Are you one of those unitask fans? Is your iPhone 3G too slow with multitask? Disable Multitasking by following these simple steps, no need to jailbreak again…
SSH to the following dir “/System/Library/CoreServices/SpringBoard.app” search for the following file “N82AP.plist” and the open it with notepad and search for “multitasking” and change the <multitasking> value from <true/> to <false/>. Restart iPhone and you’re done.
Thanks to Pony-Ony for the trick!
Disable multitasking in a non-jailbreaked iPhone (update)
Stephan suggests you can also disable multitasking on a non-jailbreaked iPhone by installing Total Commander (30 days free trial, Windows only). Then download and install the T-PoT plugin (free, open source) to navigate through your Apple device and find the “N82AP.plist” file at “private/var/mobile/n82ap“. Open the file and change the multitasking value from <true/> to <false/>. Save the file and restart your iPhone.
To learn how you can jailbreak your iPhone step-by-step have a look at these ebooks on Jailbreaking your iPhone from scratch.
About the author
Published on June 23, 2010 by Xavi Esteve, a UX Designer and a Front-End Developer with more than 10 years of experience. I am currently working for Fitbug as a Front-end Developer in London UK and enjoy contributing to the Open Source community, sharing interesting links in Twitter and blogging about related topics.
Comments (35)
wow mate thats an excellent trick! thanks for finding out. my iphone was consuming the iphone life in a couple hours and now its working great again :)
July 1st, 2010 at 00:40i tried and it wont work cause you need to jailbreak the phone in order to have read write access is this supposed to work on all iphones?
July 1st, 2010 at 09:19Hi Tony,
July 1st, 2010 at 09:51You are right. Unless you have an iPhone 3G or iPod Touch 2G you will need to have your device jailbreaked since Apple doesn’t give you the option to disable it which I guess they’ll do in the next update because a lot of people are complaining about it.
How do you suppose we ssh without jailbreaking?
July 12th, 2010 at 03:48this tip is basically worthless because it doesn’t disable multitasking, it only disables your ability to control multitasking/ipod controls/lock in portrait
July 16th, 2010 at 19:00if u open up an application like pandora, when u exit the app, you can still hear the music playing and the battery still drains except even faster because u cant close any apps. i would not advise doing this
for me this works fine! the battery lasts longer
July 17th, 2010 at 11:26How do we access “/System/Library/CoreServices/SpringBoard.app” without SSH? I tried using DiskAid but I can’t seem to find the file.
Please e-mail me back!!!
July 19th, 2010 at 21:23i used FunBox to SSH.
July 26th, 2010 at 19:55easy app , windows interface, easy to use
I did it use in ifile from cydia and my iPhone works fine now. So it do work.
July 27th, 2010 at 06:06[...] Read this post in English [...]
July 29th, 2010 at 15:08Here is a video tutorial.
July 29th, 2010 at 17:13jailbreak it
August 2nd, 2010 at 19:55go to cydia/seach/ifile/install it
go into ifile system/library/CoreServices/SpringBoard.app and search N88AP.plist enter and find for multitusking edit true for false
thanks everyone
Exactly how is this “no jailbreaking needed”? You are asking people to download a file from Cydia
August 6th, 2010 at 18:06@Michael,
Because most other methods I’ve seen require redsn0w to re=jailbreak the phone (and flash the firmware) with multitasking disabled.
Or to put it another way, for those with jailbroken phones, this disables the multitasking without having to jailbreak it *again*
August 11th, 2010 at 17:34Hello
I have a problem with this. I changed value of multitasking from true to false and saved changes in notepad file.. but nothing have changed.. there is still true value for multitasking. What i’m doing wrong? I’m doing this using funbox.
thx
August 15th, 2010 at 10:17Just disabled multi tasking on iPhone 4 running OS4.0.1. Works like a charm and truly does disable multi tasking. Tested by running games etc and none went into freeze states. Also monitored memory usage before and after. All remain the same. Phone running way smoother now.
August 22nd, 2010 at 01:13zToggle is a new app you can find in Cydia, you will be able to toggle the Wallpaper features & Multitasking On/Off with just a simple click, no need to SSH and change values in files now just toggle the button on and you will be multitasking, you tired of multitasking click again and multitasking deactivated, i hope this will be helpful for all you guys.
Pony-Ony
August 24th, 2010 at 10:05I haven’t checked out zToggle, but it sounds like a handy tool.I discovered that using iFile from within the iphone you can change the values around and it works once you restart the iphone; whether this trick actually disables multitasking – i cant say for sure..
September 12th, 2010 at 23:25zToggle is great 3G moving like b4 love it n use it !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
September 16th, 2010 at 18:00i used multiflow and it seemed to have disabled the native iOS4 multitasking automatically
October 12th, 2010 at 20:55Disable multitasking “withoutjailbreaking—-read properly buggars—AGAIN!”
the article is correctly written but not much other options are here to try out if the first one is not working.
why disable multitasking anyway? it doesn’t really drain your battery… its the apps that are running that drains it. so try to check for apps that uses 3g regularly and automatically updates/refreshes
October 27th, 2010 at 16:42[...] nic nie aktywowałem napewno… chociaz jak klikne 2x home to sie pojawia drugi dock właśnie. Disable multitasking in iOS4, no jailbreaking needed – Xavi Esteve tak moge to zrobić ? Cytuj + Odpowiedz na ten temat [...]
November 25th, 2010 at 09:52[...] to a question or problem they have or to show them how to accomplish something, an example would be Disabling multitasking in an iPhone. A different approach to a helpful article is to provide people with a tool or information that [...]
April 15th, 2011 at 17:16i have iFunBox and an iphone 3g with iphone 4 which i was going to downgrade (behind the times i know, i was out of hte country for a while) and came across this – but it seems i can’t overwrite the “true” it never gives me an error when I save, but doesnt make the change either – any help?
May 14th, 2011 at 09:09you can do this without jailbreakin by downloadin and installing total commander and the installin the plug in tpot and usin tpot to access “N82AP.plist”
June 19th, 2011 at 20:59using total commander go to dir private/var/mobile/n82ap
June 19th, 2011 at 21:07Thanks Stephan, I’ll add it to the post
June 20th, 2011 at 08:54Guys thanks for the helpful posts. I wanted to disabling multitasking, on a non-jailbreaked phone, and have followed the total commander instructions above.
However on accessing the iphone (a 3GS bought recently) I don’t see the same file directory: there is no “private” folder (for your “private/var/mobile location), but only ApplicationArchives, Books, DCIM etc. folders
Understad that this directory is consistent with a non-jailbroken phone. Any idea if your trick still works with such a phone, or if there is another way to do it?
Thanks
June 25th, 2011 at 12:54Also re my post above, have tried SSH but find a requirement for a password when I navigate to the directory?
June 25th, 2011 at 13:16ipod music keeps on playing even after pressing home button on iphone 3GS after this tweaks. didn’t work?
July 8th, 2011 at 05:36Please I didn’t find the springboard.app and please where is ssh…email me
September 3rd, 2011 at 03:29zToggle works like a charm
September 13th, 2011 at 23:08hi i got ripped off brought an iphone 4 off ebay and paid a bit for it now it is comin up as iphone disabled thinkin i got a stolen phone just wondering is there any chance i can jailbreak it as i cant even get in to it only turn it on and it comes straight up with iphone disabled connect to itunes?? please help
December 15th, 2011 at 13:22hi lorrie, you need to do a hard reset. follow these steps:
1) Press-hold the Home button (big circle below the screen) and the Sleep/Wake button (on top of the iPhone) simultaneously.
2) Continue holding both buttons (Ignore the “Slide to power off”) until the iPhone shuts off and begins to restart.
3) You may let go when you see the silver Apple logo.
4) You have completed a hard reset successfully.
5) Don’t be alarmed that it takes quite a while to load from the Apple logo to the main screen. This is normal.
This should clean your iPhone completely. You can plug it into iTunes and reinstall the iPhone operative system.
If this doesn’t work then you may have bought a stolen iPhone and your IMEI (phone serial number) is blocked, there are also solutions for that, search ‘iphone unlock imei’ in Google, you can do it for free and it may take a few hours.
December 15th, 2011 at 14:09I disabled multitasking that way but when then all my apps were transparent and now i cant use them :0
August 23rd, 2012 at 18:14Help?