[How To] Quit Apps In iOS 4

One of the features that many people like in iOS 4 is multitasking and iOS 4 makes it easy to leave apps without quitting. What happens when you want to actually terminate an application. The act of quitting applications can really help with older apps that haven't yet been updated for iOS 4 "multitasking" and that do not properly return to the state they previously were in when resumed. There are currently two ways you can quit and neither one of them is particularly obvious.

Force Quitting

Apple recommends that you bring the app you want to quit to the foreground to force an application to quit. Then press and hold the sleep/wake button for several seconds, until the Slide to Power Off control appears. Release the sleep/wake button and hold down the Home button for another 7-10 seconds. Your screen will flash for a second and you will return to the main iOS 4 Springboard home page with its icons. This methods works for all OS's from iPhone OS 3 and onward, and is the preferred method listed in the iOS 4 documentation.

Remove the App from the Recents List

There's another quick and simpler way to quit apps as well, that is to use your recent app list. Double-click the home button to display the recently accessed applications. Press and hold any of the icons shown, then navigate to the application you want to quit and tap the red circled minus button. This tells the app that you want to allow it to quit. Next time this application is launched, it will be re-added to the recents list.

If for some reason your phone still is running a bit slow or acting up, you can always try and restart the phone by pressing the Sleep/Wake button for a few seconds and then sliding across to shut the phone off. Let us know if this helped some of you out by dropping a comment below.