close open tabs on Acer Iconia a500

scouse9976

Member
Dec 24, 2011
5
0
how do i close open tabs on Acer Iconia a500 they are down the left hand side but there is no x or nothing to close them cpould you please let me know thanks
 

BDiddy

Senior Member
Aug 19, 2011
83
11
There is no way to close them. The Android OS is designed to handle multiple open apps. You can always go to Settings to Force Close an app, but then you get into the whole debate about whether task-killer apps are helpful at all.
 

kwhabq

Member
Apr 27, 2011
42
5
how do i close open tabs on Acer Iconia a500 they are down the left hand side but there is no x or nothing to close them cpould you please let me know thanks

If you have multiple pages open in the stock browser, you can selectively close them by clicking on the x tab of the fan menu and the currently displayed window will close. You can repeat the process for unwanted windows. I use this method when too many windows are left open. I have had so many open that it will refuse to open another. Hope this is helpful.

Ken
 

BDiddy

Senior Member
Aug 19, 2011
83
11
I don't think he's talking about tabs in the browser--he's talking about what pops up when you press the down arrow Android softkey on the lower left, which is either a history of recent apps or a list of all open apps (or perhaps both--I've never been sure about it).
 

kwhabq

Member
Apr 27, 2011
42
5
I don't think he's talking about tabs in the browser--he's talking about what pops up when you press the down arrow Android softkey on the lower left, which is either a history of recent apps or a list of all open apps (or perhaps both--I've never been sure about it).

Now I'm confused - do you mean down arrow, or left arrow? I only get down arrow when the keyboard is displayed. Pressing it closes the keyboard. If left arroow is pressed and held, that is where history and bookmarks pop up.
 

Greg_E

Member
Nov 15, 2011
248
13
I routinely kill all running tasks and have not had a problem, might not be needed but it does seem to give a little performance back.
 

BDiddy

Senior Member
Aug 19, 2011
83
11
Now I'm confused - do you mean down arrow, or left arrow? I only get down arrow when the keyboard is displayed. Pressing it closes the keyboard. If left arroow is pressed and held, that is where history and bookmarks pop up.

Sorry, brain fart. I meant the rectangular symbol.
 

Icebike

Senior Member
Apr 28, 2011
1,523
186
I routinely kill all running tasks and have not had a problem, might not be needed but it does seem to give a little performance back.

It doesn't.

The exception is those apps that are sending and receiving on your wifi can appear to bog down your tablet if they continue to do so when the app is running in the background.

If you are someone what can't possibly live 5 minutes without something watching your facebook page and 20 other people's pages and you have to check twitter every 2 minutes, then yeah, it can use a lot of battery and processing power.

But normal apps stop doing anything and are not even taking up your main memory when put in the background. Just a tiny stub remains in memory for restart purposes.
Some apps have memory leaks. Angry birds had a problem with this. (I think its been fixed). But killing the app (Force Close) didn't solve that because the memory was leaked and therefore un-owned by anybody, and you would never get it back until you rebooted, or the system ran the Android Garbage collection thread.

I've never seen any performance improvement by killing tasks, EXCEPT those that were sending a lot of stuff over the network. When I watch Google Movies, I've keep seeing buffering circle if I leave email programs running when there is a lot of email activity.
 

jgumphress

Senior Member
Sep 6, 2011
295
31
Don't think of the apps as being open but rather it being a history list of what you had opened. Android doesn't work like windows. There is no need to close everything out. Some apps need to keep running, like email search, etc. But the others just sit dormant until they drop off and get replaced in the cue as you open other apps. Thry watching this video from the Google development team: Videos | Android Developers
 

diiorio

Member
Dec 21, 2011
124
12
FOr added control and features I use Go Launcher EX (Free) Can get a free ICS theme as well for it.

THat way you jsut clock the dotted circle for menu/apps click RUnning apps and close all, or close ones yo uwant closed. You can click and lock an app so it stays running.

It jsut gives better control over apps, features, menus, nice effects scrollign between windows ect. EX is really made for tabs.


Just drag off icons for phoen features off the scrollable bottom bar and add ones you want since the bar scrolls you don't need much on your desktop area.
 

jpinsl

Member
Dec 3, 2011
36
1
how do i close open tabs on Acer Iconia a500 they are down the left hand side but there is no x or nothing to close them cpould you please let me know thanks
So any answer to the OP's question?

Anyone know a way to close or clear the history list that pops up down the left side of the screen when pressing the third soft key in the lower left (the A500 user guide calls it the "recent" button; it has a couple of rectangles overlapped). Would like to be able to clear this list without restarting.
 
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Icebike

Senior Member
Apr 28, 2011
1,523
186
Im not sure it's even possible, and I can't understand why people are obsessing about this.

It's far more handy to have it there than to get rid of it.
 
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