App Switcher

KillYourApps takes a pragmatic approach to force-closing sensitive or tracking apps from your App Switcher

KillYourApps hero image.

The App Switcher on an ordinary iPhone or iPad contains all the user’s recently-used apps. They’re in a state of suspension until re-opened, allowing the system to more efficiently load and prepare the app for the end user. But have you ever picked up your phone a day later and still saw a mess of apps in your App Switcher that you wish wasn’t there?

Popular KillBackground13 tweak for force-closing all App Switcher apps at once gets rootless support

KillBackground13 screenshots.

If you’re one of those people that likes to clear out your App Switcher when you’re finished using your iPhone despite several advisories suggesting that you shouldn’t, then you might be excited to learn that iOS developer ichitaso has updated their popular KillBackground13 jailbreak tweak support the latest rootless jailbreaks on iOS & iPadOS 15 and 16.

Vaon buffs the App Switcher on jailbroken iPhones with a grid UI and integrated battery module

The App Switcher is, at least in my opinion, one of the most underwhelming interfaces on the iPhone. The full-screen card switcher interface makes such poor use of the expansive screen real estate that it’s no surprise we see so many jailbreak tweaks attempting to fix this.

The latest of such tweaks is one called Vaon by iOS developer atar13, which not only converts the App Switcher from a card-based interface to a grid-based one, but also adds an iOS 14-style battery widget to the bottom.

StayWithMe prevents you from accidentally force-closing your most recently-used app

Despite the fact that force-closing all the apps in your App Switcher isn’t the best of practices on the iOS or iPadOS platform, it’s still something that I continue to see people do time and time again.

Perhaps the most painful part of it all is watching when someone accidentally force-closes an app that they didn’t intend to – usually their most recently-used app which they were trying to improve the performance of by freeing up system memory in the process of force-closing all their other apps.