Apple confirms swiping apps closed causes your iPhone to slow down and lose battery life
Swiping apps closed to save your battery is practically second nature for anyone with an iPhone.
After all, it seems like the smart thing to do - surely it means your iPhone has to do less work, giving you a bit more precious battery life. Right?
Wrong, according to Apple.
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In fact, those apps in the background aren't actually as active as you might think.
"When your recently used apps appear, the apps aren’t open, but they're in standby mode to help you navigate and multitask," Apple explained on its discussions forum.
Apparently these apps might continue working "for a short period of time" after you've stopped using them, but will soon fall into standby mode, meaning they aren't "actively in use, open or taking up system resources", Apple said.
And constantly closing these apps might actually be doing more harm than good.
Just think about it - whenever you force shut your computer, it tends to be bad news. Maybe you turn it back on and some of your files have been lost, or something else unexpected has gone wrong.
In the case of your iPhone, Apple said: "You should force an app to close only if it’s unresponsive."
But what does that mean in reality?
"Not only does force quitting your apps not help, it actually hurts," wrote gadget-focused journalist John Gruber on the blog Daring Fireball.
"Your battery life will be worse and it will take much longer to switch apps if you force quit apps in the background."
This is because apps in the background are "effectively 'frozen'", he explained, "severely limiting what they can do in the background and freeing up the RAM [random-access memory] they were using".
It's all part of the clever tech that Apple uses in its mobile operating system, known as iOS.
According to Gruber, "Unfreezing a frozen app takes up way less CPU (and energy) than relaunching an app that had been force quit."
CPU is the central processing unit - it basically powers your phone and lets you scroll all day long.
It's quite a shocking revelation for anyone who's constantly force quitting apps in a bid to save battery. And you can't be blamed for wanting to preserve your juice, particularly if you have an older model with a shorter battery life, or you're in really hot or cold weather - which can have also have an impact on how long your phone will stay alive.
Luckily, Apple has shared some handy tips for maximizing your battery life.
The first pointer is a remarkably easy one - make sure you've updated to the latest software. Otherwise, lower your brightness, switch on Low Power Mode and turn off Location Services.
And if you're really desperate, at least portable chargers can always come to the rescue...