We’ve been getting some email lately that all asks the same question about iPhone 3GS and 4 multitasking. There seems to be some confusion, so in an effort to clear this up:
On iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4, you can quickly switch between the applications you’re using; multitasking also allows certain applications to run in the background.
Double-clicking the iPhone’s Home button lets you view the most recently used applications.
The four most recently used application are shown at the bottom of the screen. Flick left to see more applications, if you have recently used many different apps, you may see 10, 20, 30, or more apps in that list. Our test phone currently shows 42 apps in the recents list. We are not sure what the limits (number of apps and/or amount of time before an app is not considered “recent”) – if anyone’s hit any limit(s), please let us know.
Anyway, the basic point is: Don’t worry, not all of these apps are “running.” In fact, most of them are not. Those 42 apps are the last 42 apps you used, they’re not churning in the background, sucking up your battery life. Think of them sort of like Han Solo encased in carbonite; they’re in suspended animation, so they spring back to life right where you left them when tapped. So, that app list is there for your convenience, not to stress you out, so don’t worry, be happy! You’re running iOS4 on an iPhone 3GS or iPhone 4, you lucky son-a-ma-batches! Your iPhone is taking care of multitasking, so you don’t have to.
If you don’t want anyone to see how many fart apps you’ve been running lately, you can easily remove an icon from the recents list: Simply touch and hold the application icon until it begins to wiggle, then tap the red minus sign icon for each app you wish to remove. The application is added to recent applications again the next time you open it.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers too numerous to mention individually for the question.]
So how do you really close an app? for those that are running in the background?
” In fact, most of them are not…”
So what about that are running? Hitting the red minus will close it or just remove it from the “recent applications” section?
it would be nice if there was an option for completely shutting down individual apps – maybe a setting to select which ones will stay “running” after they are closed.
i don’t even use the multitasking bar at the bottom of the screen because it is faster to just select the main icon for the app i want to open.
the multitasking bar is essentially useless imo. it just makes me add two extra clicks of the home button to get to the list, when i could otherwise just click a single time on app i want.
It’s called, RTFM!
It’s all ATT’s fault that multitasking is so difficult. Verizon would make iOS 4 multitasking a dream.
Duh….probably all the “no Multitasking” monkeys screaming loudest…
And there we have it: proof that iPhone with iOS4 is the answer to life, the universe, and everything else!
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(apologies to Douglas Adams)
More info here: http://db.tidbits.com/article/11378
@bon
Class action!!
but apple continues to miss the obvious
apps should also be available in a simple list
like a contact book
just my 2cent but i think it is a major miss
hate to say it:
Take your 2 cent and flush
I love apple.
But this is a pain in the butt.
So, if I want to quit Pandora pre iOS4, I click the home button.
But post iOS4, I click the home button. Then double click the home button. Then click and hold on of the apps in the task bar. Then click the little minus sign on the Pandora app.
There needs to be a way to simply quit an app without it going into background mode then to the task bar.
I am tired of constantly cleaning out my task bar of background apps that I just wanted to simple quit.
deepdish, I’d recommend that you not focus on whether Pandora is “running” or not. Much like the iPod taught people not to worry about whether the device was “on”, Apple doesn’t want people wasting brain space thinking about whether iPhone apps are “running”.
Pandora has a “pause” button in the app to make the music stop playing. Hit that before you press the”home button. Or, if you want to stop the music after pressing home, just double-tap then swipe to the left where there is always a pause button waiting. (You can also pause Pandora from the lock screen now, by double-tapping home while locked.)
That’s right. When Pandora is paused, it’s not running. You don’t have to “quit” anything. Just pause it and go about your business.
Yes, you need to be able to specify which apps you want to be left “running” these things building up to no end just creates clutter…
Very un-appleish I love the fact that I can multitask now, just needs to be refined.
Someone could create a small app that would “Close All Apps.”
I was told by an Apple rep that the camera is drain on the battery when not in use so it was a good idea to close it when finished. This advice seems to be contrary to the notion that not all apps are multitasking. If they are sucking battery life when not closed, then that is a drain not unlike a true multitasking app.
Multitasking and “recent apps” are two different concepts, but Apple seems to be treating them as identical. Seems like a mistake to me.
MYoung, they are not using battery life just because they are in the recently-used list. Only if they are doing something (of a small set of possible tasks). The camera app is not left “running” and you do not need to bother removing it from the recently-used list when finished.
Comprehension fail.
I posted this last week in another thread, and nobody seems to want to answer. So far, this thread hadn’t quite answered it, so I’ll ask again:
How do you quit an app on iPhone 4?
How do you send an app into background on iPhone4?
From what I heard so far, there is no way to differentiate between the two. In other words, when you leave an app to launch another, that app closes and in its stead, background service is launched. If the app supports iOS4, specific background services will continue to run (GPS, audio stream, whatever). If the app does not require background services, it will just save its current state (games and such), so that user can recall it next time he goes into the app. So, unless an app has background services, it does NOT take up any resources while in ‘background’.
So, if this is indeed the case, again, how does one close an app COMPLETELY (i.e. without saving state, launching background services or any such thing)? Does one have to go through the whole double-tap home button song-and-dance in order to terminate by clicking an ‘X’ on a wiggling app icon? Or is there a more intuitive (and logical) way to simply close it (the way you did in pre- iOS4)?
Please don’t think I’m trolling, but I think this Multitasking malarky needs some more work. Quitting all the open Apps reminds me of playing Daley Thompsons Decathalon on my ZX Spectrum 48k+
Deepdish says “But post iOS4, I click the home button. Then double click the home button. Then click and hold on of the apps in the task bar. Then click the little minus sign on the Pandora app.”
You’re going to the home screen before double-tapping the home button?
Why?
Unbelievable how something so intuitive can be so vexing for some.
99.9% of the time, no one wants to completely quit an App without saving states, but if you really want to, yes you have to do the “double-tap home button song-and-dance”, but it should be something you only have to do once in a blue moon, since most apps will consume NO RESOURCES when state saved, only if they are running a background service.
People, the whole point of this implementation is that you DON’T have to manage it or worry about it consuming your battery life and resources. You’re making it too difficult.
Yeah singidunum, the question is — if you didn’t want the app performing a function after pressing the home button, why did you tell it to perform that function? Example of Pandora — if you didn’t want music playing, why’d you press the “play” button? If you didn’t want GPS navigation, why’d you press the start button?
If you want the music to stop in Pandora, you’d press the “pause” button, If you want to stop GPS navigation you’d press the cancel button within the app. You want these things to stop, stop them!
If you need to reset an app completely (so as to relaunch) you’ll need to use the new interface for that. I don’t understand why this is a common task though. You playing a game that doesn’t have an interface to start over? Stuck somewhere in a buggy app?
To whoever wrote the post signing it as “@singidunum”:
It seems that we’ll just have to unlearn the (desktop) habit of completely closing our apps. In all fairness, many desktop apps actually save some elements of their state (window positions, open palettes, etc) when closing, so this ‘state-saving’ business shouldn’t be all that unintuitive.
When you look at the way Apple engineered this multi-tasking philosophy, their goal is for users to not THINK at all about apps running or not running at the same time. They just want people to get used to going (back) to the apps they need in a most intuitive way. If it is a t urn-by-turn GPS, it will continue giving you instructions until you’ve arrived (or until you go back to the app and turn of instructions). I’m just wondering if Apple does (or will) provide a way to find out if there is a background service currently running that user may not be aware of, and that may be sucking away at that battery.
this tip doesnt address the question about whether suspnded apps are still using up RAM!?
tho’ technically, ios4 is supposed to automatically purge an app from memory if resources are needed elsewhere.