Other Do you tend to close your apps, or leave them running in the background?

[Freddy Fruitfly]

No. Apple apps in general bypass the VPN, which itself is concerning. The issue with VPNs on iOS is that literally nothing is masked unless you connect the VPN, then turn on airplane mode, wait a minute, then turn it back off so that all fresh connections are then routed through the VPN tunnel. If you just turn the VPN on, nothing is actually being masked because iOS doesn't allow any VPNs to shut down connections from other apps to be re-routed.

iOS VPN apps are broken, says security researcher; Apple not fixed

Update: Apple does appear to have introduced an (optional) fix for this as of iOS 14, but questions remain –...

9to5mac.com

Well... there goes my reason to close all apps after using them and only open them after waiting for my VPN connection being up again!

 

[Asbow]

That’s weird, unless you have driving directions or something actively working in maps, it shouldn’t impact battery. Only time maps even shows up in battery usage for me is on long drives or when I use it actively for direction.

It just kills the battery. Location is set to ‘when using app’. Might be that.

 

[Vref]

So if this is the case why not open every app on the device and leave them perpetually in the background when you first get your new iPhone?

 

[BaldiMac]

So if this is the case why not open every app on the device and leave them perpetually in the background when you first get your new iPhone?

Because only a few recent apps remain "open" (frozen in memory). The list is just a list of recent apps. It has nothing to do with whether they are actually open. It just depends on available memory. So if your list has 100 apps in it, only the first few are open (frozen in memory). The rest are closed automatically by the system (unless they are using background services like music, calls, etc.)

So the 20th app on your list is likely just as closed as if you swiped up to force quit the app.

 

[TechnoMonk]

It just kills the battery. Location is set to ‘when using app’. Might be that.

I have “while using app or widgets”. The map battery usage doesn’t even show up most of the days for me. I wonder if there is rogue app or something running in the background.

 

[TechnoMonk]

So if this is the case why not open every app on the device and leave them perpetually in the background when you first get your new iPhone?

Sure you can do that, except the ones updating in background may use more battery.

 

[BaldiMac]

Sure you can do that, except the ones updating in background may use more battery.

Not sure what you mean here. Apps can perform background updates even if they're not open.

 

[dk001]

I have always closed an app, after using it.

However, I’m now leaving apps “open” in the background, to see if this makes any difference to performance etc.

Apparently, iOS is good at memory management, so leaving apps “open” in the background is actually better for battery life & performance etc.

What do you do?

One not listed; I close them only when needed to allow specific memory intensive apps to run.

 

[The Cockney Rebel]

Not sure what you mean here. Apps can perform background updates even if they're not open.

Yes, Mail being a prime example.

 

[Asiatic Black Hebrew]

There is absolutely no point in force-closing an app unless it is misbehaving, then a reload will likely fix whatever issue it had.

If you force-close an app it has to load everything from scratch the next time you open it. This has been accepted knowledge for about a decade now. Why are we rehashing this?

Because the majority of users seem to have a very rudimentary understanding of how Apple's OS's work. Luckily, iOS is optimized so well, that no matter what way a user chooses to go about using the device, there will hardly be a noticeable difference in performance.

 

[Choco Taco]

You just have to stop doing it. You get literally nothing out of doing it. Nothing.

Just think of all the time you're wasting by unnecessarily closing apps, then channel it into something more productive.

It takes me about 2 seconds to close all my apps. If I do that once a day for a year, that brings me to about 730 seconds, or 12 minutes a year. If I do that every year for the next 50 years, I’ll have lost a whole 10 hours of my life. I think I’ll be okay. Thanks. I can think of a lot more unproductive things in my life that I can channel toward something else than closing my apps.

 

[tarsins]

I'll close them all when the "list" of apps becomes too unwieldily to be useful.

 

[BaldiMac]

I'll close them all when the "list" of apps becomes too unwieldily to be useful.

How does that help? The most recent apps are the ones you see first either way. Not sure how it would be useful to not have a list of recent apps.

 

[Cromulent]

I always close all apps. I only have one or possibly two apps open at any given time.

 

[Helmsley]

Although my iPhone 13 is pretty much on 24/7, I close down all applications each night when I place it on the MagSafe charging puck.

Who's iPhone isn't on 24/7?

 

[Andeddu]

Whose iPhone isn't on 24/7?

Some people switch their phones off at night when they go to sleep. I used to turn off mine after plugging it in but it’s not possible to have the phone switched off while it’s charging wirelessly. I keep it in a separate room so I do not get disturbed by any phone calls.

 

[Cromulent]

Some people switch their phones off at night when they go to sleep. I used to turn off mine after plugging it in but it’s not possible to have the phone switched off while it’s charging wirelessly. I keep it in a separate room so I do not get disturbed by any phone calls.

You could just flick the mute switch so you could leave it by your bed and not get woken up.

 

[svish]

I always leave the apps open.

 

[Mark Stone]

I close all of them, but it’s just out of habit. I leave one open - the app for my Fitbit - because the instructions tell me to. 😂 With the speed and memory/storage of my 13 however I don’t think it really matters whether apps are kept open or not.

 

[The Cockney Rebel]

Some people switch their phones off at night when they go to sleep. I used to turn off mine after plugging it in but it’s not possible to have the phone switched off while it’s charging wirelessly. I keep it in a separate room so I do not get disturbed by any phone calls.

You're overthinking things.

Just put it in Do Not Disturb mode.

 

[Andeddu]

You could just flick the mute switch so you could leave it by your bed and not get woken up.

I have always got the mute switch on however the vibrations are loud and I get a lot of group chat messages from friends so my phone is vibrating a lot of the time.

You're overthinking things.

Just put it in Do Not Disturb mode.

Yep. I am clearly overthinking it, or under-thinking it because I have never used DnD in my life. I’ve always just switched off my phone at night, the only reason I keep it on now is because I no longer used wired charging. I quite like having my phone in the other room now because it’s no longer a distraction when I am trying to get to sleep.

 

[nburwell]

I leave apps open, unless there is an issue with a specific app, then I force close.

 

[contacos]

I would argue that 90% of those people I randomly see using their phone on the streets (it’s not that often), they swipe away their open apps. The other day I had 5 people sitting in front of me at the cinema and it was a whole swipe galore before the movie started.

I personally only do it for apps that I do not trust, that they actually freeze or go to sleep. Apple should add an indicator like on Mac to show which apps are actually still running. Apps I don’t trust to actually freeze: Google Maps, Spotify, YouTube, Instagram.

Also, first thing in the morning, I close them all and the same before sleeping.

I guess it’s a thing of habit. I personally cannot STAND open tabs in a browser. Every time I leave a page, I close the tab. Even if I visit the same page 5 minutes later again anyway. I rarely have more than 1 tab open at a time. Mentally, I just can’t.

 

[akash.nu]

I guess it’s a thing of habit. I personally cannot STAND open tabs in a browser. Every time I leave a page, I close the tab. Even if I visit the same page 5 minutes later again anyway. I rarely have more than 1 tab open at a time. Mentally, I just can’t.

Lol. You definitely don’t want to see my desktop. Multiple browser windows with multiple tabs on each of them.

 

[kanga1622]

I close everything every night to reduce battery drain while I’m sleeping. A couple of my apps run GPS any time they are open but I don’t close them during the day unless they freeze.