You don’t need to force close apps for better iPhone X battery life, but when an app becomes unresponsive or freezes, you may need to close it before you can continue using it. Apple changes the way you force closing apps running on the iPhone X, partly due to the lack of a home button and all the new gestures.
On all other iPhones it’s still the same as you’re used to, with a double-click on the home button and then swiping up on the app you want to close. It’s been like this for years, but with the iPhone X you have an extra step.
There’s a new way to multitask as there’s no home button, and while there’s already a lot of swiping going on, you can’t swipe up to close an app on the iPhone X. Here’s what you need to do: Close an app on iPhone X.
To use App Switcher, swipe up and hold in the middle of the screen. This is the new multitasking screen that you probably already know how to get to. If you swipe up on an app, it will take you to your home screen.
To close an app, you have to tap and hold an app until a small minus sign appears in the corners of each app. This is similar to the way you delete apps. When you see this red minus sign, there are two ways to close running apps on your iPhone X.
Force close running apps on iPhone X.
We prefer to swipe up the app. It’s easier to do with one hand, and it’s also a familiar gesture since we’ve been closing apps running on iPhone for years. The trick is that you have to tap and hold for the minus sign to be there. If your iPhone doesn’t have it in your apps, you can’t force close it with a swipe.
This is just one of the specific iPhone X gestures you should learn to use with your new iPhone. This is a complication from the lack of a home button, but it allows the swipe up gesture to do the same, no matter where you are and what you’re doing.
