There is an article out there on by Fraser Speirs - which a few of you sent in links to and even John Gruber commented on and agreed with. The Title of the Article is Misconceptions about iOS Multitasking. In the article Fraser claims that the advice to manually force quit apps is wrong wrong wrong - and is should not be done. Or well that is the basic jist of the article - which again John Gruber in his own article agrees with. Well guess what - they are both wrong.
There are many instances where force quitting the apps definitely helps with overall performance. I do not think you need to do it every day or even every other day. But I do know and have seen great benefit when your iOS device is acting wonky - that doing a force quit of the apps improved overall performance of the iOS device.
I am not saying it will improve battery life - actually I went back and checked show notes - and any time I recommended force quitting - it had to do with apps and iOS in general not working right - not about battery life - which is something Fraser in his article gets hung up on - he looks at the battery life issue - as per why Apple Geniuses are recommending force quitting apps - and not that some apps just get corrupted when they are open and need a force quit to act better - that includes Apples own apps.
I also mentioned it was highly recommended when doing an Over the Air update to force quit all open apps as well.
So as Fraser would say - some believe it helps - he does not. I simply say this - if your iOS device or a specific app is not acting as expected - try force quitting the apps - what harm is there in doing that. And most people I emailed that as advice come back saying the issues went away.
Granted - just because they force quit the apps - does not mean thats what fixed the issues - in some cases issues they had been having for weeks - I mean it is possible had they done nothing at that specific point in time the problem would have gone away on its own. Or maybe there is a connection. Which one seems more likely.
One more thing Fraser takes for granted and/or assumes all apps behave as they are supposed to when minimized / paused / backgrounded / suspended or what ever you want to call it. That is just plain naive thinking - apps are written by humans and there are always going to be issues. That is why Apple has the ability to force quit apps - Just Sayin.