When using an application on iPhone and you want to exit, does pressing the home button actually fully exit the program or is it still running in the background?

I believe you have to hold down Home for several seconds to close an app.
Although I can’t imagine that all those apps you start are always “running”. My guess would be they are just in some suspended state. With the exception of some like the clock and the iPod. Which keeps ticking and playing music.

Applications completely quit when you press the home button. Their current state (what they are doing) is written to the flash memory so that it can be reloaded when the application starts again. This process is known as suspending, but the application is completely unloaded from the system memory and processor queue, so it won’t be slowing down the phone or other processes.

The limited resources on the iPhone mean that only daemons (background tasks, like the time, alarms and reminders, SMSs or push; which gets your email and other updates) stay running 24/7. These daemons then report back to the general applications such as “Clock” or “Mail” when they launch, to tell them what’s new.

Holding down the home button force quits an application (kills it without giving it any warning) and should only be used if the app stops responding.

Actually, that is incorrect. Hitting the home button once simply places the application in the background. Try this…hit the home button once. Now hit it twice. You’ll see the application down there. To exit a program you double click on home, find the program, click and hold. When the red circle with the line appears lift your finger up and tap the app to close.

yeah ,what knastera said was right ..!!! thats the proper way to quit applications on iphone. just hitting home button once wont close the application it only minimise the application…do double click the home button ..it will let you know what all applications are running behind….click and hold on each application until you see a red circle with a line appears…just tap it to close the application….

:) TRY IT !!