> Again, I don't know the exact cost, but I think killing suspended processes is pretty cheap and it is really the memory warnings that cause a stutter.
Might be, my point is mostly that iOS's application management is not as painless and transparent as TFA makes it sound, there are (edge) cases where "not managing background tasks" impacts the experience even when all applications are correctly coded and well-behaved.
Exactly. The management of background apps is FAR from being impact-less as the author gives the impression. Try leaving Skype connected and see what it does to your battery (even when you DON'T want to receive skype calls in the background).
While he's correct in stating that the multitasking bar does NOT show apps currently running (just the apps that were recently used, regardless of state), he fails to point that deleting the apps there WILL indeed move the apps from Background or Suspended to Not Running, effectively freeing memory and CPU.
And this is exactly the intention of those "authoritative sources" that he criticizes. The recommendation to kill background/suspended apps is an effective (and the only official) way to manually solve battery drain or memory on the 5% of cases that iOS can't do by itself.
Might be, my point is mostly that iOS's application management is not as painless and transparent as TFA makes it sound, there are (edge) cases where "not managing background tasks" impacts the experience even when all applications are correctly coded and well-behaved.