While iOS updates are supposed to improve performance and eliminate pesky bugs, the recent release of iOS 13.2 proved to be nothing short of a headache for many users. The biggest complaint centered on incredibly shoddy memory management that saw iOS curiously and aggressively kill apps and tasks running in the background. In fact, performance was so bad that many users said that iOS 13.2 effectively eliminated the iPhone’s ability to truly multitask. Remember how Apple’s new iPhone 11 models kept losing to Android phones in real-world speed tests? Well thankfully, that’s about to change.
As a prime example, developer Nick Heer recounted his own frustrating experience with iOS 13.2 as follows:
I’m used to the camera purging all open apps from memory on my iPhone X, but iOS 13.2 goes above and beyond in killing background tasks. Earlier today, I was switching between a thread in Messages and a recipe in Safari and each app entirely refreshed every time I foregrounded it. This happens all the time throughout the system in iOS 13: Safari can’t keep even a single tab open in the background, every app boots from scratch, and using iOS feels like it has regressed to the pre-multitasking days.
With complaints about iOS 13.2 performance mounting, and with many long-time iPhone users and developers calling the problem “embarrassing,” Apple has thankfully addressed the issue.
Apple earlier today released the first iOS 13.3 beta and early reports suggest that some progress has been made.
iOS 13.3 Beta seems like it fixes the apps reloading / RAM management issue. I have opened 32 apps and have not had one reload yet on iPhone 11 Pro Max
— Aaron Zollo (@zollotech) November 5, 2019
While other users haven’t noticed as dramatic an improvement, it’s encouraging to know that Apple is aware of the issue and is presumably working hard to fix it. And the bottom line is if you’re a power user, the elimination of iOS’s RAM management issues are going to have a big impact on the speed of your iPhone or iPad during real-world usage.
Safari reloading is normal as websites refresh often, but apps reloading constantly is not. It seems better overall, but what constitutes a reload is still a mystery
— Aaron Zollo (@zollotech) November 5, 2019
We can only imagine, or hope, that the issue will hopefully be nothing more than a distant memory by the time the official iOS 13.2 update is ready to roll out to iPhone and iPad users.
