We’ve all been there, when it’s late afternoon and we’re low on juice, we manually flick through and close all of the apps we not using in a bid to save battery life. Well, if you are an iPhone user, it’s been confirmed from the top that we have all been wasting our time!
Closing our unused apps has virtually no impact on battery life as confirmed by the head of Apple’s iOS operating system, Tim Cook. One curious Apple customer from Ohio, Caleb sent Mr. Cook an email to ask whether closing down “multitasking apps” improved battery life and whether it was something the chief executive did himself.
Apple’s Senior vice-president Craig Federighi replied on the chief executive’s behalf and said “no and no”.
Other developers such as Nokia and Samsung have confirmed that their smartphones can be optimised and the battery life extended by closing apps and uninstalling unnecessary apps. Samsung recently announced a new app called “smart manager’ for the Galaxy 6 which does exactly that and Microsoft advises Nokia Lumia owners to close apps that aren’t in use on a web page about extending battery life.
Although many Apple users have long been shutting down their apps, thinking it would prolong their battery life; this advice has not actually come from Apple itself. Apple only recommends saving power by disabling apps from carrying out background refreshes in the settings.
It has been reported that “On a technical level, most of the apps are either frozen in RAM or not running at all, the system just displays them as a history for consistency. This is why the battery life impact is negligible,”
So don’t bother with the rigmarole of closing your apps next time you’re low on juice…just look for a plug.
