"Ok so here is what happens. I'm an iOS developer and have been using this since I was told about it at WWDC for quite a while.  What happens is that it kills all the applications running the background. Clears your memory which may be a bit fragmented. No real magic here. Any perceived "sluggishness" that you had with the home button was just apps hogging CPU time when they are being asked to shutdown or suspend when you hit the home button. Of coursing killing all the background apps in memory may make your CPU feel faster for a minute but it's only temporary. These "OMG, you saved my iPad 2!" posts crack me up a little." - Zac Bowling