Apple made it easier than ever to access your highly used contacts by providing a list of your favorite and most recently used contacts. These two lists are conveniently available in the iOS app switcher — just double tap the home button on your iPhone or iPad and you will see them at the top of your open applications. This positioning makes it quick and easy to send a message or make a phone call to these preferred address book entries.
Though convenient, not everyone wants these contacts visible every time they need to switch between their open applications. What can you do if you want to remove these items from the switcher page? Thankfully in iOS 8, Apple added the option to turn off this feature (or turn it on if it has been disabled) and made it available in the default settings app.
- Open the Settings app on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch.
- Scroll if necessary and select “Mail, Contacts, Calendars” in the settings app.
- Find the Contacts section in the “Mail, Contacts, Calendars” where you will see “Show In App Switcher.”
- Use the toggle to turn on or off the options for your Favorites and Recent contact list.
In this setting, you can choose to enable to disable either the Favorites, the Recent Contacts or both as needed. Personally, I do not use this feature at all and prefer my iOS task switcher to contain only applications.
