This Way to the Egress

The companies who create operating systems for smartphones are usually very good about listening to their customers. If enough people complain about something, it will be changed. But there's one request that generally falls on deaf ears: a simple way to close applications.

Most Windows Mobile users know what I'm talking about. When you're running an app on a Windows phone, there's a "close" button in the upper right corner, just like there is in apps on a Windows PC. But hitting it doesn't close the app, it just hides it.

But I'm not singling out Microsoft. If there's a way to close an app running under Google's Android OS, I don't know what it is. It's certainly not easily done.

The Developer's Side
In the spirit of fairness, I'm going to start off with the reasons OS developers have given me why they don't make it easy for users to close applications.

On a mobile device with a small screen, there has to be an easy way to switch between applications without constantly closing and re-opening them. That's why the default action on Windows Mobile is to hide apps, not close them. It would be very frustrating if we kept accidentally closing apps that we just meant to hide.

Developers are also concerned that if they put in an option to close apps, some users will mistakenly think they have to do it whenever they stop using the software. This will make them believe the OS is harder to use than it really is.

So developers write operating systems that don't require users to handle memory management, so apps are automatically closed only when the resources are needed and the device thinks the user is done with it.

The User's Side
In an ideal world, I'd be happy to let the OS handle memory management... but not in the real world. If normally well-behaved software starts to have problems on my Windows phone, the first thing I do is check to see how many apps I have open. More often than not I'll find that I'm running six or seven. If I go through the hassle the OS puts me through to close all of these, my app will start cooperating with me.

I wish I could do this with my T-Mobile G1, but I have to re-boot the device instead.

And I know I'm not alone here. Over the years, I've had more conversations than I can count on this topic, and very few people have ever disagreed with me.

My Simple Solution
I don't think I'm asking for too much. All I want is for every application to have "Exit" in a menu somewhere. Some developers put this in now, but not all, and I want it to be standard.

I'm not suggesting that the memory management software be stripped out of the OS. It can remain, but I and other expert users want a way to do a bit of manual memory management without it being a big hassle.

For the OS makers that are concerned that newbies will think they have to handle their own memory management, the "Exit" option can be hidden. But experts will know to go to a Control Panel and unhide it.

This solution gives everyone what they want. The developers get to offer an operating system that's easy to use, and power users get the control over their device they want.