Multitasking dramatically got redesigned with iOS 7. With iOS 8, Multitasking added a shortcut to the people who are most important to you. In this how to, I will discuss customizing the people that appear at the top, using multitasking to contact your important people, as well as disabling it.
By default, the app switcher is designed to display pictures of your contacts in your address book. Chances are most users do not have pictures assigned to their contacts. As you can tell, I am guilty of this.
To add the photos to the persons’ vCard, you have two options. The first option is to find the photo of the person in the Photos app. Then you are going to press the Share button, the one with the blue square and arrow sticking up in the lower left hand corner. Then you are going to press on the word Next in the upper right hand corner in blue. Then you choose Assign to Contact down in the lower right hand corner. This opens up your address book so that way you can assign the photo to the person. There are options to resize and move the image to fit.
The other method to assign a photo to a persons’ vCard is to find them in your Contacts app. Then press on the word Edit in blue in the upper right hand corner. Pressing on the word add photo in the circle next to the contacts name will give you the option to either take a photo of the person, or to choose an already existing photo in the Photo app.
By doing these steps, now your contact has a picture in the Contacts app, as well as having a picture displayed in the app switcher.
There are two different categories of people that are displayed in the app switcher: Recents and Favorites. Recents are the people you have contacted most recently. These people appear first when opening the app switcher and the order will change based on the frequency you contact them. The app switcher always displays the seven most recent people. Favorite people are the contacts you designate as being favorite on your iPhone. To do so, open up the Phone app, and press on Favorites located on the left hand corner. Then pressing the plus button pulls up your contacts, and you can choose who you want to be a favorite.
In the app switcher, swiping from left to right will show you your contacts that are in your favorites.
If you want to contact any of the people that are in the app switcher, tapping on the person’s name reveals options to give them a phone call, text them, use FaceTime or use FaceTime Audio.
To disable having your contacts in the app switcher, open up Settings and scroll down until you see Mail, Contacts and Calendars. Then scroll down until you see Show in App Switcher, which is turned on by default. Tapping on it gives you options. You can either turn off both Phone Favorites and Recents, or just turn off one of them.
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Good stuff here. Didn’t know I could turn off the contacts in App Switcher. I just turned it off thanks to this article. It serves no purpose for me. I love when Apple adds new features with the ability to turn off if we should desire.
It would be easier to just sync your FB contacts to your address book? I never realized how far Apple was behind in the game. First encryption technology, which android has had for 3 years, and now this. I’m getting rid of my Apple products. Just to much of a technology gap anymore. Sorry Apple.
WFT are you talking about, Apple has had hardware encryption since iOS 2 (2008) and was supported for all devices for goodness sake. Android didn’t officially support hardware encryption until 4.0 was released in late 2011 and the first device maker didn’t support it until 2012. Apple has also supported Facebook contact sync since 6.0.
Maybe do some fact checking once and awhile…
Lots of people find FB hideously lacking in security, but not you. The same “you” that dropped that bizarre, utterly-fase non sequitur about iOS encryption. Stop. Just stop.
Please note that the ability to display either Favorites or Recent contacts is an iPhone only feature. iOS 8 on the iPad can only display Recent contacts.
I can’t get the FaceTime audio icon. Everything else is there. I can FaceTime audio through the phone or contact app but I can’t make it appear in the App Switcher. Any idea why? This is what I use most of the time. Thanks.
Nice article, Sarah. Handy info.
On my iPad, “recents” has no resemblance to anyone “recent”! Two faces appear in my “recent”… one of whom I haven’t spoken to (in real life, electronically or by phone) in years! It’s nuts.
Do you have a fix please? Meanwhile thanks for the explanation of how to turn it off :-(
Had this too so odd, must be a bug! I ended up deleting the contact 😕
Love this feature! I hated how drab mine looked without contact pics but I didn’t have the time and to go round and photograph my friends so I downloaded a cute character app and made little avatars of them! There’s a link to the app (because it’s impossible to search for it!!) in my post if anyone’s interested: http://millijane.com/blog/2014/10/ios-8-quick-tip-how-to-customise-your-contacts-with-cute-characters-in-multitasking-view/
Or, Instead of leaving your contacts simple you can also customize the contacts to your preference, change the circular color, font, letters, etc. This is how: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/customize-contacts-for-ios-8/id924463910?ls=1&mt=8
For more info: http://www.magamezinc.com/customizecontacts.html