Mobiles spend a lot of time with us and this makes us develop customs that in practice are not beneficial for the device. The myth that we can save battery life by simply closing applications for many users is a reality that is difficult to admit, sometimes customs are stronger than science itself and to get around this we want to clarify the reasons and the reasons to stop thinking about it.
We must be aware that this technique can be extrapolated to high-end, mid-range and low-end smartphones regardless of the layers of personalization or the brands. The operating system is not relevant either, since both Android and iOS have to assess what we will explain.
The myth of closing apps on mobile comes from afar
When the mobiles had little RAM memory, a merely developed system and great limitations, it was necessary to close all the multitasking applications so that the smartphone was able to “breathe” and have “strength” to open a new application. Artificial intelligence was not years ago in mobile devices to give us a cable when the processor, RAM or some element of the device had to make changes to the system.
Now the smartphone is capable of thinking for ourselves and in many occasions making better decisions than we will ever make. The system recognizes the most demanding processes, our habitual uses and needs, making closing applications a thing of the past and a concern that is no longer our responsibility.
Why don’t you save battery close applications
It is probably difficult for us to understand this relationship, if we think simply, the combination is as follows: Close applications = free up system needs and get more battery . But the math can only be applied to the numbers and in this case the correct answer would be = reopen all the processes, therefore spending more battery.
If we are continuously closing the applications, the only thing we will achieve is that the smartphone is forced to reopen it when we need it and even leave it ready again for when we use it. Multitasking only shows us apps that we have previously opened but in reality the system may have closed them a long time ago, so it will be better to let it do its work and not interrupt it with processes that will end up consuming more battery.
What is the option to close applications for then?
Surely you are asking yourself, this question, utility is what makes an operating system as it is, if it really does not offer any benefit for what the option exists. The reality is that this option was maintained to make it easier for us to navigate between recent apps and processes or even force an app to close when we encounter a specific problem. But it’s a long way from the idea of saving battery power or even getting better performance.
On Android and iPhone closing the apps does not save battery
We are not the only ones who have encountered these doubts. Users have tried to contact Google and Apple to answer this question and the answer has been overwhelming from both sides, “closing applications does not save battery.”
A user wrote to Tim Cook himself to clarify this question, which received a response from Craig Federighi, responsible for Software engineering, where he showed clearly and directly that closing applications does not save battery power . Something similar happened in Google with a response from Hiroshi Lockheimer, one of the founders of Android, where he stated that it could even be bad for the system and the battery itself.