When I leave any of my computers on 24/7 I eventually see “corruption” that is fixed by a restart. I just realized that I have had my iPad “on” since I got it. Should I occasionally restart it?
(Searching the interwebs gets me all sorts of discussion on how to restart, how to do a reset, etc)
I don’t. iOS seems to handle memory management quite well. Of course, I don’t restart my computers unless I am forced to, either.
I do, but only after updating a few large astronomy apps which sometimes don’t work properly without a total reboot after they’ve been updated.
I also make a point of periodically double-clicking the main button to see what apps are currently running in memory, and shutting those which I’m not using at the moment. I notice (especially on my iPhone, which is an ancient 3Gs model) that things run more smoothly and faster if I don’t allow too many programs to hog the available memory.
I recommend closing all apps and power cycling any smart device at least once per month just to clean out the crap and minimize glitches. Even if it’s only for a couple of seconds. It’s not going to kill you to have your smart phone powered off for 30 seconds, but sweet jebus, the whining some people put out at the mere suggestion of it.
My iPad gets power cycled several times a day in the process of carrying it to and from work, as I don’t like carrying it in the bag powered on and I can’t have it powered on at my desk. I don’t have a case for it, although I’d like one, but I carry it around in a Targus tablet/netbook bag that cost @$25. Damned thing has become a virtual man-purse for me as I carry gum, the occasional chocolate, napkins, loose change, odd mail and papers I need and a small bottle of hand sanitizer in it.
Do you mean you actually hold the power button down until the slide-to-turn-off slider comes up, and then turn it all the way off? You do this several times a day?
Really?
Yes.
Wow.
Why in the world would you do that?
The standby time on an iPad is weeks…
I see no reason to leave things powered on when I’m not using them. I’m funny that way. I turn off my TV when I’m not using it too. 
And when it is stored in the bag, I don’t want to leave it turned on and then come back to find any kind of over-heating issues. Right now it’s been turned off since I got off the bus yesterday because I haven’t used it.
That and as I said, I’m not allowed to have it turned on at work. So I turn it off when I get there. if I use it in the cafeteria at lunch, I turn it off when I get back.
I am an iOS developer.
This is unnecessary. Unlike a computer, iOS devices do not run more than one user app at a time. Double-clicking the main button shows you a list of the apps you have recently opened, but they are not “currently running in memory”, and closing them will have no effect on the rest of the system. Any effect you may have observed is coincidental.
This Apple support document explains this concept. Certain apps continue to use OS services (e.g. play music, keep the GPS active, etc.) after they are closed, but this is made obvious by an icon in the status bar.
People react negatively because, to a computer scientist, hearing the phrase “clean out the crap and minimize glitches” evokes a reaction approximately the same as that of a doctor hearing someone talking about how detoxifying foot pads “remove toxins and stress from your body through your feet”.
It is nonsense, the digital equivalent of woo.
Sorry but my experience disagrees with you.
I have had issues with my iPhone that will only clear up with a shutdown and reboot.
I also had a customer who’s iPhone would pair but not work with the Bluetooth in his car. It would work with my iPhone. After dicking around for several minutes I asked how long it had been since he had turned the phone off. Never was the answer, he didn’t even know it had a power switch.
We rebooted his phone and it worked perfectly.
Me? I reboot my phone about 1X per week.
people seem to forget that even though it’s a phone, it’s still running a multi-tasking, multi-user, virtual-memory OS. iOS has its own user interface design, but beneath that it’s very much OS X. And just like OS X, the phone hardware devices (cell radio, bluetooth interface, USB host, etc.) all need drivers written for them. Occasionally you’ll run into bugs with these drivers just like you will on a regular PC. AFAIK these are the types of things that cause stuff like Rick’s customer’s bluetooth issues.
iOS doesn’t let you explicitly close apps. When you exit one (by going back to the home screen or switching to another app) the current one will suspend unless it’s one that’s explicitly allowed to run in the background (e.g. music player.) When the device’s RAM gets full, the OS will start killing least-recently-used apps to make room. I don’t know if iOS has a mechanism for apps to save state for later resume; Windows Phone does.
No, it’s not going to “kill” me, but I want a good reason to do it before I’ll waste the effort. I’ve gone weeks without restarting my HTC Trophy, and have never seen so much as a hiccup or a “glitch.” I’ve restarted my iPad 2 once since I’ve had it, and that was for an OS update.
If there is a specific problem that you are trying to solve, rebooting is a legitimate troubleshooting step. As a general maintenance procedure, without a specific purpose, it is unnecessary.
Some people like to fuss over their things, and if it makes you feel good, there’s nothing wrong with it. But you’re not doing anything useful by periodically rebooting the device for no reason.
Rick, you are a mechanic right? imagine if someone came to you and explained that, they had discovered that hooking their car to a battery charger every night solved the problem they were having starting the car in the morning. And since this worked so well for them, they had purchased additional chargers so they could do the same for their other vehicles.
You would explain that, while the charger resolved the symptoms, the problem is likely actually due to an old battery or minor parasitic current draw, and that in any case, charging the battery every night is unnecessary on a car that is functioning normally.
Son, I’ve been working with computers since before you were born. I’ve directly and indirectly supported just about every kind of computer there is short of mainframes but including tablets and smartphones. Memory management is never anywhere near as good as they claim it is.
Just about every time I run into someone who has experienced some form of software glitch on their smart phone, one of my first questions is: When was the last time you actually turned it off? Surprise surprise, I’ve found that the people who experience the most problems are the people never turn the damned thing off.
I can imagine Siri singing “Daisy, Daisy…”
You are posting as though what you said contradicted what Absolute said, but it looks to me like instead your experience supports his point.
I just recently turned on an iPad 1 I’d left lying around the house. Wi-fi and bluetooth turned on, 12% battery left, I hadn’t touched it for 7 weeks. Seriously, these things sip power when they’re on standby.
Um, that’s what he said: it lasts weeks.
Leaving it on for 7 weeks with no use is far different from shutting it off every time you go from one place to another.
And, Chimera, all you are doing by telling us you’ve worked on computers before we were born is that you’ve probably picked up a ton of habits that are no longer necessary. I mean, right now, it’s actually considered a problem if you have to turn off your PC more than once every few months–a far cry from the once a day power cycle of something as recent as Windows 98.