Disable Multitasking?

+1 on disabling multi-tasking. It feels like my iPhone has turned into a PocketPC. I came on here looking for an answer as my iPhone was hot to the touch even when not in use and the battery was dying in just a few hours. I looked in my task manager and it was full of apps. After closing them my iPhone is now back to normal.
I had updated my iPhone without thinking about multi-tasking (which i have no need for and do not use). But I did not realise that all apps where put in the task manager after hitting the home button. I thought you had to double tap to put them there.
So now I have to kill each app in the task manager after hitting the home button to close them? Really???

Message was edited by: Armachian

Armachian wrote:

I had updated my iPhone without thinking about multi-tasking (which i have no need for and do not use). But I did not realise that all apps where put in the task manager after hitting the home button. I thought you had to double tap to put them there.
So now I have to kill each app in the task manager after hitting the home button to close them? Really???

Message was edited by: Armachian

Maybe you should read up on how multi-tasking on the iPhone works. From your posting, it is clear that you do not understand how it works on the iPhone.

Only specific apps that utilize specific API's allowed for multi-tasking can multi-task. Examples are streaming apps (audio mostly) and GPS.

Most apps simply get suspended. Now the caveat here is if you have not updated you apps recently, you may have an older version of an app that doesn't work correctly on iOS4.

Personally I have experienced no problems as a result of multi-tasking. When iOS4 first came out, I did have a few apps that acted odd and would really drain the battery. Once those apps were updated, the issues went away.

Now, as for the bar at the bottom, it is NOT a task manager, it is a quick switch bar. Just because an app is in there, does NOT mean it is running. Every app that you open ends up there, that is just the way Apple designed it.
There is no reason to go in and kill apps unless it is just acting weird or you truly want to shut it down. Most are simply not running anyways, they are suspended.

jakthebomb wrote:

I asume your dumb, In Windows you click X, the program is DEAD. In Mac you click X, the app is still running, Apple is the WRONG one here. I Click X i expect the App to DIE. Not Hold Command + Q. Multitasking Must be killed in iOS

Who is to say that Apple is wrong? I click X, I expect the file to be closed and the application to remain ready to process another file. Each OS approaches the same choice from a different angle.

Well I tracked down my problem - the iPhone Mail app. If I open Mail then click the home button, the fully charged battery in my iPhone dies within a couple of hours. If I go to the dock and kill Mail then all is well and I get "normal" battery usage. I believe this only started happening after the latest (4.2) update.

I agree Armachian

I bought an new Itouch 4th Gen and my battery drained like ****!
I havn't any other app's than the basic apple apps now and still my ipod does battery drain like **** when im not killing all the apps..

I just want to STOP an program when im quiting it, not minimalising. wouldn't it be better if apple made an ON or OFF button for multitasking? Now i have to kill all the apps everytime for something I never use!

,

I have to agree. For me, multitasking is a seldom used feature that I would like to disable completely. A better implementation would be a way to "pin" any app that I want to keep running on the multitasking bar, and have all other apps behave as uni-tasking. In other words, one app at a time plus any I've pinned to the bar.

Sky

I agree with @Skytouch.

Close means CLOSE. Red(in OSX)should mean STOP. X means DIE. Selective multi-tasking or pinning would be much better. If Apple's psuedo-multitasking really did what it was supposed to do then it wouldn't be causing my apps to run poorly. I have never seen it quit an app on its own when it needed more memory, that always has to be done manually by yours truly (just like on my Mac). It is a serious PITA and low memory is causing one of my important apps to not report status correctly (developer says to manually close out multitask tray to free memory, ughh).

This isn't even consistent in OSX, some apps close and other don't. My Apple Genius friends don't even know the rhyme or reason to this. There is no reason for multi-tasking on the iPhone to be available to every app, we should be able to choose. I think it would also be annoying to find that the OS closed an app (current functionality that I haven't witnessed yet) that I wanted quick access to. I want to be able to pick the 3-5 apps to run in multi-tasking.

OSX-*** wrote:
There is no reason for multi-tasking on the iPhone to be available to every app, we should be able to choose.

Multi-Tasking is not available to every app, they must utilize one of the API's that allow for multi-tasking.
Just because an app that shows in the quick launch bar does not mean it is multi-tasking. EVERY app will display in the quick launch bar.

If you have apps quitting because of low memory, it is most likely an issue with one of your apps not behaving properly and it would be up to the App developer, not Apple to correct the issue.

Thank you for helping me understand this. I guess the big question now is if an app doesn't employ Multi-Tasking, then what is it doing in the tray. If only the apps that used Multi-tasking code ended up in the tray, then there may not be a problem.

OSX-*** wrote:
Thank you for helping me understand this. I guess the big question now is if an app doesn't employ Multi-Tasking, then what is it doing in the tray. If only the apps that used Multi-tasking code ended up in the tray, then there may not be a problem.

Did you read my reply?
There is no multi-tasking tray, it is a quick launch bar. Any app that you ever run on the device will display in the quick launch bar.

Sorry about my terminology, and obviously I read your post. I thought the quick launch bar was the ever-present bar at the bottom of the home screens. I refer to the Multi-task bar as the bar that comes up after you double-tap the home button.

This terminology doesn't really matter though, the point is that every single app whether it employs multitasking or not ends up in the "quick launch bar". This consumes memory, a snapshot of the app's last status stored in memory, for each app. This adds up. The iOS does not kill these apps on its own.

I spoke with the developer of the app that has issues because of this and they assure me that this is what they have to deal with. Their app has no memory leaks, it isn't consuming memory like a hog, and yet it can't get staus update reliably with the "quick launch bar" full of apps. There are posts on here of Safari doing the exact same thing. So, I'm just trying to understand the disconnect between multitasking saving me time by keeping records of app states, but wasting my time as I have to manually clear the "quick launch bar" many times a day. Doesn't make sense.

That is really odd, sounds like you are experiencing lots of problems with the apps and how they relate to multi-tasking.
Personally, I have never experienced an issue, at least not something that I could specifically attribute to multi-tasking.

My personal belief is that the issue is app specific. I say this because I would expect millions of users to be experiencing problems if the fault were in iOS. That's not to say that iOS is perfect, it's very possible the issue is in both iOS and a specific app or combination of apps.

I can say that I have only cleared the quick launch bar 3 times since I installed iOS 4 the week it was released. This was never done to resolve and issue, but just because I felt better clearing out the list of apps.

If you were so inclined to restore as a new phone then selectively re-install apps one at a time, I think you'd quickly find the culprit. I believe you'd also see that multi-tasking is not as bad as some make it out to be. It works, and it works pretty darn well.

@Diesel Vdub:

I think you are letting your high opinion of apple products (which is justified) get in the way of seeing the other side of the story.

Do all the apps in the "quick launch/multi task" bar consume memory? I don't know, but I do know if my iphone4 has alot of apps in that tray (none of which are gps or streaming based) it gets sluggish. And as you can see from this thread I am not the only one that thinks that way. To base you answer on the fact there aren't a "million" threads out there on the Internet isn't accurate - as not everyone could be bothered to do so. I have close to a dozen friends with iPhone 4's all using different apps that make the same claim as me. Other friends that have 3gs' and upgrade constantly complain how sluggish their phones are now. None of these people have ever made posts or threads about the issue 🙂

Regardless - this is missing the original point entirely! Users should have the options to choose what apps go in this tray... Or at the very least to disable it all together. When I have to scroll three times to get through my "quick launch/multi task" bar it isn't very "quick". Apps like my contacts or the phone button show up in there - me personally, I NEVER need to "quick swap" to my contacts list, and my "phone" is locked in on my bottom menu bar - it's far quicker to find it that way.

I know you've said the feature is great and works awesome for you, which is amazing, but there are others out there who beg to differ. They aren't asking for apple to get rid of it, just give them an option to opt out. I've had an iPhone 3, 3GS and 4 and I've loved them all - I'd just love my 4 better if I could stop apps from going to that tray 🙂

Just for the record, this is still a horrible implementation of multitasking and I can tell you that although people say the iPhone closes memory resident apps that you have opened along the way when memory is needed, in the mean time, your phone slows to a crawl unless you tap and delete the apps sitting there suspended in time.

When I bought my 4 after a 3GS and a 3G and a iPhone original, this was the slowed of all models I had, latency was horrible. After talking to ATT, they said, try this:..... Close all the apps in multitasking window. I did. Rebooted it, and bang, full speed again.

I NEVER use multitasking. You rarely even know what is there or open unless you tap and slide through dozens of open apps. It is a mess to fumble through. What is worse is the user does not even tell the phone to hold the app open. It builds this horrific trail of apps you have used with stored data there.

Apple NEEDS to give the user the option to turn this off. Would save a lot of unhappy customers from complaining why the phone has this hesitation when it is because there are 15 apps paused tying up resources.

Don't give up people. They need to fix this.

NorCal_Gadget wrote:
Just for the record, this is still a horrible implementation of multitasking and I can tell you that although people say the iPhone closes memory resident apps that you have opened along the way when memory is needed, in the mean time, your phone slows to a crawl unless you tap and delete the apps sitting there suspended in time.

When I bought my 4 after a 3GS and a 3G and a iPhone original, this was the slowed of all models I had, latency was horrible. After talking to ATT, they said, try this:..... Close all the apps in multitasking window. I did. Rebooted it, and bang, full speed again.

I NEVER use multitasking. You rarely even know what is there or open unless you tap and slide through dozens of open apps. It is a mess to fumble through. What is worse is the user does not even tell the phone to hold the app open. It builds this horrific trail of apps you have used with stored data there.

Apple NEEDS to give the user the option to turn this off. Would save a lot of unhappy customers from complaining why the phone has this hesitation when it is because there are 15 apps paused tying up resources.

Don't give up people. They need to fix this.

Despite all your ramblings, you have no clue what you are talking about.
You simply cannot "not use multi-tasking". What do you do, reboot the device every time you stop using an application? Seriously, are you that moronic?

Millions of iPhone users experiencing NO problems with multi-tasking cannot simply be a fluke.

IF you legitimately have slowness issues, and IF you ever bother to do some legitimate troubleshooting to eliminate apps, you will find that you have one, maybe two apps causing the problem. Otherwise, it is corrupted data in YOUR backup.