iPhone 101: Reboot your iPhone for better gaming

Sim city is definitely not working at the moment. didn't have any problems until the last update, now i can't play longer than 5 minutes without it shutting down. My city has 850,000 people so i don't know if that has anything to do with it. Sigh.

:)

Yes of course I am.

I am just trying to relay some real life experience. That's all.

-mark=

Really, this is stupid. The iPhone has a specific amount of RAM - 64 MB - and this is, as on any other computer platform, used for the OS and the background processes (as Mail, Phone, etc.). As a developer you shouldn't be using more than about 25 MB of RAM for your application. Sadly most developers don't care and give stupid advices like "reboot your phone before gaming". Come on?! Would you reboot your PC/Mac before gaming?! The only reason it will work better in this case is the memory footprint of the OS and all background processes are the smallest possible after a reboot (no connection-data cached, ...). But in reality these programms simply consume too much RAM to be running an the iPhone. Crashing just means the iPhone kills these programms because it wouldn't be able to - e.g. take phone calls or receive sms - operate as a phone since these programms use all the memory. Please developers: Just adjust your RAM usage to the technical possibilities of the device. No one will - long term - use your software, if users need to reboot the device everytime before starting your app.

While I agree that the hard reboot is not the preferred first solution do not think that the soft reboot and the hard reboot is the same. Sometimes you DO need to do the hard reboot.

Most applications throw this message about rebooting the phone because the application is receiving a memory warning from the operating system. Interestingly enough a soft reset doesn't always cause the system to think it has memory--at least with the 2.1 and earlier firmware. An iPhone application even after a soft reboot can still receive the memory warning!

We repeatedly tested this as we were debugging our photo feature in JetSet and let me tell you when the phone is convinced that it doesn't have the resources a software reset doesn't always clear the problem. Why? No clue, however it is a fact for 2.1 and earlier firmware. I have not had the opportunity to test for 2.2 but I thought I would share.

It is frustrating because there is no way that we have found to "know" whether the phone has enough memory to pull of something like taking a picture prior to calling the API. Apple has asked developers to NOT post the memory warning dialog in their applications--but if you don't then people think the application is buggy when in fact the iPhone is out of memory. I have resisted putting this warning in my application but truthfully I am tempted as people tend to 1 star applications for things that simply are not the fault of the developer.

Anyone who knows more - please feel free to educate me. :)

-mark=

BriteMac,
Makers of JetSet Expenses for the iPhone

I performed this hard reset many times on the 1st gen iphone and a few on the 3g. I dont see the harm.

Um, actually a proper shut-down and reboot is almost always my first step. I've been doing call-center and desk-side support for 10 years and this solves 60-70% of issues. If the problem recurs than obviously it's a problems that needs to be dealt with, but all computers deserve a reboot at least every couple of days (PCs anyway). Also, remember that holding your home button on an app kills that app and while I don't know for sure, might free up some memory as well.

DON"T DO THIS...JUST POWER OFF...THIS IS A HARD REBOOT AND YOU'LL HAVE TO RECONNECT TO ITUNES TO GET YOUR PHONE BACK...EDIT THIS ARTICLE..THIS IS BAD...I now don't have a phone until I get home and reconnect to my mac..no iPhone all day..>ARGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
NOT A HAPPY TUAW READER

I have a jailbroken iPhone, and the SBSettings app has a "Reboot" button. Does anyone know if this does the harmful (?) pull-the-plug hard reboot, or is like hitting re-start on a Mac? (nice, controlled shut-down and re-start)
It also has a "Respring" option, would that be sufficient?
thanks,
tys

Why is everyone glossing over the fact that the phone is so unstable it has to be rebooted on a regular basis just to function properly? This is the kind of thing we've mocked Windows for for 20 years.

Don't get me wrong I love my iPhone like no other nifty electronic gizmo I've ever possessed - but this rebooting is bullshit, and it shouldn't be reported as "iPhone 101" - rather it should be treated as a serious issue with iPhone OS that must be corrected.

"The typical iPhone user utilizes several applications at a time, often hopping back and forth between them."

Could you please tell me how to do this wonderful feat of magic? My iPhone is incapable of multi-tasking and I'd really appreciate if you could share with the world this little tip that allows the special TUAW iPhone to multi-task when nobody else's can. Is my iPhone missing the ALT and TAB buttons or something?

... or did you forget that the iPhone doesn't support background processes or multi-tasking in that sense and that an application's memory is cleared out when it's closed (which is why it can't run in the background).