Avoiding use of the home button

[macstatic]

Is there a way to avoid using the physical home button in IOS 9.3.5?
I'm asking because I have an old iPad Mini (1st generation) and I'm trying not to wear out the button.
I also have a 5th generation iPad Mini (IOS 14.8) and wonder if I can configure a similar swipe-up to allow for quitting apps currently running?

 

[chabig]

1. Don't worry about wearing out a button. That button is built to withstand more use than you can give it. Also, there is no need to force quit apps. Just close them normally by going to the Home Screen.
2. These older iPad gestures maybe what you're looking for:

6 only-for-iPad gestures you need to know

Nope, you can't pinch your iPhone's display to get to the home screen, nor can you swipe directly through your open appsu2014but you can if you're an iPad user. Read on for six gotta-know, only-for-iPad gestures.

www.macworld.com

 

[ian87w]

Is there a way to avoid using the physical home button in IOS 9.3.5?
I'm asking because I have an old iPad Mini (1st generation) and I'm trying not to wear out the button.
I also have a 5th generation iPad Mini (IOS 14.8) and wonder if I can configure a similar swipe-up to allow for quitting apps currently running?

Use Touch Assistive feature in accessibility. A virtual button will appear and you can set up various shortcuts, including going Home.

Use AssistiveTouch on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support

You can use AssistiveTouch to adjust volume, lock your screen, use multi-finger gestures, restart your device, or replace pressing buttons with just a tap.

support.apple.com

 

[macstatic]

Excellent advice!
AssistiveTouch sort of worked (or I'm using it wrong), but the "double-click" and "triple click" feature left me waiting for 1 second or so until I was returned to the desktop again. Very strange. What worked was pressing the virtual home button. A downside to using this feature is that when taking screenshots the "black square" will be shown in the images.

Using a 4-finger gesture however seems to have solved my challenge! If I swipe with 4-fingers (5-fingers is too tricky) from the bottom of the screen and upwards I get to choose between the apps in use (same as triple-clicking the home button), and from then on I can select the app I want, quit an app or select the desktop. Very useful

I do hope the physical home button will last for a while, but having experienced an iPod Touch with a worn out home button that needed replacing, and ending up wrecking the entire device when trying to replace it (very fragile wires, connectors etc. apparently not meant to be fixed but thrown away) I don't want to repeat that with this iPad Mini.

I quit apps because of limited space (16 MB), so as to make it snappier. No need to run 10 apps at once

 

[chabig]

A downside to using this feature is that when taking screenshots the "black square" will be shown in the images.

No. It does not show in screenshots.

 

[chabig]

I quit apps because of limited space (16 MB), so as to make it snappier. No need to run 10 apps at once

The original iPad mini has 512MB of RAM. Plus, with few exceptions (like playing music in the background) or if you specifically open two apps side by side, iOS and iPad OS only run one app at a time. You do not have 10 apps running at the same time. The task switcher is better thought of as a list of recently used apps. They aren't all running.

 

[macstatic]

Oh, I didn't know that. So there's really no need or any benefit to quitting apps (unless they crash or behave badly)?

I tried doing screenshots again with AssistiveTouch turned on, and on my iPad it does show in screenshots. Are you also on IOS 9.3.5?

I still have no idea why triple-clicking the home button (or selecting "triple click" within AssistiveTouch) gives me the multitasking view for less than a second then returns to the previous screen. I suspect I've messed with some setting, but all I could find related to the home button is General-Accessibility-Home button where I can choose the click speed. It didn't make any difference to this behaviour.

 

[chabig]

So there's really no need or any benefit to quitting apps (unless they crash or behave badly)?

That's correct. Here is a reference.

Public Service Announcement: You Should Not Force Quit Apps on iOS

The single biggest misconception about iOS is that it’s good digital hygiene to force quit apps that you aren’t using.

daringfireball.net

 

[macstatic]

I've tried not to quit apps for a little while now, but my iPad seems more sluggish because of this (compared to quitting apps I don't use, only having 1-4 apps open at once). Maybe it has to do with the rather limited storage space of this iPad (iPad Mini 1st generation, 16 MB where currently only 3 GB is free)?