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> I can't argue with the theory presented in the article - and I read it very, very carefully. All I can do is present the reality, and demonstrate it conflicts

> I can't argue with the theory presented in the article - and I read it very, very carefully. All I can do is present the reality, and demonstrate it conflicts with the theory. This article is not, repeat NOT, presenting "theory". This article describes the way iOS is actually built to work -- it is a factual description of all and only those behaviors that iOS engages in. It is a complete, and accurate, description of iOS's behavior because it is a recapitulation of the behaviors that iOS's designers built it to exhibit. The only contrast here is between the reality of the way iOS works (the article) and your misunderstandings of reality.

ghshephard 15y ago
My understanding of reality is pretty straightforward - "Over the last 3-4 years, I normally get 36-48 hours of casual use out of my iPhone, or 24 hours of really aggressive use, but, for some reason, on some days, while my iPhone is at the home screen, it is really hot and the battery is draining to zero quickly. Shutting down all of the apps in the task bar, or, rebooting the iPhone, immediately fixes that." Couldn't we allow for the possibility of a bug in IOS that results in a deviation from the behavior explained in the article? Or, more likely, an application that is using IOS as designed, but in a way that results in extended background processing and CPU drain? The good news is that another contributor posted a link to "Instruments" - which should let me get a diagnostic trace off my iPhone and determine which of the apps is actually pulling down the battery. I then have the options of (A) figuring out if there is a pref in that App to cause it to stop using battery when backgrounded, (B) Contact the application writer and let them know they have a poorly behaving App, and (C) (most important for me) - Reduce the number of applications I need to shut down to just the misbehaving ones. Until then - count me in that category of users who believes (through experience) that the advice the Apple Geniuses are giving, that is, to terminate applications when you have an iPhone that is performing differently than when it is initially booted up, is good advice and is a real-world fix to this class of problem. (Though rebooting your iPhone accomplishes the same thing in my experience as well)
- msbarnett 15y ago
  > Couldn't we allow for the possibility of a bug in IOS that results in a deviation from the behavior explained in the article? No, because there is absolutely no reason to believe this is the case and no one has ever observed a non-privleged app store approved app outliving its OS-mandated termination deadlines. > Or, more likely, an application that is using IOS as designed, but in a way that results in extended background processing and CPU drain? ie) there's a bug in a background process that causes it to eat CPU? Yes, this is what you are actually experiencing, and this is 100% compatible with the facts presented in this article. Accepting this means you've entirely moved away from your previous "theory vs reality" nonsense. > Until then - count me in that category of users who believes (through experience) that the advice the Apple Geniuses are giving, that is, to terminate applications when you have an iPhone that is performing differently than when it is initially booted up, is good advice and is a real-world fix to this class of problem. (Though rebooting your iPhone accomplishes the same thing in my experience as well) Indeed rebooting your phone will terminate all processes running on the phone. This should be pretty obvious. Clearing out a list of previously run applications willy nilly is, on the other hand, superstitious hokum. You need to specifically target only those apps with infinite background privileges, which are few and far between.
  - ghshephard 15y ago
    Okay - I yield msbarnett. You win. What is your guidance when my iPhone is in battery-draining/Hot mode while at the home screen and I need to fix it? If I'm engaging in superstitious hokum by terminating all the apps in the MRU/Multi-Tasking bar, what is your advice to fixing my problem? Keep in mind, that if I've been only using the iPhone for a day or so since I last killed/removed all the apps - terminating everything in the MRU bar takes about 30 seconds versus a minute or so for a reboot. Thanks for taking time to provide your insight on this topic - I'm looking forward (honestly) to your advice.
    - msbarnett 15y ago
      I'd identify the particular app that's causing your issues; instead of mass clearing out the recents list, or rebooting, slowly signal to the OS that you're done with each app, one at a time, and determine whether your phone continues to run hot and drain battery after each closure. Eventually you'll narrow it down to the app with background privileges that's causing you grief. Kick that app off your phone, or otherwise stop running it. If you can't live without it, then the next time your battery life goes to hell, go into the recents list and remove only the troublesome app in question, so that the OS knows you're done with it and kills its (presumably crashed or busy-looping) background thread. Desist worrying about how many apps are in your recents list in general, because that's not a really related to the underlying problems you're experiencing.
ladzoppelin 15y ago
Yea but no program is perfect ..!! A developer could be doing something completely weird/wrong causing his app to hang and slow down IOS. The real problem are the bugs in the software not the sales guy at the Apple store. The Geniuses are just giving a "non-developer" solution to the problem.
dvanduzer 15y ago
The problem has nothing to do with theory vs reality, but rather emphasizing the wrong aspects of reality. 1) All the discussion of memory usage isn't terribly relevant. There's some stuttering while iOS kills background apps when the running app requires it, but this is not a huge problem in practice. 2) Battery life is a huge issue (which iOS still handles better than anyone else) for the average user. The article lists five classes of apps in theory and in practice can contribute to significant battery drain, yet seems to believe that's proof that this isn't a problem. I still agree that it's bad advice from the Apple Store techs. From a technical aesthetic perspective, it would probably be better to just tell people with battery life problems to reboot the phone. And then fix the problem. This seems to be a regression from iOS4 to iOS5. Perhaps there's a bug that's been introduced in the scheduler, or perhaps there's better logic that can be applied. There's no reason that iOS couldn't detect background processes that are exceeding a threshold of CPU usage. The principle that users shouldn't have to manage background tasks is correct. However the fact that the technique is, in fact, effective, means that it isn't going away as a tool in the Apple tech toolbox.

ghshephard 15y ago

My understanding of reality is pretty straightforward - "Over the last 3-4 years, I normally get 36-48 hours of casual use out of my iPhone, or 24 hours of really aggressive use, but, for some reason, on some days, while my iPhone is at the home screen, it is really hot and the battery is draining to zero quickly. Shutting down all of the apps in the task bar, or, rebooting the iPhone, immediately fixes that." Couldn't we allow for the possibility of a bug in IOS that results in a deviation from the behavior explained in the article? Or, more likely, an application that is using IOS as designed, but in a way that results in extended background processing and CPU drain? The good news is that another contributor posted a link to "Instruments" - which should let me get a diagnostic trace off my iPhone and determine which of the apps is actually pulling down the battery. I then have the options of (A) figuring out if there is a pref in that App to cause it to stop using battery when backgrounded, (B) Contact the application writer and let them know they have a poorly behaving App, and (C) (most important for me) - Reduce the number of applications I need to shut down to just the misbehaving ones. Until then - count me in that category of users who believes (through experience) that the advice the Apple Geniuses are giving, that is, to terminate applications when you have an iPhone that is performing differently than when it is initially booted up, is good advice and is a real-world fix to this class of problem. (Though rebooting your iPhone accomplishes the same thing in my experience as well)

msbarnett 15y ago
> Couldn't we allow for the possibility of a bug in IOS that results in a deviation from the behavior explained in the article? No, because there is absolutely no reason to believe this is the case and no one has ever observed a non-privleged app store approved app outliving its OS-mandated termination deadlines. > Or, more likely, an application that is using IOS as designed, but in a way that results in extended background processing and CPU drain? ie) there's a bug in a background process that causes it to eat CPU? Yes, this is what you are actually experiencing, and this is 100% compatible with the facts presented in this article. Accepting this means you've entirely moved away from your previous "theory vs reality" nonsense. > Until then - count me in that category of users who believes (through experience) that the advice the Apple Geniuses are giving, that is, to terminate applications when you have an iPhone that is performing differently than when it is initially booted up, is good advice and is a real-world fix to this class of problem. (Though rebooting your iPhone accomplishes the same thing in my experience as well) Indeed rebooting your phone will terminate all processes running on the phone. This should be pretty obvious. Clearing out a list of previously run applications willy nilly is, on the other hand, superstitious hokum. You need to specifically target only those apps with infinite background privileges, which are few and far between.
- ghshephard 15y ago
  Okay - I yield msbarnett. You win. What is your guidance when my iPhone is in battery-draining/Hot mode while at the home screen and I need to fix it? If I'm engaging in superstitious hokum by terminating all the apps in the MRU/Multi-Tasking bar, what is your advice to fixing my problem? Keep in mind, that if I've been only using the iPhone for a day or so since I last killed/removed all the apps - terminating everything in the MRU bar takes about 30 seconds versus a minute or so for a reboot. Thanks for taking time to provide your insight on this topic - I'm looking forward (honestly) to your advice.
  - msbarnett 15y ago
    I'd identify the particular app that's causing your issues; instead of mass clearing out the recents list, or rebooting, slowly signal to the OS that you're done with each app, one at a time, and determine whether your phone continues to run hot and drain battery after each closure. Eventually you'll narrow it down to the app with background privileges that's causing you grief. Kick that app off your phone, or otherwise stop running it. If you can't live without it, then the next time your battery life goes to hell, go into the recents list and remove only the troublesome app in question, so that the OS knows you're done with it and kills its (presumably crashed or busy-looping) background thread. Desist worrying about how many apps are in your recents list in general, because that's not a really related to the underlying problems you're experiencing.

ladzoppelin 15y ago

Yea but no program is perfect ..!! A developer could be doing something completely weird/wrong causing his app to hang and slow down IOS. The real problem are the bugs in the software not the sales guy at the Apple store. The Geniuses are just giving a "non-developer" solution to the problem.

dvanduzer 15y ago

The problem has nothing to do with theory vs reality, but rather emphasizing the wrong aspects of reality. 1) All the discussion of memory usage isn't terribly relevant. There's some stuttering while iOS kills background apps when the running app requires it, but this is not a huge problem in practice. 2) Battery life is a huge issue (which iOS still handles better than anyone else) for the average user. The article lists five classes of apps in theory and in practice can contribute to significant battery drain, yet seems to believe that's proof that this isn't a problem. I still agree that it's bad advice from the Apple Store techs. From a technical aesthetic perspective, it would probably be better to just tell people with battery life problems to reboot the phone. And then fix the problem. This seems to be a regression from iOS4 to iOS5. Perhaps there's a bug that's been introduced in the scheduler, or perhaps there's better logic that can be applied. There's no reason that iOS couldn't detect background processes that are exceeding a threshold of CPU usage. The principle that users shouldn't have to manage background tasks is correct. However the fact that the technique is, in fact, effective, means that it isn't going away as a tool in the Apple tech toolbox.