How to close apps running in the Background

[Al Rogers]

Learned the procedure of closing apps thats running in the background hogging memory,it not only freed up memory it also made my iPad run much faster,unknown to me I had 7 apps running,this procedure is not in the owners guide.

If you experience your iPad running a bit slow you probably have a ton of applications running in the background. The iPad’s memory is limited, so in order to avoid performance issues you can close background applications by following the steps below.

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. To close background applications press the Home button twice and when the recently used apps bar appears, tap and hold down the app you wish to close.

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You will notice that after a second or two of holding down the icon, all the icons in the recently used apps bar will begin to move from side to side. You will also notice that a small red circle with a minus sign will appear on the top-left corner of the icon. Tap the red circle to close the background applications. Once you’ve closed several applications tap on the Home button again and you will return to the Home Screen or App you were using. Your iPad should feel a little snappier.
I found this on Gils webpage.

 

[Hasty]

Find it faster to use an app to regain memory. Xsysinfo is 99 cents. Worth it as I can't be bothered to hit those x's.

 

[iPadCharlie]

Glad you found out how to close the apps!

Apple has put out a new User's Guide that includes the features of the latest iOS that explains how these cool new features work!

Apple - Support - Manuals

 

[Pocobear]

Page 56 of the new iPad Users Guide in iBooks.

 

[Al Rogers]

Glad you found out how to close the apps!

Apple has put out a new User's Guide that includes the features of the latest iOS that explains how these cool new features work!

Apple - Support - Manuals

Thats my luck,another edition out after I had the 2nd Edition printed by a print shop.

Al.

 

[Al Rogers]

Scott I have read through every page on the User Guide that came out in November and it aint in the guide,if you find it please give me chapter and verse so I can read it. Would be nice if Apple would identify the Guides by Version dates,Im looking at iOS 4.2 Software for November 2010.

Al.

 

[MuchoiPad]

Why does not doing a full restart close out all the apps?

 

[RAC]

Find it faster to use an app to regain memory. Xsysinfo is 99 cents. Worth it as I can't be bothered to hit those x's.

Xsysinfo reclaims memory but it doesn't seem to remove apps from the task list. Have I missed something?

BTW,it is the only place that I have been able to find the mAH rating of the battery. Apple quotes 25 watt hours without mentioning the voltage, which is apparently 3.75 volts.

 

[Al Rogers]

System Manager for Ipad is also a good app.Shows Memory,Battery,whats running,plus a few other items. $.99 cents at your apple store.

Al.

 

[iPadCharlie]

Scott I have read through every page on the User Guide that came out in November and it aint in the guide,if you find it please give me chapter and verse so I can read it. Would be nice if Apple would identify the Guides by Version dates,Im looking at iOS 4.2 Software for November 2010.

Al.

From the PDF version, it is on the bottom of Page 35 and carries over to the top of Page 36 --

Its easy to miss!

 

[Al Rogers]

Thanks Scott, Im on it,down loaded another copy and found it. Office Depot did a print job for me and it looks like they missed a few pages,so I will re-print the missing pages. Or maybe it was me,will have to check my thumbdrive,but then again I never make misteaks.

Al

Al.

 

[Hasty]

but then again I never make misteaks.

Lol how like the rest of us......
You sir have passed the Turing test.

 

[twerppoet]

It is a mistake to think that an app is taking up memory just because it is on the recent list. In most cases only the first three to four apps are actually loaded into RAM. iOS removes apps from memory as they are needed. It isn't always as efficient as it could be, whether that is the fault of iOS or the way some apps request memory who knows. So you can sometimes see a performance bump if you free up memory manually, either with another app, or just by closing the first few (or all) apps from the list. This generally works best if you do it before launching the new app you need to be at it's best.

For anyone who doubts the RAM usage, it is easy enough to test. Just load up your favorite RAM monitoring app, then open the recent list and start closing apps. You'll see big memory gains for the first few, and then almost nothing from that point on.

 

[RAC]

It is a mistake to think that an app is taking up memory just because it is on the recent list.

So it's not really a task list. It does actually get too long to be useful even if it is just a recent list and memory utilities definitely free up RAM that iOS hasn't gotten around to yet.

It sounds like the "multi-tasking" feature of 4.21 isn't really what you might reasonably expect, something that has been said before I think.

 

[twerppoet]

I don't know about reasonable. Apple wasn't shy about letting us know exactly what the limitations were on the iPad's multitasking. Any app that is not active on the display is always frozen, not using CPU. Sometimes they are in RAM, and other times they only have their state recorded. iOS determines which stay in RAM and how long based on needs of the running app. The most recent apps are the most likely to still be in RAM. This is because the system figures you are more likely to go back to a recent app. Having it in RAM drastically shortens the time it takes to switch back to it.

There are only a few types of background tasks that these apps can initiate before they freeze. They include playing music, GPS, download/uploads, and a few others. I don't remember them all. There is a list somewhere. The background tasks Apple made available to developers were based (so it seems) on the most common user reasons about why they needed multi-tasking.

Instead of making multi-tasking system wide and open, Apple compromised. They tried to give the majority of uses what they wanted/needed, while preventing rouge apps and less savvy users from being able to bring the iOS system to its knees. Apple decided (or it seems to me) that it was better to piss off a few power users and unique cases than risk the bad press it would get if lots of average users had the iPad crashing and bogging down every time they opened more than one or two apps.

Besides, power users have always been happy to go rouge and jailbreak or root, or whatever it takes. They usually know enough to understand that it is their own fault when the system dies, and that they have to fix it themselves.

And many of them would be disappointed, I think, if there was nothing to rebel against.