The WeChat team said on Saturday they will provide an update for the instant messaging app that will fix issues involving the latest iOS 13.2 update killing background apps and tasks too aggressively.
The team said they have found an solution and is now racing the clock to test it. Once the tests are done, an update will be released as soon as possible.
Frustrating
The move follows reports that background apps seem to be getting killed much more frequently than before after users upgraded their iPhones to the latest iOS 13.2, with one Twitter user saying:
Every single app on my iPhone 7 iOS 13.2 gets killed every time I close. No backgrounding. And each tab on Safari when I move to a new one. So frustrating.
While in China, where WeChat is one of the most frequently used apps in people’s daily life, users were complaining that they always must wait a longer time getting the WeChat interface back after switching it to the background.
They expressed similar frustration according to Chinese media reports:
I just want to order a takeaway and when I switch back to WeChat, my chat window disappeared.
WeChat urges patience
As a wildly popular app used by hundreds of millions of people in China, WeChat took the issue seriously as to issue two responses within the past two days.
On Friday afternoon, the WeChat team sent an notification to some iPhone users reminding them not to upgrade to the latest iOS 13.2. The notification read:
Upgrading to the latest iOS 13.2 may cause Apps (such a WeChat) being killed when you switch to your home screen or lock your screen. You may have to restart the App next time.
We recommend not to upgrade your iOS, but you can also choose to wait for a fix (if you upgraded).
Today, the WeChat team made a response again saying they have received feedback from some users Apps like WeChat will be killed once switched to the background if users were using the latest iOS 13.2.
The team said they were testing the fix and will release it as soon as possible, “please wait for it in patience.”
iOS 13’s buggy experience
Apple’s iOS 13 has had a rocky start since its launch in mid-September, with it being among the most buggy Apple software releases in recent memory.
After the latest iOS 13.2 was pushed to users, numerous cases were reported by MacRumors that the OS is killing apps in the background far too aggressively in what appears to be a memory management issue.
That has resulted in some users losing progress in apps after switching to another that may be more memory intensive, like the camera or iMessage, even for just a few seconds.
It’s not clear if this is a bug in iOS 13 or perhaps something related to the most recent iOS 13.2.
It could also have something to do with how the software operates on older iPhones, but there have been some reports that say the RAM management issues are persisting even on iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro models as well as on the iPad Pro.
That could be due to how memory-intensive the new camera system is, especially on the Pro devices where there are more computational photography elements at play and the extra camera lens.
It’s hard to say what exactly the reason may be, and perhaps Apple will address this issue in a few days. What you have to do is just as what the WeChat team said “wait for it in patience.”
