How to close iPad Apps

You may recall from a previous article on iPad gestures how to access the multi-tasking bar. For a refresher, click here.

When you show the multitasking bar, a lot of App icons may appear. Most of these Apps are in a suspended state which means the App is not closed but it is held in memory (although not necessarily using CPU or processing time). There are other Apps such as Skype, Songza or the iOS Music App that can run in background mode. For example you could be listening to music and browsing the web or on a Skype call and taking notes.

Applicable to:
iPad versions: iPad 2, the New iPad, iPad mini, iPad with Retina Display
iOS versions: iOS 5, iOS 6

Sometimes an App does not behave properly or we feel the iPad is a little bit slow. In some of these cases closing a recently used App could be a good idea to free up resources or restart the App from scratch.

Today, I’m going to show you how to close a recently used App.

Closing a recently used App

iPad Home Screen
iPad Home Screen

From your iPad Home Screen double tap on the Home button or swipe up with four fingers. Have a look at the video on iPad Gestures – Multitasking if you need a refresher on how to do this.

The multitasking bar appears and displays the icons of all the recently used Apps.

iPad multitasking bar
iPad multitasking bar

Tap and hold on the icon of the App that you would like to close. The icons will start wiggling and will display a red circle with a minus sign.

icon-red-circle-minus-sign

Tap on the red circle with the minus sign. This will close the App.You can close other Apps in a similar way.

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