Recent apps reside in memory but aren't taking up processing cycles or resources, thus aren't really using battery.iOS might seem like it is multitasking, but it isn't, at least for third party apps. It looks like it is because of the 'resume' feature of apps that allow them to hold a freeze state and resume right where they left off.
Rest assured, most apps actually close as soon as you hit home.
There are a few exceptions to this, namely first party apps, such as mail and music player, clocks, and so on (and of course notification centre). And a FEW apps can continue to be open if they use a handful of prescribed apis, such as voice recording (for example skype for calls), mapping Apis (for turn by turn) music playing etc. Some apps are allowed to remain open for up to 10 minutes if assigned a task duh as downloading a file.
Other than that apps are close when you hit the home button. The multitasking tray is nothing more than a glorified 'recently opened apps' list.
I've heard a few people say that the apps don't keep running, but that doesn't explain why they can sometimes chew through the battery. Shortly after getting my first iPhone (4S), before I learned to close apps I eventually ended up with so many running that the battery was still being drained even with the charger connected! (I was also tethering at the time). That was when I learned how to close them, and after doing so the battery began to recharge.
Behodar: I've heard a few people say that the apps don't keep running, but that doesn't explain why they can sometimes chew through the battery. Shortly after getting my first iPhone (4S), before I learned to close apps I eventually ended up with so many running that the battery was still being drained even with the charger connected! (I was also tethering at the time). That was when I learned how to close them, and after doing so the battery began to recharge.
This would be my experience as well. And watching the console when tethered to Xcode, you can actually see that hitting home does not result in any apps closing. However, opening the task tray, tapping and holding, and hitting close results in iOS executing "kill -9" on the process (any *nix folks here would recognise that!)
I would say that "hitting home almost always closes the app" is a huge oversimplification of what's more likely to be a convoluted array of rules.
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