Database Info

What programs should I uncheck in my Taskkiller?

Some stuff still pops up everytime I clear my running apps, so I was wondering what is recommended to check off first.

Main thing are widgets or apps you require on all the time.
Sent from my M860 using Tapatalk

You shouldn't use such app like this, let the android do the killing stuff him self.. try to google about taskiller on android to make it clearer for you..

double_ofour said:
You shouldn't use such app like this, let the android do the killing stuff him self.. try to google about taskiller on android to make it clearer for you..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Some lower end phones require a task killer to even make the phone bearable. I noticed my old Android phone needed to kill apps or it would start lagging really bad but when I killed tasks, it ran smooth. Keep this in mind, OP might not have a high end phone.

dEris said:
Some lower end phones require a task killer to even make the phone bearable. I noticed my old Android phone needed to kill apps or it would start lagging really bad but when I killed tasks, it ran smooth. Keep this in mind, OP might not have a high end phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You will notice a speed up for a while but in a long run the system will not go stable enough..

I'm using a Galaxy S. I just like to kill off programs. Am I not supposed to? I mean, there can be a LOT of programs running.

Question about multitasking

I have a question about Wp7 lack of multitasking. Do you mean its not possible for example to listen to internet radio using a third party app and browse the xda forums at the same time, for example?
Thanks for the clarification.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

i havent heard much about the multitasking.... sorry

That's right. The only thing that runs in the background that i'm aware of is the Zune music player (which has a radio if you want). I haven't found anything else.

sammy_user said:
I have a question about Wp7 lack of multitasking. Do you mean its not possible for example to listen to internet radio using a third party app and browse the xda forums at the same time, for example?
Thanks for the clarification.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Correct. Neither can you use it for GPS navigation while surfing the web or speaking on the phone. Your milage may vary as to how much it affects you though.

Well you can do things while calling so at least this is good.

Yes, multitasking is very limited to wp7. I am sure they might add a few features to it so that we don't feel completely controlled.

also the other noticeable thing is the web browser being able to multi task. for example, you can download a large file, and go off and do something else, and it will keep downloading.

For crying out loud! Please stop calling background scheduling for multitasking! Multitasking is, always has been, and always will be, the ability to do more than one thing. WP7 can multitask just fine, and so can apps. Period. They can.
What you're asking about is something completely different, and you're even contradicting yourself. As some of the native apps, and some made by OEMs, can run in the background, there's no doubt about the OS supporting background scheduling. It's there.
What's actually happening is that MS is protecting us from lousy programmers by not letting most programs run in the background. There's mostly no use for it anyway, unless you want some lousy piece of s.... software eating up your battery, devouring your data plan.
Hell, if you want to, I'll be glad to write a program that will fill up the file storage, using battery like crazy and even using way more data than you can afford. Only down side is that it won't run in the background to f.... up the performance of your other apps.

emigrating said:
Correct. Neither can you use it for GPS navigation while surfing the web or speaking on the phone. Your milage may vary as to how much it affects you though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Huh? Am I missing something? Why would you need to use the GPS while you are surfing the web?
From my experience it goes like this: surfing the web->home button->maps[back to home][back to explorer]...and just like that you are back to exactly back to where you were having done MULTIple TASKs at once ; )

tiwas said:
For crying out loud! Please stop calling background scheduling for multitasking! Multitasking is, always has been, and always will be, the ability to do more than one thing. WP7 can multitask just fine, and so can apps. Period. They can.
What you're asking about is something completely different, and you're even contradicting yourself. As some of the native apps, and some made by OEMs, can run in the background, there's no doubt about the OS supporting background scheduling. It's there.
What's actually happening is that MS is protecting us from lousy programmers by not letting most programs run in the background. There's mostly no use for it anyway, unless you want some lousy piece of s.... software eating up your battery, devouring your data plan.
Hell, if you want to, I'll be glad to write a program that will fill up the file storage, using battery like crazy and even using way more data than you can afford. Only down side is that it won't run in the background to f.... up the performance of your other apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Show me one app that can multitask please?! and by app I mean any third-party or OEM addon to the core OS.
Sure, on WM and Android there is/was a mantra that everything should run in the background - always. But that's not to say that multitasking is evil, it's not. It just needs to be controlled.
Microsoft could quite easily have allowed third-party apps to multitask (or at least register a small service running in the background) if your app needed it - they have "technical exceptions" when submitting to the marketplace, this would be a great opportunity for you to describe why your app needed real multitasking and it would be up to the testers to [dis]agree.
premiumdude said:
Huh? Am I missing something? Why would you need to use the GPS while you are surfing the web?
From my experience it goes like this: surfing the web->home button->maps[back to home][back to explorer]...and just like that you are back to exactly back to where you were having done MULTIple TASKs at once ; )
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That was just an example, although it's something that's bugged me more than once. But okay, I'll agree it isn't the most common scenario. How about this instead, you're driving along using Navigon and you want to change your tunes, so you press home, then zune, find an artist/album and press play, go back home and then back to the satnav app only to discover you've missed a turn because it didn't tell you you needed to turn off the turnpike at the last exit. Now you're stuck driving another xx miles to get back to where you need to be.
If you don't drive, perhaps you map your morning runs using a GPS tracker. So you're on your way and the phone rings. Since you've got a headset you continue running while talking only to have your entire statistics screwed up because the phone stopped tracking you while on the phone.
Or even better, you're using some third-party app to sync your Hotmail or Exchange tasks to your phone. Problem is, the app cannot multitask so it will never notify you of [over]due tasks unless you constantly keep the app open...
While I definitely agree you don't need your RSS reader or Angry Birds clone running in the background, all the time, there are scenarios where real multitasking is important.

emigrating said:
That was just an example, although it's something that's bugged me more than once. But okay, I'll agree it isn't the most common scenario. How about this instead, you're driving along using Navigon and you want to change your tunes, so you press home, then zune, find an artist/album and press play, go back home and then back to the satnav app only to discover you've missed a turn because it didn't tell you you needed to turn off the turnpike at the last exit. Now you're stuck driving another xx miles to get back to where you need to be.
If you don't drive, perhaps you map your morning runs using a GPS tracker. So you're on your way and the phone rings. Since you've got a headset you continue running while talking only to have your entire statistics screwed up because the phone stopped tracking you while on the phone.
Or even better, you're using some third-party app to sync your Hotmail or Exchange tasks to your phone. Problem is, the app cannot multitask so it will never notify you of [over]due tasks unless you constantly keep the app open...
While I definitely agree you don't need your RSS reader or Angry Birds clone running in the background, all the time, there are scenarios where real multitasking is important.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wholeheartedly agree. Excellent examples. Was able to put myself in those scenarios and see how important deep multitasking is. Thank you for helping me see that.

tiwas said:
For crying out loud! Please stop calling background scheduling for multitasking! Multitasking is, always has been, and always will be, the ability to do more than one thing. WP7 can multitask just fine, and so can apps. Period. They can.
What you're asking about is something completely different, and you're even contradicting yourself. As some of the native apps, and some made by OEMs, can run in the background, there's no doubt about the OS supporting background scheduling. It's there.
What's actually happening is that MS is protecting us from lousy programmers by not letting most programs run in the background. There's mostly no use for it anyway, unless you want some lousy piece of s.... software eating up your battery, devouring your data plan.
Hell, if you want to, I'll be glad to write a program that will fill up the file storage, using battery like crazy and even using way more data than you can afford. Only down side is that it won't run in the background to f.... up the performance of your other apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
it cannot multi-task anything besides Zune, therefore, I guess technically you could say that it can multi-task like .1% of all the apps available.

MartyLK said:
Wholeheartedly agree. Excellent examples. Was able to put myself in those scenarios and see how important deep multitasking is. Thank you for helping me see that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
lol,
I think it's as simple as like with Android I can have google maps open and have turn-by-turn open in the background, so the british lady still gives me audio directions while I play Angry Birds or surf the web (as a passenger in a car) like going to a party or something.
Also let's say I'm at the gym and want to use Pandora (which WP7 doesn't even have or I sure as hell can't find it in the app store) in the background while im texting/emailing between bench sets, just simple **** like that I wish WP7 could do.
It's not life or death but it is the reason I use Android more than WP7 on my HD2, although I do like WP7 more at times as well, but it sure as hell can't multi-task for any practical purpose.

orangekid said:
lol,
I think it's as simple as like with Android I can have google maps open and have turn-by-turn open in the background, so the british lady still gives me audio directions while I play Angry Birds or surf the web (as a passenger in a car) like going to a party or something.
Also let's say I'm at the gym and want to use Pandora (which WP7 doesn't even have or I sure as hell can't find it in the app store) in the background while im texting/emailing between bench sets, just simple **** like that I wish WP7 could do.
It's not life or death but it is the reason I use Android more than WP7 on my HD2, although I do like WP7 more at times as well, but it sure as hell can't multi-task for any practical purpose.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I hear ya there. I keep the sim card in my HD2...running Android...for purposes of using TbT voice nav and other things WP7 doesn't give me.

MartyLK said:
I hear ya there. I keep the sim card in my HD2...running Android...for purposes of using TbT voice nav and other things WP7 doesn't give me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
exactly.
I'm glad I've got dual-boot rocking on my HD2, as much as I do like WP7, I don't think I could use it as a daily without being able to restart the phone and load up android whenever I want to, maybe when the OS is more matured and actually CAN multi-task and offer more of the apps I like.

Somebody needs to just make something like the jailbroken iphone app backgrounder that lets you choose what multitasks. It worked fine back before apple had "fast app switching"

Anthonok said:
Somebody needs to just make something like the jailbroken iphone app backgrounder that lets you choose what multitasks. It worked fine back before apple had "fast app switching"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
that's true. I used backgrounder + Proswitcher forever before iOS4 came out and it worked great, smooth, and had awesome palm pre-like task switching, and you could background any app, it really didn't hurt battery life much at all. I would love to see this on WP7 if it could be implemented till MS gets their act together.
kinda like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMAVyaNQdnw

orangekid said:
that's true. I used backgrounder + Proswitcher forever before iOS4 came out and it worked great, smooth, and had awesome palm pre-like task switching, and you could background any app, it really didn't hurt battery life much at all. I would love to see this on WP7 if it could be implemented till MS gets their act together.
kinda like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMAVyaNQdnw
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep it was great. I coudlnt live without it. Also this way only people with unlocked phones (thus meaning they more than likely have knowledge of how things work) will be using this and shouldnt complain if there device gets slow or anything. They would know the consequences.

Anthonok said:
Yep it was great. I coudlnt live without it. Also this way only people with unlocked phones (thus meaning they more than likely have knowledge of how things work) will be using this and shouldnt complain if there device gets slow or anything. They would know the consequences.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well if the 3GS can handle it so well on a 600mhz processor and 256mb ram, I'm sure a WP7 device with 1ghz and 576mb ram could handle it just fine with no slow-downs.

tiwas said:
For crying out loud! Please stop calling background scheduling for multitasking! Multitasking is, always has been, and always will be, the ability to do more than one thing. WP7 can multitask just fine, and so can apps. Period. They can.
What you're asking about is something completely different, and you're even contradicting yourself. As some of the native apps, and some made by OEMs, can run in the background, there's no doubt about the OS supporting background scheduling. It's there.
What's actually happening is that MS is protecting us from lousy programmers by not letting most programs run in the background. There's mostly no use for it anyway, unless you want some lousy piece of s.... software eating up your battery, devouring your data plan.
Hell, if you want to, I'll be glad to write a program that will fill up the file storage, using battery like crazy and even using way more data than you can afford. Only down side is that it won't run in the background to f.... up the performance of your other apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've seen your post history and, no offense, but you're starting to remind me of the fanboys at MacRumors, thinking that their phones are perfect until Apple changes one thing. Then suddenly it is revolutionary and intuitive.
Multitasking would greatly benefit WP7. Live with it. Apps don't even run under lock properly. But I'd like to be able to run a music app and surf at the same time. Want a gimped experience? Fine with me. Just don't go whining when people want to make the most out of their experience with their phones.

2 apps that I think is a must for any/all android devices

<gibberish>
Title says it all.
Yes, the gtab runs pretty darn well on a tegra duo core processor and 512 meg of memory. That said, since this device does well in multitask, nothing ever gets shut off when you press the home screen button.
Say you're watching youtube videos and then decide to play some games. So, you press the home button to "exit" out of youtube and then play your games. You then surf the net a bit, open up quickoffice to read some documents, etc.
Here's the thing. Everytime you press the home button, you're not shutting down the app. You're just going to your home screen. The apps are still running in the background. The more apps are running, the more resources your gtab will have to divert to those apps. I've been testing it, and the lag is definitely noticable after a while. All these apps that are piling up on top of one another will slow you gtab down considerably.
The two apps that I say are a must for every android device are the startup auditor and advance task killer. Use startup auditor to have control over what starts up. Your device will start up a lot faster. Use advance task killer to kill apps after you've used it. After all, what's the point of letting it run in the background when you're not using it? It's just wasting battery and processing resources.
</gibberish>

ATK is bad news. The Android OS DOES NOT need this invasive software. You'll have a lot more problems with it than without it. There are many, many developer-written articles which prove this. You really outta take that off any device you have it on.
Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL using Tapatalk

deep_powder2012 said:
ATK is bad news. The Android OS DOES NOT need this invasive software. You'll have a lot more problems with it than without it. There are many, many developer-written articles which prove this. You really outta take that off any device you have it on.
Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
After reading a few pages on this, I'm convinced. I'll edit the OP.

goodintentions said:
<gibberish>
Title says it all.
Yes, the gtab runs pretty darn well on a tegra duo core processor and 512 meg of memory. That said, since this device does well in multitask, nothing ever gets shut off when you press the home screen button.
Say you're watching youtube videos and then decide to play some games. So, you press the home button to "exit" out of youtube and then play your games. You then surf the net a bit, open up quickoffice to read some documents, etc.
Here's the thing. Everytime you press the home button, you're not shutting down the app. You're just going to your home screen. The apps are still running in the background. The more apps are running, the more resources your gtab will have to divert to those apps. I've been testing it, and the lag is definitely noticable after a while. All these apps that are piling up on top of one another will slow you gtab down considerably.
The two apps that I say are a must for every android device are the startup auditor and advance task killer. Use startup auditor to have control over what starts up. Your device will start up a lot faster. Use advance task killer to kill apps after you've used it. After all, what's the point of letting it run in the background when you're not using it? It's just wasting battery and processing resources.
</gibberish>
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I get the point you are trying to make, even if the software you have recommended is not the best. I use aCCleaner to clear my cache and SuperBox (10 programs in 1) to free the memory it comes with quite a few other utilities. Installer/uninstaller, App2SD, cache, taskkiller which I seldom need or use, settings, file manager and safeguard which tells you the risk level of the programs or services running on G Tab. Efficiency is everything.

You know, in theory all these articles have grounding but I can say IMHO "every android device I have owned runs more responsive when I kill using a task manager. "
I can feel the difference in speed when I use my photo editing software and then jump online for some image searching. Taskillers may not be perfect, and I especially don't advocate using the constantly running autokill features, I have found greater responsiveness from my devices when using multiple high end softwares consecutively. Like I said JMHO.
Sent from my Chromatic Magic using XDA Premium App

Multitasking is a joke on the One X!

What in the world did HTC do to Android ICS mulitasking!? Apps seem to be completely removed from cache every single time they're closed for ~30 seconds. They also no longer re-open in the same state that you left them! If I leave the browser, it needs to reload the web page. If I leave a game, I need to start from the beginning. If I pause and exit Slacker radio for a minute, the app closes and I can't even resume my music with the headphones button! I need to re-open the app and start playing all over again.
With my old Galaxy Nexus I never had ANY of these issues and multitasking was clearly the best of any smartphone on the market. HTC has completely crippled this device and it's becoming more and more frustrating (push email notifications & sms notifications are a whole other mess). It seems HTC has created Sense to focus more on preserving battery than focusing on creating a good user experience. The first few days with the phone were great but as more and more of these "instances" pop up, this phone is beginning to seem less and less powerful and intuitive.

NextNexus said:
What in the world did HTC do to Android ICS mulitasking!? Apps seem to be completely removed from cache every single time they're closed for ~30 seconds. They also no longer re-open in the same state that you left them! If I leave the browser, it needs to reload the web page. If I leave a game, I need to start from the beginning. If I pause and exit Slacker radio for a minute, the app closes and I can't even resume my music with the headphones button! I need to re-open the app and start playing all over again.
With my old Galaxy Nexus I never had ANY of these issues and multitasking was clearly the best of any smartphone on the market. HTC has completely crippled this device and it's becoming more and more frustrating (push email notifications & sms notifications are a whole other mess). It seems HTC has created Sense to focus more on preserving battery than focusing on creating a good user experience. The first few days with the phone were great but as more and more of these "instances" pop up, this phone is beginning to seem less and less powerful and intuitive.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree, they're using very aggressive memory management.
Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2

mobilehavoc said:
I agree, they're using very aggressive memory management.
Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So much so that multitasking seemed significantly more advanced on my iPhone 4S. This is supposed to be Android's strong suit!

Ya its not even like saved state. Its just a new icon for your previously opened apps.
This is one area where I wish I still had my gnex. HOwever everything else is better on this phone.

With root available, you can probably tweak this a bit with the likes of auto killer, or a similar min free tweaking app.

Music works fine, hell it even remember my last song and position played after a reboot, using htc music.

I made two videos of the problem:
If I just tried to copy and paste these links and make this post on my one x it would have never worked, would have kept reloading the page and forget everything I typed. Lol.

demarton said:
Music works fine, hell it even remember my last song and position played after a reboot, using htc music.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
HTC Music is an HTC developed app so it's possible they tweaked their own app to work well. I listen to most of my music online and prefer Slacker radio which has been nothing short of a disaster with this device b/c of the multitasking issues.

demarton said:
Music works fine, hell it even remember my last song and position played after a reboot, using htc music.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does streaming google music play(app) work in the background ( while using navigation or a browser ) ?

With auto killer, i just tested, and i can keep 3 apps running in the memory. Try it out.
edit* scratch that, i tryed after a few minutes of inactivity, reloads.

I believe the reason they are using such aggressive memory management is because on the One X International Version Sense would constantly crash and you would see the "loading" screen.
Frankly I dont know which is more annoying...

dharani1234 said:
Does the music play in the background ( while using navigation or a browser ) ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Music works in the background for me while it's playing (even Slacker). But if I pause the music for a minute to go do something, it's impossible for me to begin playing from where I left off and I have to re-open the app and start playing a song from the beginning. It's very annoying.

spyz88 said:
I believe the reason they are using such aggressive memory management is because on the One X International Version Sense would constantly crash and you would see the "loading" screen.
Frankly I dont know which is more annoying...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh it still does that also, but it isn't a crash, it happens when you go back to the home screen, you just see "loading"
I am just hoping the phone is still fast and has good battery life once/if this is fixed.

wrxdrunkie said:
I made two videos of the problem:
If I just tried to copy and paste these links and make this post on my one x it would have never worked, would have kept reloading the page and forget everything I typed. Lol.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for portraying what I mean...but your issue is even WORSE than mine. If I switch back to an app THAT quickly it won't reload like that. For me, it has to be around 30 seconds.

Lets hope we get root soon. I'm sure some custom roms will cure this issue
Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2

Bigjim1488 said:
Lets hope we get root soon. I'm sure some custom roms will cure this issue
Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Root is already possible since yesterday. Custom ROM is not possible until we get bootloader unlocked.

i'm guessing that's why my simiclock doesn't update after i don't touch my phone for a long period of time (overnight)

In the developer settings, there is an option to set the limit of background processes. The default is set to "standard limit." Does anyone know what this limit is, or if changing it to 4 processes might actually help?
Edit: just tried and it clearly does not help.
Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2

Try going to settings developer opinions and look under apps and make sure those settings are to your liking. It has a setting for turning off apps right away and how many apps can run in the background.
Edit: I keep on going in and out of apps trying this but unless I'm out for like 5 min its not making me start over Pandora. Try clicking and unclicking apps close right away.
Sent from my HTC One X using xda premium

The issue definitely needs addressing, and I'm sure it's not a "what was HTC thinking" situation so much as a bug that they'll fix.
I've noticed the issue myself, but it hasn't annoyed me to the point of complaining. Maybe it's better on my phone. It'll almost certainly depend on what background services you have running. By that, I mean GMail, Email, Twitter/Facebook updates, playing music. Also, some apps seem to handle multitasking pretty well. NFS Hot Pursuit was obviously coded to accommodate Android multitasking, as I can quit it, check my email/twitter, maybe browse a website, and when I go back to NFS, it's on the pause screen and I can pick up the race where I left off.
Different processes receive different priorities as far as Android memory management go. If you're playing music (in HTC Music, Play Music, PowerAmp, etc,) then Android recognizes that this app is actively doing something, even if you consecutively load up every other app on your phone. You can go back to the music app and it won't have to reload anything. That's just an example. Other apps can do this too, as long as the programmers coded it right. I'm guessing NFS Hot Pursuit does this as I've never had a problem with it.
Of course, none of that excuses the poor multitasking, since the gnex seems much better at it. (And I'm assuming you people who have tried both have been running virtually identical apps on each phone.)
I don't know a ton about memory management and multitasking in Android, so I could only speculate as to where the problem really lies. Could be that Sense takes up too much memory (surprise surprise!), could be that HTC made the memory management too agressive, could be weird other things that I don't even know about, such as some sort of time-out for background apps.
I'm going to do some playing around and let you know if I can find any ways to improve it easily.

How bad is multitasking issue?

Hello,
I'm considering purchasing One X but after reading so many posts about multitasking issues I have serious doubts. I can not really check this since it takes time to see the issue but how if I don't use Sense (use alternative launcher like GoLauncher, will I still have this issue or Sense is bigger then just laucher itself.

artisticcheese said:
Hello,
I'm considering purchasing One X but after reading so many posts about multitasking issues I have serious doubts. I can not really check this since it takes time to see the issue but how if I don't use Sense (use alternative launcher like GoLauncher, will I still have this issue or Sense is bigger then just laucher itself.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sense is bigger than the launcher. Sense affects a lot of the core phone's features can can't be removed with just a launcher. In this particular case, Sense affects memory management, as well as the actual multitasking app itself.
Let's put it this way. If you're playing a game like say... Radiant Defense (awesome game, btw) that takes a while to complete a level and you get a text message... switching to the messaging app will actually cause the game to close. Now you can use the "multitasking" app to go back to the game, but the game will reload. It will not leave off where you left it.
If that sounds like something that would bother you a lot... I'd avoid the phone. HTC has even said that this is a core Sense 4 FEATURE, not a defect. So they won't be fixing it.

Personally don't think this really warrants a new thread, you probably should have just asked in the ongoing discussion on this.
Haven't tried an alternate launcher yet, so I can't comment on that. But as to the basic question of "how bad" the issue is, I think it depends greatly on how you use your phone, and what you expect from it. Obviously, HTC expects most people to be okay with it, or they wouldn't have tweaked it this way. Only had the phone for a few days, but so far the memory management doesn't seem much different from how the HTC Flyer does it, and I've been fine with that (having owned it since June 2011).

Like posted above, Sense is more than just a launcher. The multi-task changes are likely deep in the kernel.
To me, it is not a big deal. I don't like anything running in the background anyway. And for that matter, the number 1 app in the past a typical Android user uses is Auto Task killer which serves the exact same purpose as the new Sense 4.0. I suspect a lot of those Auto Tasker kill users now also the ones who complain about HTC's feature.
Either way, the biggest problem is with Android itself. There isn't any uniform way to inform OS that an app requires to remain running in background (unless you created a service) can be kept that way. And there is no way for an app that doesn't do anything in the background to be suspended without using any system resources. For later, both iOS and WP7 have much better implementation.
For many years now, I use Google Listen as my podcast player everyday. It works in most times while in the background but a lot of occasions, this app will be closed by OS while I'm listening to the podcast. This behavior is the same on couple different Android phones (samsung and now HTC One X). So, if google's own app can't even stay alive in background in various Android phones, it speaks volume that multi-tasking is a over-hyped feature. What HTC did is not necessary bad to everyone. For example, my Samsung phones (SGS, SGS2 and GTab 10.1) doesn't auto kill bakcground tasks (still kills my GListen) but they all lags badly from time to time.
For what it worth, I can use Google Listen in the background while running Google Nav app in the fore ground for a few hours without problem (other than occasionally Listen get closed for no reason).

I have had mine for 2 weeks and only knew about a "problem" from reading these threads.
In all in how you use it. First reply answered it best

ricktat said:
I have had mine for 2 weeks and only knew about a "problem" from reading these threads.
In all in how you use it. First reply answered it best
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Agreed. The only app I use for streaming in the background is subsonic, which functions just fine.
Also I have the very very slight annoyance that games have to completely reload if you exit them and don't switch back very very quickly. So if I get a phone call and go right back to game it's fine, but if I go web browse or something else and go back the game has to reload. This is mitigated somewhat by the raw speed of the phone, as game loading doesn't take very long (unless the game is a ****ty port like PvZ).

To avoid confusion, lets just keep this conversation with the ongoing one here. Thanks.
Thread closed.