If you have an app that has crashed, is unresponsive or not doing what you expect, most of the time this is fixed with a simple restart. Here's how...
When we are feeling tired or lagging a bit, most of us immediately triage ourselves with questions along the lines of: Did we get enough sleep? Have we eaten or drank enough? If the answer is yes and the tiredness persists, we probe a bit more or go to the doctor for a diagnosis. We certainly don’t blindly jump straight into invasive treatment.
Many of us have our mobile phones permanently in hand; they have become so integral for our day to day functioning. Can we go so far as to say that they have become an extra limb of sorts? Perhaps not. Nevertheless, when our phones are lagging, it is good practice to approach it in a similarly measured way. Ask questions. Is it sufficiently charged? Is the app due an update?
When our mobile phones get a bit slow, many of us jump the gun concluding that there must be too many apps open. Herein lies the common misconception about apps. When they are not in use, apps should be closed to improve performance and battery life. In truth, apps should only be closed when they are really ‘playing up’ or if they are proving a significant drain on the battery and are not currently in use (you can determine this via Settings/Battery which we will elaborate on later on). The reason being that when a majority of apps are open and not actively being used, they are not actually ‘running’ in the background, they are in fact suspended. There is very little to gain in energy terms by quitting them. There is actually more to lose. It takes a lot more time, effort and energy to initialise an app rather than letting it just chill in the background and restarting from the multitasking view. To return to the above analogy, it is like opting for surgery when a good night's sleep or kinder treatment could have sufficed. Maybe a bit extreme but you get the point.
So how do we determine which apps are worth quitting when not in use?
- Go to Settings > Battery
Here you can identify the biggest culprits - the apps that have been munching away over the last 24 hours!* You will find travel apps such as ones for parking or mapping that are tracking your location or are constantly loading new data, will be the ones that are worth closing when not required.
* It is worth noting that this is a percentage of the battery that has been used up. I.e. if your phone's battery has gone from 100% to 50% in the past 24 hours, an app that has used 20%, means it has used up 20% of the 50% i.e. 10% of the whole battery. Just thought we would let you know before you start to question your mathematical skills. This way it caters for 24 hour slots where you have charged your battery more than once, resulting in more meaningful statistics.
How to restart an app on iPhone?
The instances where you want to restart an app on your phone is when it has crashed, is hung or is not doing what you expect. The latter is commonplace with our clients. They message saying the app isn’t working and most of the time it is fixed with a simple restart. How do you do that? By doing the following:
- Open the multitasking view. Do this by quickly double-tapping the Home button.
- Swipe up on the screenshot of the app you wish to close.
- Close the multitasking view by tapping the Home button.
When you go to open the app again, it should be working.
If an app is not responding at all and you are unable to quit using the above method, try this instead:
- Press and hold the On/Off button until the ‘slide to power off’ message appear
- Let go
- Press the Home button for roughly 6 seconds.
- Your current app will be forced to quit and you will be returned to the Home screen.
Tap on the app icon and it should be working again.