Apple’s iOS operating system is fairly competent when it comes to memory management and keeping up with your multitasking requirements. Apps on the iPhone X, when not in use, stay suspended in the background and don’t consume system resources.
It’s commonly advised to avoid constantly force-closing and re-launching apps on the iPhone X and let the OS do all the app management in the background. Manually closing and opening apps repeatedly puts a strain on the phone’s battery, something you’re probably trying to avoid by closing apps in the first place.
Despite that, you may encounter an unresponsive app or one hogging your phone’s battery or memory. In such situations, it might be prudent to force close that app or re-launch it.
On earlier iPhones, double-pressing the Home button used to bring up the app switcher. But when Apple removed the Home button from the newer models like the iPhone X, it brought with it a new set of gestures to access the app switcher and close running apps.
Here’s the simple method to close apps on the iPhone X:
- Either on the Home screen or while inside an app, swipe up from the bottom of the screen and hold for a second.
- You’ll see the App Switcher come up, showing previews for all the open apps. Swipe left or right to locate the app you want to close.
- Swipe up on that app’s preview card to close that app. You can also hold the preview cards and press the red circles that appear on the top left of the preview cards.
And now you know how to force close apps on your iPhone X. Again, unless an app is causing problems, it’s generally better to leave the app management to the phone’s operating system.