Stop Force Quitting Apps on Your iPhone

One of the most common misconceptions I hear from iPhone / iPad users is that “force quitting” apps saves battery life and makes your device run faster.

Not true.

In fact, the opposite is true — force quitting apps makes your battery life and overall phone performance worse. iOS puts apps in three states: active, suspended, and closed. Suspended apps are apps in your multi-tasking page (double click the home button to pull up your multi-tasking screen).

iOS truly suspends the apps. They take up almost no space or memory. The “wake” faster when you let them stay in a suspended state.

The myth that force quitting apps saves battery life is extremely persistent. Heck, I’ve known for more than a year that iOS is designed to manage suspended apps better than closed apps yet I still find myself force quitting apps all the time.

Here’s another good take on why force quitting apps is a bad idea, featuring an email exchange between an iPhone user and Apple Senior VP Craig Federighi. When asked if he force quits apps on his iPhone to save battery life, Federighi couldn’t be more clear: “No.”

John Gruber at Daring Fireball has another good take on why you don’t need to force quit apps on your iPhone or iPad.

As an aside, lately, I’ve been diligent about not force quitting apps, and there’s no doubt the battery life on my iPhone and iPad has improved noticeably.

John Gruber at Daring Fireball has a great take on why the myth is so persistent, plus some ideas about why that may be so.