How to better control iOS4 mutitasking?

[Nitsson]

I've just upgraded to iOS4, and while I in general love the native backgrounding (a real relief for music apps such as Spotify, and I don't miss the backgrounder press-and-hold to activate method) and fast app switching, it can become cluttered after some use - sometime I have pages of apps. Specifically, the OS seems to background everything, including things like the settings, and contact app.

While I'm in theory fine that these things are remembered (the contact app also remembered what you had viewed last under iOS3.x) I'd prefer it if not everything was in that list.

Is there any way to have better control over what apps are shown in the task manager, and which are backgrounded at all? I'd not like any apps I have in the "task bar" (Mail, iRealSMS, Facebook, Safari, Phone) to be shown in this list at all, for example, as these can always quickly be accessed from the home screen.

Many thanks.

[wim66]

Try this ModMyi.com | Remove Recents, it removes all apps from the taskswitcher that aren't realy running in the background.

[seann33uk]

Try this ModMyi.com | Remove Recents, it removes all apps from the taskswitcher that aren't realy running in the background.

think that requires a JB phone... something most people on 4.0+ don't have.

[Nitsson]

Try this ModMyi.com | Remove Recents, it removes all apps from the taskswitcher that aren't realy running in the background.

Great, will try that. Thanks!

think that requires a JB phone... something most people on 4.0+ don't have.

I'm jailbroken via a custom sn0wbreeze firmware. Would never have upgraded otherwise

[wim66]

Yeah, just the thought of a non JB iPhone freaks me out

[Nitsson]

Yeah, just the thought of a non JB iPhone freaks me out

I know what you mean. So glad I have a 3GS with the old bootrom and have saved the SHSH hashes for all firmware versions. Can't be too careful

I've tried Remove Recents, and it's certainly a step in the right direction. In the future it would be nice to stop some apps from showing up no matter what their native backgrounding capabilities (Settings, Phone, etc), and possibly to integrate with Backgrounder to enable backgrounding for those apps that just won't be upgraded. For now, thanks for pointing me in the right direction

[wim66]

In Backgrounder.app you can add apps to the Overrides and turn off their backgrounding behavior.

[Nitsson]

In Backgrounder.app you can add apps to the Overrides and turn off their backgrounding behavior.

Sounds good. Have a link to instructions on how to do that?

[wim66]

Just go into Backgrounder.app, it's really easy, and there's documentation in the app.

[Nitsson]

Yes, I'm sure it's really easy when you know how How do I get into the app, via SSH?

[wim66]

I mean start up the app, hit the Backgrounder icon

[Nitsson]

Haha, right, that Backgrounder Haven't even installed that under iOS4 but will do. I can just disable any Activator integration if I don't want it running at all, and disable those apps as you say.

[wim66]

Yep, just tried it with iTunes, I turned its backgrounding off with Backgrounder.app.
Together with Remove Recents iTunes wont show up in the taskswitcher anymore after closing it

[Nitsson]

What settings did you actually use? My apps still show up. I've got the apps I don't want showing up in the Overrides list, Control disabled (though I tried enabling one Activator method with no change), and under Global Settings I have:

Backgrounding method: Auto Detect
Backgrounding state:
-Enable at launch: Off
-Stay enabled: On
Miscellaneous:
-Fall back: On
-Minimize: On

[wim66]

I've set it to Backgrounding method off.

[Nitsson]

That seems to work... just requires you to set it up for every app, but it's worth it in the long run. I jailbroke becuase I like control after all

[iNeo]

the perfect multitasking for me would be if my apps only got multitasked if i double clicked the home button, not every time i go out of something.

[Nitsson]

the perfect multitasking for me would be if my apps only got multitasked if i double clicked the home button, not every time i go out of something.

That would be nice, and I would also love for some apps not to clutter the task manager at all - e.g. phone, mail etc. Still, with Backgrounder installed and about an hour setting prefs for all apps it's pretty darn nice.

[trancem]

How do i get Backgrounder?

Does my phone need to be jailbroken?

I am using IOS 4.0.1

[dazzer1983]

Backgrounder is a cydia app. I use it. I set it to close all native multitasking and use a shortcut to background apps I want to.