Apple will make closing apps easier on the iPhone X

The gestures that have replaced the home button on iPhone X generally work great. But one of them is so impossibly, unnecessarily dumb it made my head explode every time I had to use it: closing apps.

SEE ALSO: Turn yourself into an emoji with Apple's Memoji

To fully close an app on the iPhone X, you need to flick up from the bottom of the screen, then press and hold for a second or so, which will give you a flickable list of all your open apps, complete with the minus ("-") signs in the top left corner of each window. To close an app, you have to tap and hold one of them for another second, and then you can flick them up, one by one, to close them.

It doesn't sound like a lot of work, but if you do this often (I do it all the time), it gets very annoying. Worse, there's no real reason for the feature to be this complicated. On most Android phones, you can flick the apps to close them right away, without holding them first, and you can also close them all at once by tapping on a single icon. It's easier on other iPhones as well -- double click the Home button, then just swipe up to close apps, no extra holding needed.

Mashable Light Speed Want more out-of-this world tech, space and science stories? Sign up for Mashable's weekly Light Speed newsletter. By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Thanks for signing up!

I've got good news, though. As noticed by tech video producer Dom Esposito, in iOS 12, that superfluous long hold of the app before you can close it won't be necessary on the iPhone X anymore.

Tweet may have been deleted

Unfortunately, there still doesn't seem to be a way to close all your apps at once; I guess that particular Android feature will be introduced in iOS 13.

Now, if only Apple would fix that accidental screenshot issue in iPhone X. Oh wait, it is!

---

Featured Video For You

---

Everything you need to know about Apple's iOS 12

---