The problem has nothing to do with theory vs reality, but rather emphasizing the wrong aspects of reality.
1) All the discussion of memory usage isn't terribly relevant. There's some stuttering while iOS kills background apps when the running app requires it, but this is not a huge problem in practice.
2) Battery life is a huge issue (which iOS still handles better than anyone else) for the average user. The article lists five classes of apps in theory and in practice can contribute to significant battery drain, yet seems to believe that's proof that this isn't a problem.
I still agree that it's bad advice from the Apple Store techs. From a technical aesthetic perspective, it would probably be better to just tell people with battery life problems to reboot the phone.
And then fix the problem. This seems to be a regression from iOS4 to iOS5. Perhaps there's a bug that's been introduced in the scheduler, or perhaps there's better logic that can be applied. There's no reason that iOS couldn't detect background processes that are exceeding a threshold of CPU usage.
The principle that users shouldn't have to manage background tasks is correct. However the fact that the technique is, in fact, effective, means that it isn't going away as a tool in the Apple tech toolbox.
1) All the discussion of memory usage isn't terribly relevant. There's some stuttering while iOS kills background apps when the running app requires it, but this is not a huge problem in practice.
2) Battery life is a huge issue (which iOS still handles better than anyone else) for the average user. The article lists five classes of apps in theory and in practice can contribute to significant battery drain, yet seems to believe that's proof that this isn't a problem.
I still agree that it's bad advice from the Apple Store techs. From a technical aesthetic perspective, it would probably be better to just tell people with battery life problems to reboot the phone.
And then fix the problem. This seems to be a regression from iOS4 to iOS5. Perhaps there's a bug that's been introduced in the scheduler, or perhaps there's better logic that can be applied. There's no reason that iOS couldn't detect background processes that are exceeding a threshold of CPU usage.
The principle that users shouldn't have to manage background tasks is correct. However the fact that the technique is, in fact, effective, means that it isn't going away as a tool in the Apple tech toolbox.