How do you close an application on the new iPod Touch 4g

By +Warwagon
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Grand Master

+Warwagon MVC

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  • MVC
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Just got the new iPod touch 4g with the new iOS 4.1 firmware.

I just have one question. How in gods name do you close an application? I know if you press the home button twice it shows you the running applications and you can shut them down one by one. But When I'm in a multitasking application and I'm done I just want to tell it " I don't want your ass running in the back ground, so just close, as in don't be running anymore.".

All I want is just an X in the corner, or a button that says "Exit". I feel sorry for all the people that don't know about the multitasking aspect of the touch. They could easily accumulate 20 applications running in the background sucking down battery power.

Say i'm playing angry birds and i'm done. Now I want to check my email. So far the only way I can close angry birds is by hitting the home button, then bring up the list of running and past run applications and holding my finger down then hitting the - next to angry birds. If that is in fact the only way to do it, that's retarded.

Grand Master

Roger H. Veteran

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  • Veteran
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Just got the new iPod touch 4g with the new iOS 4.1 firmware.

I just have one question. How in gods name do you close an application? I know if you press the home button twice it shows you the running applications and you can shut them down one by one. But When I'm in a multitasking application and I'm done I just want to tell it " I don't want your ass running in the back ground, so just close, as in don't be running anymore.".

All I want is just an X in the corner, or a button that says "Exit". I feel sorry for all the people that don't know about the multitasking aspect of the touch. They could easily accumulate 20 applications running in the background sucking down battery power.

Say i'm playing angry birds and i'm done. Now I want to check my email. So far the only way I can close angry birds is by hitting the home button, then bring up the list of running and past run applications and holding my finger down then hitting the - next to angry birds. If that is in fact the only way to do it, that's retarded.

People always say multitasking sucks down battery making it sound like it's gonna kill your battery in 10mins. The fact that once an app is in the background it just enters a paused state and it's no longer using less than 1% of the normal battery usage.*

Anyways, as for closing apps, i don't even think there's a jailbreak option to close apps easier. Apple (and Google and Microsoft back in WM days) rather you allow the OS to manage apps. I agree Angry Birds need to be shut down however! On Android devices when you exit Angry Birds it actually shuts down however, not pause.

Mentor

LightShadow

Posted
Posted

It does not suck battery as said already, but if you want to jailbreak and it is released for 4.1/4.2 then you can get all different methods. One is a quick app from Cydia that you can set to any action (Like taping the clock) and closes all applications. Or there is likely a setting for SBsettings too.

Grand Master

+Nik Louch Subscriber²

Posted
  • Subscriber²
Posted
but it's just the principle of the thing.

What principle is that?

Multitasking is a feature of most OSs, and there's a very easy way to close apps. And for those who don't know how to, they probably don't need to.

Rising Star

obs0lete

Posted
Posted

You would need to jailbreak and install, for example, Remove Recents which will automatically remove the app from the multitasking area once you close it. This + Backgrounder is how I have my iPhone setup so that I can choose what app(s) I want running in the background.

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LJ50

Posted
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The iPod Touch 4G battery life is shockingly poor, however based on my experiences over the past 10 days, it's got nothing to do with running apps.

My step-daughter finally got a working iPod Touch last Friday and since then the battery has died pretty much every evening, meaning it has to be charged overnight. Now, bearing in mind she is at school untl 4pm, then has a good couple of hours of home to do (during which time she's only playing music through the earphones) that means she's getting no more than 5-6 hours out of it in total, including Angry Birds, music etc. By contract I left my Cowon S9 playing accidentally last Thursday when I got home from work, though I had watched a couple of hours of video on it that day. When I realised it was Sunday evening and the thing still showed 25%-ish battery life left...

Anyway, back on topic, I did suggest to her that when she's done with an app she should close it through the tray and she has been doing for the past few days but that's made no difference to the battery life, so I suspect there is no real need to do it.

Contributor

killez

Posted
Posted

this works on my iphone 4 so it should work on the ipod touch 4g. Tap the home button twice then press on the app you want to close it will start to wiggle and a red - should show up press that and it should stop the app from running in the background.

Guest

Posted
Posted

this works on my iphone 4 so it should work on the ipod touch 4g. Tap the home button twice then press on the app you want to close it will start to wiggle and a red - should show up press that and it should stop the app from running in the background.

This. Although as others have already mentioned, it isn't really essential unless it's using GPS or some other batter draining feature.

Grand Master

Nick H. Supervisor

Posted
  • Supervisor
Posted

The iPod Touch 4G battery life is shockingly poor, however based on my experiences over the past 10 days, it's got nothing to do with running apps.

You're right, it's got nothing to do with Apps. When I first got my iPod Touch I was having the same problem, I would need to charge the battery every night. However, there were a couple of things that I've started doing which appear to prolong the life:

  • Turn off Spotlight. I don't use it myself, so I turned off the search option by going in to the settings, selecting the spotlight option and deselecting everything. I'm not entirely sure why, but apparently that saves on the battery power being consumed.
  • Turn off wireless and bluetooth. There's no point in keeping it on when you know that you're either a) going to be in an area without wifi or b) you know you're not going to need it. If you do need it, it takes a second to put back on again, but when it's off it saves quite a bit of the battery.
  • Turn the brightness level down. I haven't done this myself, but like with many thing, a lower brightness setting means a longer battery life.
  • Remember that Internet and videos suck the battery life down more than music. In standy mode, your ipod battery should have about 300 hours of battery life from full to empty. Listening to music it should have about 30 hours or so, video reduces it to 6 (I think) and constant use of the Internet reduces it to 3/4 hours. Always worth remembering when you use one of the functions.

Grand Master

Tech Star

Posted
Posted

The iPod Touch 4G battery life is shockingly poor, however based on my experiences over the past 10 days, it's got nothing to do with running apps.

My step-daughter finally got a working iPod Touch last Friday and since then the battery has died pretty much every evening, meaning it has to be charged overnight. Now, bearing in mind she is at school untl 4pm, then has a good couple of hours of home to do (during which time she's only playing music through the earphones) that means she's getting no more than 5-6 hours out of it in total, including Angry Birds, music etc. By contract I left my Cowon S9 playing accidentally last Thursday when I got home from work, though I had watched a couple of hours of video on it that day. When I realised it was Sunday evening and the thing still showed 25%-ish battery life left...

Anyway, back on topic, I did suggest to her that when she's done with an app she should close it through the tray and she has been doing for the past few days but that's made no difference to the battery life, so I suspect there is no real need to do it.

It has something to do with iOS4. With iOS3 my iPod Touch 2G never had any battery problems, but when I upgraded to iOS4, it started. Hopefully Apple fixes it with 4.2.

Neowinian

Johny why

Posted
Posted

there's a very easy way to close apps.

How?

The app I want to close is acting weird, and I want to reset it. It's not hung, nor a memory drain.

It's the iPod email app, on the Touch 4.

Tap the home button twice then press on the app you want to close it will start to wiggle and a red - should show up press that and it should stop the app from running in the background.

Does not work on Touch 4g

Neowinian

Johny why

Posted
Posted

Got it:

-hold power button until you see "slide to power off"

-hold home button

-active app will force close

(Touch 4g)

Found the answer in the obvious place

http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/iPod_touch_iOS4.1_User_Guide.pdf

Strangely, mobile mail is still listed as a running process in "Sytem Lite" app, but mail does appear to restart when again launched. Maybe iPod keeps a mail QuickStart app running in background?

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