iPhone ‘warning’ viral video explains why users should not close apps

iPhone users, beware! The simple act of force-closing iPhone apps when you’re not using them can drain more battery than it saves, an Apple technician has warned. This warning emerged in a TikTok video filmed at a UK Apple Store, where a customer went in for repair and was advised against his habitual app-clearing practice. The Apple Store employee also said that repeatedly shutting down background apps forces your phone to “use more ‘power’ and ‘data’” when you reopen them, outweighing any perceived gains from killing unused processes.

In the viral video (seen by the New York Post), which has already received over a million views, the Apple customer named @fordylipsync said: “A kind man there fixed it – a technician guy, brilliant. I was closing all my apps down, he went ‘don’t close your apps.’”
Curious why, he asked the technician, who explained that closing apps consumes extra energy and network resources each time they’re relaunched. Instead, he recommended letting apps remain “suspended in the background,” effectively freezing them in a low-power state akin to a power-save mode.
“Every time you close your apps, it uses data and battery to open them up again, How am I only just finding this out?” the TikTok user recounted citing the Apple Store employee's advise.
Despite widespread advice from friends and online forums to constantly clear open apps, the Apple technician assured him that users can “leave hundreds” running without consequence: “People think they’re doing stuff in the background, they’re not, they’re just sitting there. They freeze. Don’t close them.”
According to Apple’s guidelines about the same, the company suggests users “should only close an app if it’s unresponsive.” A report by TechRadar claims that in 2016, Craig Federighi, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Software Engineering, debunked the app-closing myth in an email reply to a user, TechRadar reported.
The report claims: “Closing iPhone apps is both cathartic and instinctively feels like the right thing to do if your battery’s in the red. But it doesn’t actually help your battery life, RAM (random-access memory) or CPU (central processing unit), and opening and reopening apps could even have a negative impact. iOS has long been designed to make sure background apps barely touch your iPhone’s RAM or CPU.”