12 Biggest Tech Myths You Hear All the Time
5. Closing Out Apps On Your iPhone Extends Battery Life
For a long time it was believed that in order to save battery on the iPhone, we could just double-tap the home button and close out all the apps on the bottom tray that we weren't using.
In fact, the iOS multitasking bar does not contain "a list of all running apps". It contains "a list of recently used apps". The user never has to manage background tasks on iOS. When you hit the home button and exit an app, it automatically gets closed after 5 seconds. It stops using CPU time and the memory it was using is eventually recovered if required. Except some special cases, the app is not eating up battery life. These exceptions include five classes of apps - audio, GPS, VOIP, Newsstand and accessory apps - and some built-in apps such as Mail. They may run indefinitely in the background until they complete their task.
