Q: Is there a way to close all applications with one button

@electronicsguy - is that why pandora continues to play music for me when i close out of it?  No RAM used at all by that?

Pandora (and some other music apps) are one of but a handful of apps that actually run in the background. Is does use RAM although very little.

you can't close out all your apps with just a flick of your finger. You can close them out 1 by one. Double tap the home screen button, hold down on the first app untill you see the red - sign and you can close them out.

In fact it's not even the whole Pandora app that remains running. Pandora simply passes its audio playing process over to iOS's audio playing multitasking process and the OS keeps the audio playing while the rest of the Pandora app is frozen in memory, just like any other app that is not currently active.

Bicker all you want.  The FACT is that when too many programs are in background the phone (or iPad) runs more slowly and some applications (Skitch is a good example) will refuse to load.

I can tell when my kids have been playing on my iPad because it runs sluggishly.  A quick check using the technique showing by COD3M4N will show a bunch of 'background' games and closing those will instantly bring back the snap that I am used to.

This is not Apple marketing hype - this is fact that I experience multiple times per week.  Clearly I am not alone.

If there really is absolutely no need for this feature then why does Apple even provide the option to clear apps?

There should be a feature to clear all but core apps with a few keystrokes.  There isn't and that's a flaw.  Period.

It seems that not all apps are well written and some do not stop using their Location Services (battery drainer) even when they are not "up and running". Closing down unused apps DOES make the battery last longer. I have noticed this since the 6.0 rev. I also tunr off the Location Services for certain apps that I deem do not need it.

I experience exactly the same behaviour. Closing apps makes a huge difference. There should be a fast way to do this.

My 3GS slows down considerably and apps just stop opening all together once many "hibernating" apps have built up.  I would LOVE to be able to close out all apps with a few clicks instead of dozens. 

When my phone starts acting flacky, closing all apps helps.

Our house is pretty much the same configuration as yours. My husband has his iPhone jailbroken and mine is not. We still both run into the same problems after a number of apps have been opened. I find often when discussing shortcomings of iOS with Apple folks that there is a tendency to become incredibly defensive. I absolutely love my Apple products, but they're not perfect.

Anyway, does anyone know if there is a third-party memory management product for non-jailbroken phones? I found one in the app store, but when I read the reviews it appears that all it does is tell you how to shut down apps.

I found a curius thing! running only Safari and BMSSM

My free mem was~ 13%

Other instances mem wired 7% ,active 15%, inactive 15%

Then I started a bunche of Apps

some of them and the free mem went down a bit

but not mush the system used mem from inactiv mem

Then  killed all but Safari and BMSSM

and suddenly I had 35% free mem.

and "inactive mem" mush lower.

Therefor "killing" Apps gives free mem!

Yes, but that is'nt the whole true.

One have to be aware that. Also some apps

seems using mem more agressive in some way

and They complain if there is lack of FREE MEM

and the crashore often.

They seems so be helped when I kill all sleepers.

There is no need killing, true. But it helps sometime :kr

glitch in ios some where???

NO electronicsguy the iOS is SUPPOSED to handle that on demand BUT there is a things called bugs and Memory leaks poorly written apps that use the builtin iOS features that DO run in the background DO NOT always release resources like they should they also so not always clean up cache data filling up storage on the phone with DAta that shows up as other if you view it in iTunes.

So you are correct if the app and the OS are working correctly there is no reason you need to close apps BUT there are plenty of apps that DO NOT work correctly and there are even bugs in the OS and built in apps that do not free up RAM like they should. there is even problems with apps using Cellular data connection even when you have specifically turned off use Cell data in settings. The iOS is NOT perfect nore are the apps written for it. Just becuase something is SUPPOSED to happen does not mean it does.

I assume there's a reason you responded to a post made 10 months ago, but the reason is lost to me.

There was an app called Kill for Iphone that would kill all the apps at once.  It was one of those apps that were there and then gone.

did anyone ever find a way to shutdown all of them without jail breaking?