOS itself" -- yeah, it's called "millions of user everywhere"
Seriously, Apple, quit taking yourself so seriously. "No one" else does.
Reboot your iPhone or iPad and kill apps/tasks and don't listen to Apple PR. There's your "short of an iOS systems engineer" opinion.
E
Wasted time? Oh fudge! (Score:1)
What about privacy and security? (Score:1)
Evidence to back up the claim? (Score:1)
The argument is interesting at best, but does nothing to paint a believable picture of why such argument is necessary in the first place. The performance angle is likely to appease a broader audience searching for advice on improving performance. For everyone else, the advice is counter intuitive and raises additional questions around security and autonomy. As I prefer to use my app switcher as a way to flip between a very specific set of applications, I almost always close apps I'm not using immediately af
Apple is vague about it (Score:1)
I agree (Score:1)