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Lion's iOS-like Automatic Termination not ideal for some users

by Mike Schramm Aug 9th 2011 at 6:00PM

Matt Neuberg over at Tidbits has noticed an interesting behavior in Lion: Occasionally, apps running without an active window on will disappear from the Command-Tab application switcher, and sometimes disappear from Activity Monitor completely. The culprit is a new "feature" in Lion called Automatic Termination, which will shut down and quit any (compatible) apps that aren't active and don't have any visible windows. Of course, most official Apple apps support Automatic Termination.

As Neuberg notes, this is obviously a hat tip to iOS and its background processes, in which you "close" an app simply by navigating away from it, leaving the system to shut it down when additional memory is needed. Neuberg suggests, however, that this implementation isn't so much a feature as a problem. Obviously, a desktop computer has many more resources to run processes than a mobile device, and there several scenarios in which a user might need to access an app that's been inactive for a while.

Granted, with Lion's Auto Save and Resume features, you could argue that there's no real difference to an app or a user between "inactive" and "closed," but Neuberg says that there is, and he doesn't like it. The feature is designed to keep the decision of which apps are open and closed away from the user, and while that might be a help on iOS, it's a hindrance on the Mac. I agree -- I'm perfectly capable of dealing with app management on my desktop, and it's lame of Apple to take that away from me.

Of course you can't opt out of Automatic Termination, short of simply avoiding compatible apps. There are certainly good reasons on both sides for having or not having this feature running, but in this case, it seems like bringing over this certain aspect of iOS app management might not be ideal for all Lion users.



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Matt Neuberg over at Tidbits has noticed an interesting behavior in Lion: Occasionally, apps running without an active window on will...
 

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azav

I absolutely HATE this auto quitting of apps when Apple thinks I am done with it. BUt the app isn't quit. You're simply prevented from using the GUI. BUT I WANT TO USE THE GUI TO OPEN OTHER DOCS AS I CHOOSE. Apple needs to allow a switch for users to disable this feature if they hate it. I do. I don't want the OS trying to outthink when I want an app to close. And I hate Apple not giving us an option to easily disable this feature.

March 14 2012 at 8:24 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
maaku

I ran into the opposite problem today. I tried to upgrade Flash and the installer wanted me to quit all open browsers. So I quit them but stub processes were left behind and the installer still wouldn't run. So I had to force quit the stubs. Bloody Adobe, bloody Apple.

August 13 2011 at 12:44 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
joejparnell

Has anyone else noticed this? Safari is unloading tabs in the background, just like iOS does!

Sometimes I'll go back to Safari, and switch tabs, and there's a blank page that has to reload.

If this keeps up, it's FireFox for me.

August 11 2011 at 1:58 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Claude Schrader

This article is written by a power user. For anyone who's ever seen a new mac user with 47 open unused apps , this is a good thing. People coming from windows world (and new computer users) don't get, and don't need to know the distinction between open apps and open windows. It is an added layer of complexity

August 10 2011 at 10:52 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to Claude Schrader's comment
ChadG

Perfectly valid point, but there is not a single good reason to keep this from being a toggleable option for the power user to disable.

August 10 2011 at 12:08 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Chris Craigen

I agree with your point, but it just seems like Apple has been turning their software completely away from what professionals, power users, and tech wizards like to use. I fully understand the need to cater to new switchers and make the OS something easy to use and "get", but those of us who have been onboard since OS 6 like being able to properly customize our experience.

When the default scrollbar behavior switch from "arrow at each end" to "double at the bottom", I respected that design decision but promptly changed my own setting back. When title-bar double-clicking was turned off, I did the same and turned it back on. No hard drives on the desktop? Turn it back on. Dock zoom? Turn it off. Dashboard annoying you? Don't use it. Expose getting in the way? Remap the keys.

It just seems really odd that suddenly these moves are being made without the associated toggle being present somewhere in the system. It's the same move that prompted me to not even buy an iPhone 3GS until I knew the current shipping system was jailbreakable. We don't mind if default behaviors change, so long as we actually have a choice of changing it back by ourselves. Everything up to Snow Leopard seemed to be moving in that direction of streamlining, adding features, and generally giving the user proper choice.

Does anyone remember At Ease, the alternative desktop system built on System 7 for highly simplified use? A little too close to iOS for my liking. At Ease was effective because you could still switch into the regular OS environment (provided you had the right privileges). Now, if the main Mac OS X branch is moving towards iOS-like interactions, wouldn't it be a huge advantage to *also* have the main, high-powered OS interface sitting right underneath, only an "advanced mode" toggle switch away? Where is this option?

Arg. I think I'm done ranting. I've run out of steam. I'm sticking with Snow Leopard for now because it is really fast, really easy to use, and will bend to my every whim with a toggle, plugin, or command line tweak. Until Lion allows, the same, I'm happy being behind a generation.

August 10 2011 at 1:41 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Chris Craigen's comment
Chris Williams

Agreed. Sticking with Snow Leopard as well until there are more options available to power users. I had At Ease installed on my Performa 400 (first Mac) and quickly deleted it. I agree that my mom (a recent switcher) routinely leaves applications open in error, since Windows will close the program when you close all windows, but for me on the Mac I know when I have things running and when I don't.

Lion is definitely dumbed down and isn't what I'm looking for. A these new ways to launch apps and see what is running when cmd-space to launch apps out of spotlight is so much easier, and using the 'Witch' app to improve alt-tabbing is really all I need. I'm all for new features for noobs but not at the expense of slowing down power users.

August 10 2011 at 4:09 PM Report abuse rate up rate down
SteveB

I wonder if this has anything to do with QS quitting every few days?

August 10 2011 at 5:09 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Cowicide

Another "feature" that'll keep me away from Lion until this "feature" gets optional.

August 10 2011 at 12:11 AM Report abuse +2 rate up rate down Reply
gormster

The fact that lights go out from the Dock is fine. But disppearing from the application switcher? Not to mention I had iTunes AT on me when it was still streaming audio to my Apple TV.

August 09 2011 at 10:39 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
nicleT

So many people only close the document window and leave the app runing without knowing it. It's not rare to see a dozen of applications still open for nothing on their Mac and I alway remind them they can use Command-Tab to visualize what's on. So I think Automatic Termination is a good behavior in Lion for average user.

August 09 2011 at 9:50 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to nicleT's comment
Adam

Exactly. Just walk into an Apple store and try any Mac on display. You'll see so many programs still running. Many people don't know that some programs still run after the windows close. These same people are also the first to complain when the computer isn't "fast". Well there's your problem lol. This new feature in Lion should help address that for a lot of less experienced users.

August 09 2011 at 10:25 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Adrian von Gegerfelt

What if I want the app available in that list so I can tab to it and hit CMD-N?

I always have Text Edit running for that purpose.

August 10 2011 at 5:13 AM Report abuse +1 rate up rate down Reply
kruge

I see this as a definite bonus feature; previously I used to manually quit apps when resources got low, to prevent excessive hard disk thrashing - Now, Lion does it for me. Sounds awesome, and seems to work well.

August 09 2011 at 9:08 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
400trix

I don't think I've ever heard of as useless a feature as "Automatic Termination" on a UNIX based system. Think about it: you have virtual memory, which doesn't usually run low. The process table is more than large enough. Come to think of it, with SSD's becoming more common (except for cheapskates like me) the page device will end up being on one, and so will be significantly faster than spinning platters.

August 09 2011 at 8:34 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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