How do you quickly close an app?

JudgeHolden

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I was using IMDB just now and, after finding what I needed, wanted to close the program. It took about 25 hits of the back button to do so. In the process I found the multitasking menu, which I've never had need for, and tried swiping it away like WebOS, but that didn't work.

Is hitting back a billion times the only way to end something?

This has always been an issue for me with IE, in that I can read a whole lot of articles then I have to hit back a billion times to get it to go to the WP Home Page without having IE running in the background. IMDB is the first app I've done enough in to find this.
 

duke1231

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you should have a windows icon on the bottom of your phone. Should have a back arrow which you used, and on the right side you should have the magnifying lens for search, and in the middle the windows icon. Just tap the windows ICon and whala!! Takes you right out of the app, and back to the home screen every time.
 

Winterfang

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Press Here

windows-logo.jpg
 

duke1231

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it's alright some people haven't experienced this type of OS. They are used to other types. Part of why the forums are here, to help so that people can have a good user experience :)
 

Vector555

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He brings up and interesting point though. If you don't want any apps dehydrated in the background, you can press the back arrow until it keeps landing you on the home screen. All apps have been closed.
 

Exomondo

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My issue with the multitasking -or maybe im doing it wrong ;) - is that I can't seem to jump out of IE, do something and then jump back to where I was. I can get back to the page that i was on but i can't navigate back because of course the only 'back' button in IE is the hardware back button on the phone so when i go back into IE pressing 'back' doesnt take me back one page, it takes me back out of the app. That's annoying.
 

JudgeHolden

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The windows key does NOT close an app. It takes you to the home screen. This is not the same thing as closing an app, as hitting the back button in the home screen then takes you back to the app. I do not want this - if I accidentally hit the back button in the home screen I don't want to end up on an application I was using three days ago. I don't even care much about battery issues, I just want the home screen to be my end of the line, not just another screen in a sequence of back button presses.

So thanks, but the question still isn't answered. I'm assuming it's not possible to close applications, then, which is odd. Very, very odd.


Another annoying multitask question still not answered, but the apologists keep on!
 

Exomondo

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I do not want this - if I accidentally hit the back button in the home screen I don't want to end up on an application I was using three days ago.

But that's what the 'back' button is for, to go back to where you were last. Just like the 'search' button takes you to seach and the 'home' button takes you to the start screen. If i press the 'home' button how do i get back to where i was last? It's pretty unintuitive to not press the aptly-named 'back' button. So for most people it works as expected, the issue i have is that the browser should have its own back button in the UI.
 

Vector555

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But that's what the 'back' button is for, to go back to where you were last. Just like the 'search' button takes you to seach and the 'home' button takes you to the start screen. If i press the 'home' button how do i get back to where i was last? It's pretty unintuitive to not press the aptly-named 'back' button. So for most people it works as expected, the issue i have is that the browser should have its own back button in the UI.

It is not the back button he is taking issue with. Its the fact that there is no easy way to completely kill a task that is on scree. All you can do is dehydrate it. Which then clutters your app switching if you are done with it.

Lets hypothetically say that I am using my phone and browsing through toys for my sons birthday on some random toy site. I finish up, check my mail, go back to home and then lock the phone. I now have my email, and the toy site dehydrated on my phone. Forgetting about this I allow my son to play angry birds, but as children often do they start hitting other buttons and he stumbles onto the toy store. Now my son has unreasonable expectations that he is getting said toy. This is just a scenario.

I agree with JudgeHolden, there needs to be an easy method for killing a dehydrated task and closing atask without it going into dehydration. It should be a simple solution really.
 

JudgeHolden

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Or for me. I installed IMDB's wonderful (though odd in which information it focuses on) application when I got my phone in what, late May? I've used it twice. Once was when I got it, and once was this morning. I went though a whole lot of jumping in the app, then tried to get out.

If I just hit the windows key I'd have IMDB running in the background still. Any time I was at the home screen, where I do 99% of my phone usage, I'd be one accidental button press from going into IMDB again. But since I use IMDB about once every 4 months I don't want this. I don't want it there, sitting where I last browsed, waiting for me to return. I want it done, out of memory, out of accidental click backs. It'll be months before I use it again.

There's no good reason to have an app sitting open if I have no plans to use it for months. I don't get how that guy said it was an "annoying multitask complaint." It's not multitasking if it will never be returned to.
 

duke1231

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Your right though. I like that with other phones you can just cancel the app from running and with window OS you have to back out.
 

Exomondo

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It is not the back button he is taking issue with.

I'm just saying that's the point of it, it's supposed to be a history. But of course it wouldn't break the paradigm to be able to delete history items.

Lets hypothetically say that I am using my phone and browsing through toys for my sons birthday on some random toy site. I finish up, check my mail, go back to home and then lock the phone. I now have my email, and the toy site dehydrated on my phone. Forgetting about this I allow my son to play angry birds, but as children often do they start hitting other buttons and he stumbles onto the toy store. Now my son has unreasonable expectations that he is getting said toy. This is just a scenario.

Probably should have closed the tab, if he 'stumbles' into the web browser he'll find your toy site ;) But yes an easy way to kill a dehydrated task would be good, i don't see why they didn't do it like IE tabs.

If I just hit the windows key I'd have IMDB running in the background still. Any time I was at the home screen, where I do 99% of my phone usage, I'd be one accidental button press from going into IMDB again.

That's only if you hadn't actually done anything though, if you'd gone into any other area (phone, people, email, messaging, etc, etc...) and then hit the home button IMDB would be bumped down wouldn't it?
 

JudgeHolden

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That's only if you hadn't actually done anything though, if you'd gone into any other area (phone, people, email, messaging, etc, etc...) and then hit the home button IMDB would be bumped down wouldn't it?

But it would still be there, would it not? Eating CPU cycles or, at the very least, RAM?

These phones aren't exactly cutting edge here, and I know it ruffles feathers to say that because WP7 isn't very hardware demanding, but we're making two year commitments to these things. Who knows what the next version of WPX will demand. Who knows what games coming out 12 months from now will demand.

Not being able to kill something when we have no interest in returning to it's current state is perplexing.
 

jesdt

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Maybe that is the exact thing that Microsoft pursues in terms of user experience: Stop trying to micro-manage every process and tiniest function in your phone and just let the OS do its job.
 

Rhody#WP

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Windows Phone only keeps the last 5 apps open, and they eventually age out. There's no reason to be concerned with it being open.

That being said, I'm like you. I like to close out apps I'm not going to go back to.

With the IMDB app, there's an IMDB icon in the upper left hand corner. Hit that to go home, then hit back to close. (Every app should have an easy way to get home so you can close it with the back button.)
 

JudgeHolden

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Maybe that is the exact thing that Microsoft pursues in terms of user experience: Stop trying to micro-manage every process and tiniest function in your phone and just let the OS do its job.

Well if that's their goal it's a bad one.

Guess we have Apple to thank for the dumbing-down of our technology. Personally I'd rather have some control over basic tasks in my own hands.
 

doublebullout

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First thing I tried when I opened the multitasking app view was to swipe up to close an app, just like I would have in webOS. Then I tried swiping down. Then I tried a tap and hold on the "card". I guess Microsoft was only willing to copy webOS just a little bit. ;)


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 

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