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i use advance task killer and set it to auto kill every hour...but ive been reading everywhere that people say not to use task killer. whats ur opinion on this?
Don't use them. Kick the habit. Get the monkey off your back. Go cold turkey. Just say no.
It's okay, in my opinion. The key is to use it safely (that means not using an auto kill). I use advanced task killer as well. I have the security set to High, and I have established an ignore list (for applications that need to remain open to provide me updates, like Gmail, Market, Clock - for alarms, Yahoo Messenger, etc). Setting the security to high ensures that processes aren't killed when you kill everything else. I put a widget on the homescreen that kills, when you select it. I kill everything whenever I put my phone down. In my experience, not using a TK gives me too much lag for my taste. I also noticed quicker battery drain without a TK. This is my personal experience and I strongly recommend doing a couple of days both WITH a TK and WITHOUT a TK. Remember, if you do continue using a TK, do so carefully. Review this article for a little more insight. Good luck
I use it and personally have noticed increase battery life. I set it to autokill every hour but i have left security at high and all the applications i need running plus widgets that need to keep updating, market, and alarm i have put on the ignore list. As long as you do this it should be helpful to you.
SiL3nTKiLL said:
i use advance task killer and set it to auto kill every hour...but ive been reading everywhere that people say not to use task killer. whats ur opinion on this?
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Click to collapse
They are so many robot-lovers out there and they will claim Android is the best. They will tell you the OS is so advanced that you don't have to worry about the background processes. Well, don't just believe them. Try a task killer yourself and you'll find out if it's good for you.
For me, a task killer is definitely necessary.
(1) You need a task killer to kill those AT&T crappy processes. Things like AT&T hot spot, AT&T navigator will start automatically every time you start your phone. If you don't root your phone, you need to kill them manually. I've tested it, those stupid, useless processes drain your battery like crazy.
(2) To kill other auto-sync, auto-update apps. A lot of the app use background syncing or updating. If you don't configure them correctly, chances are they will run in the background and drain your battery.
I have used two different Android phones. Without task killer, I would probably have a battery for less than half of a day. With task killer, I can at least last a whole day.
PS, In case you didn't notice, I hate the way Android handles multitasking. I like the idea of letting the OS to handle background processes. But the job it is doing right now is just horrible.
This is my first android phone and i do no use a task killer. i started the first few days using one and then stopped after reading alot of things saying not to. i may try one again and use it only for things i do not want running
Hi guys,
what is the best task manager/killer app for galaxy tab?
Sent from my GT-P1000 using XDA App
None. Why do you need averting more than the samsung provided one? I haven't seen any need to kill apps on the tab.
Sent from my GT-P1000 using XDA App
Task killers are the devil. Don't use them. They haven't been needed since Android 2.0
If you need to kill an app, use the Task Manger that comes with the Tab.
Thanks guys for the advice.
Sent from my GT-P1000 using XDA App
Quick question...because I'm confused and curious as well about Task Killers...why would devs and users alike think Task Killers are so bad if GB 2.3 includes an enhanced Task Killer for managing apps, seeing which apps take up memory, and kill battery life? The SGT including one as well. What gives?
All of the things listed above seem like a good reason to me, right? Again, I just want to understand that's all.
Thanks for teaching.
cramjammer said:
Quick question...because I'm confused and curious as well about Task Killers...why would devs and users alike think Task Killers are so bad if GB 2.3 includes an enhanced Task Killer for managing apps, seeing which apps take up memory, and kill battery life? The SGT including one as well. What gives?
All of the things listed above seem like a good reason to me, right? Again, I just want to understand that's all.
Thanks for teaching.
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Click to collapse
Some Task Killers (TK) are quite extensive in that they willl allow you to close down all manner of objects, Apps, etc. It is these TK's that are risky or should be treated with care.
However, the one provided on the Tab and alike are designed to only show running Apps and services that it feels you can stop if you so wish without causing any effect to the Tab's running.
I use both the built in TK and a third-party named SystemPanel.
If you look at both you will see that although the built in TK does it's job it is nowhere near as fierce as SystemPanel.
Again, provided you know what you are doing TK's such as SystemPanel can be of benefit. I use mine for a great number of tasks including obtaining detailed information of any App or object running to see how much of the processor it has been using, or Archiving any App prior to upgrading the App (just in case the updated App has issues I can then easily use the archive).
That's too funny...System Panel is the one I've been using for a while now. I like how it will give you MANY details about system apps as well as a ton of others information, makes me feel better!
Thanks for taking the time to share, much appreciated!
Croak said:
Task killers are the devil. Don't use them. They haven't been needed since Android 2.0
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Click to collapse
Yep. See this post for a partial explanation:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=9681544&postcount=21
The only time you need a task manager is if you have a rogue app that won't exit and which is taking up the CPU. The SGT seems to be pretty good at killing such apps but I've had a couple of old programs with problems. (They have the same issue on my N1, so not surprising).
I've got OSMonitor installed anyway so I can check things, I just use that when I need to kill a "stuck" app, or if I really aren't too fussed I just reboot with QuickBoot.
well i use the tab a lot and when browsing any site with flash and graphics the avail memory drops to 40mb or less then thats when its gonna crash especially if you get a call at the same time.. i use advance task killer froyo just to free up memory here and there but since froyo the task killers can't really force close the tasks thats why the stock manager works well but doesn't show what background services are taking up memory and thats a major problem im still looking for a good task killer that will show and kill but not take up a large footprint in the memory , a program that seems to work well with my ATK is Fast Reboot its restarts all the apps running and frees up memory greatly helps a lot , for some reason the pro version disappeared that allows you to exlude certain tasks from restarting on click.
I really don't think if you use the tab a lot and as a phone you can't live without a one click task killer, don't really trust android os managing my ram, as well noticed when something such as yahoo mail eats up ram and cpu, it doesn't get closed automatically by android , big alternative i've noticed was uninstall it and use the stock email app and works so much better on memory and cpu.
i use the tab lots, as a phone too. I survive great without a task killer. I trust android to manage my free memory. I don't trust all apps to respect the os tho.
Read this: http://www.droid-den.com/android-guides/android-guide-should-i-use-a-task-killer
I guess this is my honeycomb ignorance (still getting used to the features) but when pulling up recent apps with the softkey I really only want apps that are currently running.
Are some of these apps are already "closed" and by choosing a thumbnail from the list I'm re-opening these?
Is there a setting anywhere to "limit" the history I see? Like <5 apps or something?
I have Task Killer pro intalled now to manage the real running apps but the Softkey is handier, if I can just be sure of what its supposed to indicate.
Thanks
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using XDA Premium App
I was wondering this as well. I haven't found any way to do it yet.
I don't know of any way except to manage apps in the settings and then kill "running" apps....but remember; these are apps "in memory" like you'd think in Windows.....they are not sucking resources...
I think that there is an article here somewhere about this list and why you shouldn't use an app killer in Honeycomb....
I'm more interested in changing it to a grid layout, like a speed dial.
yeah I know theyre not in memory but they are wasting screen space. I finished playing chess yesterday, I dont think the game should stay in the recent apps list. Froyo & Gingerbread are much better at managing this.
moo99 said:
yeah I know theyre not in memory but they are wasting screen space. I finished playing chess yesterday, I dont think the game should stay in the recent apps list. Froyo & Gingerbread are much better at managing this.
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Click to collapse
I agree. I just want a cleaner recent apps list. Sometimes it's hard to find what you're looking for.
I guess a workaround would be to longpress the home screen, put a widget there that is linked directly to "manage applications" and then it would only be one press and then zap the offending apps.
You do realize the Recent Apps button on the homescreen is just that, a Recent Apps button. It's not exactly a "running in the background" button.
"I finished playing chess yesterday, I dont think the game should stay in the recent apps list."
Why not? It is a recently played app isn't it? LOL.
And yeah, agree with the other reply, if you want a list of running apps.... don't touch the Recent Apps list button lol.
Stop worrying about what's running in the background. Just enjoy the damn Android.
Im not near my TF now but I use Multitasking Pro on my Galaxy S for that. you can choose to open it by double clicking the home button and see only running apps or recent apps - its configurable in the application settings. i does cost about 2$ i think but it was the best 2$ I've spent
this is called a 'Recent apps' list for a reason...it's 'Recent'..not current running...
Well you could always downgrade to 3.0 if it really bothers you. That only showed 5 apps!
LOL. Its a nuisance, not so much a grievance; but I'm glad I'm not the only one annoyed, perhaps this will get looked at ;-)
Possibly once Honeycomb is more prevalent there will come market apps or enough reportage to have an updte with a setting for it, or a utility that tweaks it. Regardless, I appreciate the feedback. At least now I know its sort of "normal".
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using XDA Premium App
My number one wish is for Google to improve multitasking (and give back control to the user as to which programs are running).
As is, the implementation just isn't very usable if you consider it to be a multitasking device -- it's really closer to single-tasking with a memory of what it did recently and the ability to reopen with a similar state to what it last had.
For example, I use my tab during F1 races for timing and scoring. I have F1.com's timing and scoring app, and I have access to a (non-public) website which provides further real-time info through Adobe Flash in a web browser.
If I switch from the web browser to F1.com's timing and scoring app for more than say 10-15 seconds, then back again, the flash app has to reconnect to the server because the web browser ceased running, even though the browser and the F1.com app were the only programs running and had ample memory / CPU power / a mains power supply connected, ie. no reason to halt the browser.
This isn't the only time I hit this issue, it's just one easy-to-explain example.
I'd much rather I had the ability to exit programs / apps myself when I'm done with them, and to keep programs / apps running in the background when I want them to. It'd make the whole experience much more coherent and logical.
The Flash plugin was designed to suspend when you switched apps. It's not an android issue.
Adding "close programs" to the current implementation would not make it more logical, it would make it more convoluted. It doesn't need it.
knoxploration said:
.I'd much rather I had the ability to exit programs / apps myself when I'm done with them, and to keep programs / apps running in the background when I want them to. It'd make the whole experience much more coherent and logical.
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Click to collapse
The problem is that the vast majority of users won't want to handle this themselves, and would expect the OS to do if for them.
Personally, I'm in favour of having some sort of mechanism whereby you can tell the OS not to kill specific tasks if you so choose, but otherwise task management performs as is.
With specific regard to your example, I think that the OS believes it is always OK to kill the browser, which is why it can be killed so quickly after switching away. For other apps, this doesn't seem to happen - for example, yesterday I was connected to a remote server using Wyse PocketCloud, and I frequently switched away to do something else for 30-60 minutes at a time, yet my remote desktop connection was never dropped or killed.
Regards,
Dave
Me personally don't need and don't like this "recent" app button. Or I need it to have an option either to clear it or not. You know we sometimes need privacy over such things
JCopernicus said:
The Flash plugin was designed to suspend when you switched apps. It's not an android issue.
Adding "close programs" to the current implementation would not make it more logical, it would make it more convoluted. It doesn't need it.
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Click to collapse
Agreed, if flash is left to run in the background it will drain the battery like hell..and other system resources as well.
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using XDA Premium App
...and it should be *my* choice whether that happens. That is where this argument totaly falls on its face. *I* know whether it is vital to me that an app remain open, or can safely be closed. The tablet doesn't.
As long as it remains in the tablet's hands, it will continue to annoy me by leving open apps that I no longer need running, while closing apps that I strongly do need running.
magicpork said:
Agreed, if flash is left to run in the background it will drain the battery like hell..and other system resources as well.
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
that's just it....it doesn't.
Revisiting Android Task Killers and Why You Still Don’t Need One
from another forum.
We almost hate to approach the topic of Task Killers on Android after all this time, but with so many new faces here at Droid Life and in Android in general, it’s something that needs to be done. In fact, after seeing the Amazon app of the day and reading through the Twitter conversations we just had with many of you, this thing needs to be posted immediately.
Let’s see if we can’t get you all some better battery life!
First off, please ignore the image up at the top of the post. If this was 2009 and we were all running something less than Android 2.2, that statement plastered on that red banner might be somewhat correct. But since it is 2011 and the majority of people on the planet are running Android 2.2, we need to get you away from the mindset that killing off tasks on your phone is a good thing.
So rather than me blabbering about the inner-workings of Android and how it manages RAM for the 10,000th time, I’m going to just pull from some posts that friends of ours have done that explain this in the plainest of ways.
First up is our boy @cvpcs who you may know from CM and his Sapphire ROM days. He knows Android inside-and-out, so when he goes into memory management which is done by the OS itself, you should listen up:
…What people don’t seem to realize is that android is designed to have a large number of tasks stored in memory at all times. Why? Well basically we are talking about a mobile device. On a mobile device things tend to be slower. The hardware isn’t as robust as say a desktop or a laptop, so in order to get that same “snappy” feeling, there have to be workarounds.
One of these is how android deals with memory. Android will load up your apps and then keep them running until they absolutely HAVE to kill them. This is because that way, if you want to re-open an app, the system already has it loaded and can then just resume it instead of reloading it. This provides a significant performance increase.
What a lot of people don’t realize as well is that android kernels have their own task manager. This means that:
it will be more efficient than any app-based task manager as it is run at the kernel level, and
it should be left up to that task killer to decide when to free up memory
There is only one case where having a task killer is a good idea, and that is when you want to kill ONE SPECIFIC APP. Killing all apps is never a good idea. You don’t know what operations they are performing or if they are necessary.
Whitson Gordon of Lifehacker suggests that you should be more worried about CPU usage than what’s going on with your RAM. We agree:
This set-up implies that the goal of killing these apps is to free up memory. Nowhere on the list does it mention the number of CPU cycles each app is consuming, only the memory you’ll free by killing it. As we’ve learned, full memory is not a bad thing—we want to watch out for the CPU, the resource that actually slows down your phone and drains your battery life.
Thus, killing all but the essential apps (or telling Android to kill apps more aggressively with the “autokill” feature) is generally unnecessary. Furthermore, it’s actually possible that this will worsen your phone’s performance and battery life. Whether you’re manually killing apps all the time or telling the task killer to aggressively remove apps from your memory, you’re actually using CPU cycles when you otherwise wouldn’t—killing apps that aren’t doing anything in the first place.
In fact, some of the processes related to those apps will actually start right back up, further draining your CPU. If they don’t, killing those processes can cause other sorts of problems—alarms don’t go off, you don’t receive text messages, or other related apps may force close without warning. All in all, you’re usually better off letting your phone work as intended—especially if you’re more of a casual user. In these instances, a task killer causes more problems than it solves.
More on how Android has a built-in memory-management system, but also on how killing all tasks is not a good thing (via: NextApp):
Android was designed from the ground up as an operating system (OS) for mobile devices. Its built-in application and memory-management systems were engineered with battery life as one of the most critical concerns.
The Android OS does not work like a desktop operating system. On a desktop OS, like Windows, Mac OS X, or Ubuntu Linux, the user is responsible for closing programs in order to keep a reasonable amount of memory available. On Android, this is not the case. The OS itself automatically removes programs from memory as memory is needed. The OS may also preload applications into memory which it thinks might soon be needed.
Having lots of available empty memory is not a good thing. It takes the same amount of power to hold “nothing” in memory as it does to hold actual data. So, like every other operating system in use today, Android does its best to keep as much important/likely-to-be-used information in memory as possible.
As such, using the task manager feature of SystemPanel to constantly clear memory by killing all apps is strongly NOT RECOMMENDED. This also applies to any other task killer / management program. Generally speaking, you should only “End” applications if you see one which is not working correctly. The “End All” feature can be used if your phone/device is performing poorly and you are uncertain of the cause.
And we could go on for hours with source after source on why task killers do nothing but work against Android, but you probably get the point now don’t you? Ready for a quick recap? OK.
Basically, Android keeps tasks handy because it thinks you’ll want to perform them again in a very short amount of time. If you don’t, it will clear them out for you. It also likes to keep as many things handy as possible so that the overall performance of your device is top notch. If Android were to completely kill off everything that your phone is doing, then it would require more resources to restart all of them and you would likely run into slowness and battery drains. By keeping certain things available to you, your phone is actually running better than it would without. So please, stop killing off tasks and let Android do the work for you.
Your goal for the week is wash your brain of the idea that having little RAM available is a bad thing. The more RAM available, the more Android will find ways to use it up which means your battery will be dead in hours. Instead, let it manage itself, so that you can spend more time playing Angry Birds or reading Droid Life.
All good now?
A simple reboot clears the list of recent apps. And as others have stated, it's not about running apps but something like the "recent documents" list in Windows 7
Hi all, ive had my play for a few months now and im having problems with battery life as most seem to have had at some point. Ive tried a bigger battery but it turns the phone into something from the 90s lol....so i then tried some task killers but ive noticed they seem to kill a few tasks, then 5 mins later the tasks have started themselves up again so i spend my time going in and out of the task killer hitting optimise which is a total pain and im thinking pointless? Ive heard these newer builds of android manage tasks anyway but i think there are still some tasks/processes i could do without... My question is, would it just be better to uninstall the task manager and then manually force close tasks/processes i dont need and if i do do this will they stay closed/killed till i manually open them again or reboot, or will they automatically restart themselves? Im mainly talking about preloaded stuff i dont need like timescape and data monitor and other battery eating rubbish.
Rooting is an option but now being on 2.3.3 and awaiting 2.3.4 it seems like alot of agro just to clear some running bloatware (downgrading to uk generic firmware 2.2 then gingerbreak then upgrading then removing bloatware then reinstalling removed bloatware for every update, sigh)... If the damn tasks would just stay closed im sure my battery would last a bit longer...
So any difference force closing tasks manually vs task killers and would it help with battery life?
This is a great phone with 2 flaws one is battery life the second is small internal memory... Rooting seems to help fix these problems from what i have read. Why cant sony release a small app/program to let us clear the bloatware without the hassle of rooting.
This has turned into more of a rant, whoops!
Any ideas...?
Sent from my R800i using XDA App
Right understand this. There is no point closing apps or using task killers in android. It makes no sence. This isnt windows, android handles ram in a totally diffrent way to windows, In windows the more free ram you have the faster the pc/phone right? well it's the oposite in android, the less free ram the better, It means android is managing it's own workload, unlike windows application are split into 2 catagories, Applications and process, Now android can have an application running in the background but it will freeze the active process if your not using it, It will keep the ram that application is using a keep it save, so when you relaunch the app it's fast and smooth, Kill the app and you may reclaim the ram but you have to wait for the application to reload and restart. I think life hacker tells it better then me. Read this!
"Android Task Killers Explained: What They Do and Why You Shouldn’t Use Them
Android task killers improve your phone's performance while also boosting battery life—or at least that's the much-debated promise. Here's a look at how task killers actually work, when you should (or shouldn't) use them, and what you can do instead.
A task killer is an app from which you can (sometimes automatically) force other apps to quit, the hope being that the fewer apps you have running in the background, the better your Android's performance and battery life will be. Not everyone agrees with this premise, though. The argument about whether task killers are effective rages all over the internet: Android forums are full of threads with constant bickering and conflicting anecdotal experience, making it difficult for most users to make sense of the situation.
Below, I'm going to dig into the truth about Android task killers: that apart from maybe some older phones, Android manages tasks fairly well on its own, and how task killers present quite a few problems. I'll also take a look at the rare occasions when they're useful, and offer some alternatives you should try to improve your phone's performance and battery-life quirks.
Before we dive in, here's a quick overview of how Android handles process management by default.
How Android Manages Processes
In Android, processes and Applications are two different things. An app can stay "running" in the background without any processes eating up your phone's resources. Android keeps the app in its memory so it launches more quickly and returns to its prior state. When your phone runs out of memory, Android will automatically start killing tasks on its own, starting with ones that you haven't used in awhile.
The problem is that Android uses RAM differently than, say, Windows. On Android, having your RAM nearly full is a good thing. It means that when you relaunch an app you've previously opened, the app launches quickly and returns to its previous state. So while Android actually uses RAM efficiently, most users see that their RAM is full and assume that's what's slowing down their phone. In reality, your CPU—which is only used by apps that are actually active—is almost always the bottleneck.
Why Task Killers Are (Usually) Bad News
Apps like Advanced Task Killer, the most popular task killer in the Market, act on the incorrect assumption that freeing up memory on an Android device is a good thing. When launched, it presents you with a list of "running" apps and the option to kill as many as you want. You can also hit the Menu button to access a more detailed "Services" view, that lists exactly which parts of each application are "running", how much memory they take up, and how much free memory is available on your phone. This set-up implies that the goal of killing these apps is to free up memory. Nowhere on the list does it mention the number of CPU cycles each app is consuming, only the memory you'll free by killing it. As we've learned, full memory is not a bad thing—we want to watch out for the CPU, the resource that actually slows down your phone and drains your battery life.
Thus, killing all but the essential apps (or telling Android to kill apps more aggressively with the "autokill" feature) is generally unnecessary. Furthermore, it's actually possible that this will worsen your phone's performance and battery life. Whether you're manually killing apps all the time or telling the task killer to aggressively remove apps from your memory, you're actually using CPU cycles when you otherwise wouldn't—killing apps that aren't doing anything in the first place.
In fact, some of the processes related to those apps will actually start right back up, further draining your CPU. If they don't, killing those processes can cause other sorts of problems—alarms don't go off, you don't receive text messages, or other related apps may force close without warning. All in all, you're usually better off letting your phone work as intended—especially if you're more of a casual user. In these instances, a task killer causes more problems than it solves.
What You Should Do Instead
That said, not all apps are created equal. Many of you have used task killers in the past and actually found that after freeing up memory, your phone works a bit better. It's more likely that this is because you've killed a bad app—one that was poorly coded, and (for example) keeps trying to connect to the internet even when it shouldn't. Any performance increase you experience is more likely because you killed the right app, not because you freed up loads of memory (or, in many cases, it's just placebo). Instead of killing all those apps, find out which ones are actually causing the problems. If you really know what you're doing, you may benefit from using a task killer to stop the one or two inefficient-but-loved apps on your phone.
Note, however, that this is still a contested notion. A lot of developers (including ROM builder extraordinaire, Cyanogen) will not even look at your bug reports if you're using a task killer. In this humble blogger's opinion, your best bet is to stay away from regular task killer usage entirely. If you absolutely have to have that one battery-killing app on your phone, though, kill away—just be aware that when you experience a recurring Android bug later on, the task killer may be at fault. Of course, you can just stop using it to determine whether that is or isn't the case.
With task killers firmly in the better-off-without box, there are still a number of other things you can do to fill the void, improving your performance and battery life:
Watch for Runaway Processes: Previously mentioned Watchdog is a slightly different kind of task killer, in the sense that instead of telling you your phone's out of memory and it's time to go on a task killing spree, it alerts you when the occasional app starts eating up CPU for no reason. You can then kill the app with Watchdog and get on with your day (though honestly, at that point, I usually just reboot my phone). If it happens often with the same app, however, you may want to move on to the next step.
Uninstall Bad Apps: Worse than the occasional, one-time runaway app is the poorly coded, always-eating-CPU app. If you find (with Watchdog or through some other method) that a particular app seems to drain CPU and battery life whenever it's running, confirm your suspicions by uninstalling it and seeing what happens. If an app is causing problems on your phone, you're probably better off without it.
We advocate rooting Android devices a lot at Lifehacker, but that's because it really is as useful as everyone says it is. You can over- and underclock your phone with SetCPU, install custom ROMs that noticeably improve performance and battery life, and use the ever-useful, crapware-thwarting Autostarts utility to stop apps from starting up on your phone in the first place. Honestly, with one-click rooting apps like previously mentioned Universal Androot available for most phones, rooting only takes a few minutes to do, and you'll be much happier for it.
Update: Many of you also mentioned the root-only app Titanium Backup, which will help you get rid of the pre-installed crapware that comes on most phones, which are one of the worst offenders of phone lag. Thanks to all of you that sent this in!
Seriously, Use the Power Control Widget: This may sound ridiculously obvious, but if you aren't already using some form of the Power Control widget, you should. The things that drain the most battery on any smartphone are Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, and your screen. Turn them off when you don't need them and you'll find that you can eke out considerably more battery life.
Charge Your Phone: Even more obvious yet rarely heeded advice: Charge your phone often. This isn't as hard as it sounds for most people. While you're sometimes stuck going out for 14 hours with no place to charge your phone, the majority of us spend our days in our homes, our offices, and other places rife with electrical outlets. Buy a few extra chargers and place them strategically around your home, car, and office. Whenever you're sitting around at home or working away at your desk, you can use that time to dock your phone and give it some extra juice without worrying about battery or performance drains. Before I upgraded to Android 2.2, my battery life was pretty awful, but just having a charger in my car and next to my computer made a huge difference in how often I got the dreaded "low battery" message."
Theres no way to remove the bloatware without root access. I rooted my xplay yesterday using the new zergrush method, you dont need to downgrade or anything you just type in a bunch of stuff in the command promt and its done.
Just to add on to AndroHero's post. In short, Task Killers actually REDUCE your battery life. Just leave it alone, turn off bluetooth and wifi, etc when youre not using them, keep your text message conversations low, and your email inbox clear. Thats about all you can do.
Also the battery life may be related to your coverage area. My phone will last all weekend at home, but is dead in 8 hours at my office due to all the interference and poor cell service coverage, its always searching for signal.
Very interesting thank you for the detailed explanation and tips. Im gonna remove my task killer and try watchdog if i can, to keep an eye on my cpu. I am also going to look into rooting my phone, its just the constant android updates and horror storys of rooted phones with removed bloatware bricking after OTA thats putting me off.
I can understand how having an app in memory ready to go keeps your phone quick (in the same way a cookie in your browser cache makes a page load faster?) but if the app is monitoring data or connecting to the net then they are using some cpu and need to be terminated or stopped from starting. It looks like the only way to do this is to root and then as said in your post ill beable to stop them starting up in the first place.
Thanks again for your time and info
Sent from my R800i using XDA App
b4d5h0t said:
Very interesting thank you for the detailed explanation and tips. Im gonna remove my task killer and try watchdog if i can, to keep an eye on my cpu. I am also going to look into rooting my phone, its just the constant android updates and horror storys of rooted phones with removed bloatware bricking after OTA thats putting me off.
I can understand how having an app in memory ready to go keeps your phone quick (in the same way a cookie in your browser cache makes a page load faster?) but if the app is monitoring data or connecting to the net then they are using some cpu and need to be terminated or stopped from starting. It looks like the only way to do this is to root and then as said in your post ill beable to stop them starting up in the first place.
Thanks again for your time and info
Sent from my R800i using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Rooting is not going to do this for you. Rooting WILL allow you to remove apps that have no use to you whatsoever. But apps, even ones you aren't using are still going to behave like this. Not only that, but those actions are part of what keeps them snappy. And if you kill them, all you would be doing is making it harder and slower to run them when you need to as it will do all those things you wanted it to not do while it was in the background. That drains the battery more. The path you are following with this isn't gonna solve your problem. Android manages its memory on its own better than any of us can.
As I mentioned about coverage area, for example do you have poor service where you are? If you have WiFi keeping it on will prevent the phone from searching for data service which will help.
b4d5h0t said:
Very interesting thank you for the detailed explanation and tips. Im gonna remove my task killer and try watchdog if i can, to keep an eye on my cpu. I am also going to look into rooting my phone, its just the constant android updates and horror storys of rooted phones with removed bloatware bricking after OTA thats putting me off.
I can understand how having an app in memory ready to go keeps your phone quick (in the same way a cookie in your browser cache makes a page load faster?) but if the app is monitoring data or connecting to the net then they are using some cpu and need to be terminated or stopped from starting. It looks like the only way to do this is to root and then as said in your post ill beable to stop them starting up in the first place.
Thanks again for your time and info
Sent from my R800i using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You may also want to try a minifree manager like autokiller in the market. Rather that acting like a task killer, it can edit androids built in process manager you can change how much ram is allocated to background and foregrounds apps and also how much memory android cache's, the cache is the minium amount of ram that android allows to be free, you could set it to 150mb if you wanted, then android will never let your free ram go lower than 150mb.
Sent from my R800i using Tapatalk
Nice one ill look into it
Sent from my R800i using XDA App
Just let Android manage itself, My Xperia play will last an entire day with a lot of use such as wifi, Bluetooth and other things.
IV seen a couple forum's we're people go back and forth about task killers, ( manly about whether or not you need them)
It seems like the argument against it is that the android system already kills apps. And most of the programs and apps constantly try to restart (draining you're battery)
But the argument for it. Is that the android O/S lets way to many apps run. And keeps them in memory, before it actually starts killing them.
But from what I can tell it doesn't look like any of the arguments were 'rom' or even 'phone' specific.
What do you Guy's think?
Are you for, or against auto killers?
And why?
Do you think they make a difference?
Do they drain your battery?
If you do use them. "Which ones do you use"? And y?
(Let the arguments begin) I'm interested to know what you guys think?
Sent from my G2X.
Rocking stock CM 7.2.0-RC1
Do not use them. The Android OS is very good at knowing what to keep in memory and what not to. You want your memory to be full pretty much all the time (unused memory is wasted memory), and the OS will swap data out to your internal storage (or SD card?) when necessary.
Think about it: Do you have auto-task-killer for Windows or Mac OS? Of course not. The OS manages memory very well.
Now, I *may* kill a task that has a memory leak or is taking up gigantic amounts of memory for no reason (as I would on Windows using the Task Manager), but I'll only do that on an app-by-app basis, and it usually results in my uninstalling the crappily-written app.
So no, "auto" task killers are worthless.
Android continues to run random crap in the background for no reason. Crappy programing. I have had mixed results with various task killers. It is a shame that Google can not get their stuff together. They have the resources to do it correctly, so it leads me to the conclusion it is intentional.
Why the hell does Maps need to run all the freaking time? It's ridiculous. Is ICS any better than Gingerbread? I hope it is. That would be a worthy reason to upgrade, but for the short time I tried an ICS rom it still ran tons of crap for no reason at all other than google wants it to run.
Hopefully one day someone will come out with an efficient OS. Until then we are stuck trying to implement workarounds to Google's crap programing.
ok, ill try to explain this
Android and windows operating systems are very different in the way they handle memory useage.
In windows, when you open a program the program allocates a chunk of memory that it can use, it then tells the system to give it more if it needs it, and it gives it back when it dosent. Once the program is closed all of this memory is 'forgotten' instantly and cannot be recovered, so when you restart the program you are starting it over like new. (one exception being programs that stay running in the background after you close the window)
In android, this is all handled much MUCH MUCH more efficiently.
Android apps are made up of processes and services. A process is a foreground window that you interact with. Unless you hit the back key to exit out of the program, it is simply paused. Once paused a process can use NO CPU!! none at all! ZERO! It is still kept in memory so that if you want to go back to the app, or you restart it later, and its still in memory, the phone will spend less time, CPU power, and battery power relaunching it from the start. if the phone begins to run low on memory it starts closing these programs. id say 90% of the time closing a paused process is so fast, and takes so little resources that you cant tell when its happening, even if you watch really closely for it.
The problem with apps using battery in the background is android Services.
Services are different from processes. services have no UI, the user cannot interact with them directly at all, and they should only contain code that is needed to run in the background. When you exit an app through its own menu, it shuts down its own services, unless it believes that they are needed still. These processes can run in the background for as long as they want... to a point. if android needs the memory for something else, and its already killed every process that's not running, it will start killing unused services.
Services are the main thing that separate android from the IOS. Android can multi-task, and services are the way that it does it. The reason that these can suck the battery dry is because of bad programming by the app creator. If your facebook app wants to sync your pictures, it will keep a service running to do that, perhaps using GPS, Network, and SD card data the whole time. Its the app's fault, not android's.
For example:
If your playing music, and you want to go to another playlist, a service is the part of the program reading the song off the SD card, downloading album art, and playing it over the headset. while the process is showing you all this and letting you pick another playlist. if you press your home key in the middle of a song, the process is paused, so the UI can no longer use CPU power, however the service is still running, still playing music. when you stop the music and then close the app, a WELL PROGRAMMED music app will stop its service, then pause its UI. 10 minutes later you want to play music again, so you reopen the app only to find that it is exactly the way you left it! all ready and waiting for you to hit play. this is because while it was paused, it was not using battery or cpu power, but was still stored in the RAM. when you reopened it, the OS just reads all this ram and 'un-pauses' the program for you.
Finally just because an app has a process, does not mean that it is drinking your battery power by the megawatt! Some services are just there, waiting for something, using little to NO cpu power. For example your SWYPE and Android Keyboard services are running constantly. however they are not using much battery power at all. the services are only there listening for android to shout that it needs a keyboard, at which point the service runs the paused process.
one last thing, the reason google maps runs in the background is because something on the phone wants location data. (could be the fact that you checked 'share anonymous data about my location with google' or the fact that you want your weather service to update based on your location, or any other 100's of things) While any program can access GPS data, the numbers you get back are latitude and longitude. This is damn near useless for any location based app, so they ask the Google Maps process to return a city, state, zip code, street address, ect... instead of your Average app maker programming an entire system for this, and getting map data from somewhere else on its own (that will most likely be not as efficent), google made a wonderful maps program and let everyone use it for its location data! Hows that for open source?
As for app killers, they are useless, 100% useless and i think that they are the only thing that should be banned from the google market. they ONLY hurt and NEVER HELP!!! the only thing that is useful is CM7/CM9's 'hold back button to kill app' this can be used to kill that annoying rogue app that has an awful programmer. but even then about 75% of the time the programmer will make it just start back up anyway, so the only solution is to UNINSTALL it.
korny647 said:
IV seen a couple forum's we're people go back and forth about task killers, ( manly about whether or not you need them)
It seems like the argument against it is that the android system already kills apps. And most of the programs and apps constantly try to restart (draining you're battery)
But the argument for it. Is that the android O/S lets way to many apps run. And keeps them in memory, before it actually starts killing them.
But from what I can tell it doesn't look like any of the arguments were 'rom' or even 'phone' specific.
What do you Guy's think?
Are you for, or against auto killers?
And why?
Do you think they make a difference?
Do they drain your battery?
If you do use them. "Which ones do you use"? And y?
(Let the arguments begin) I'm interested to know what you guys think?
Sent from my G2X.
Rocking stock CM 7.2.0-RC1
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Honestly I can care less about a task killer. My phone runs perfectly without any task killer.
Sent from my LG-P999 using xda premium
Klathmon said:
ok, ill try to explain this
one last thing, the reason google maps runs in the background is because something on the phone wants location data. (could be the fact that you checked 'share anonymous data about my location with google' or the fact that you want your weather service to update based on your location, or any other 100's of things) While any program can access GPS data, the numbers you get back are latitude and longitude. This is damn near useless for any location based app, so they ask the Google Maps process to return a city, state, zip code, street address, ect... instead of your Average app maker programming an entire system for this, and getting map data from somewhere else on its own (that will most likely be not as efficent), google made a wonderful maps program and let everyone use it for its location data! Hows that for open source?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you! That makes a lot of sense. My phone still seems to slow down when I do a lot of web surfing. When my available memory drops below 100mb the Internet slows to a crawl. Any tips? I have been using a task killer to manually close out runing apps to free up space.
jcbofkc said:
Thank you! That makes a lot of sense. My phone still seems to slow down when I do a lot of web surfing. When my available memory drops below 100mb the Internet slows to a crawl. Any tips? I have been using a task killer to manually close out runing apps to free up space.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if your using the stock browser, press the tab button at the top right...
close the probally 20 or so tabs that are still open that you dont use anymore
the more memory the active app takes up the more android has to kill, after it kills all empty processes, it starts killing services, and active services, then notifications, ect...
the further up the list you go the more cpu power it takes to free up the resources.
Many tabs take up alot of ram
Klathmon said:
ok, ill try to explain this
Android and windows operating systems are very different in the way they handle memory useage.
In windows, when you open a program the program allocates a chunk of memory that it can use, it then tells the system to give it more if it needs it, and it gives it back when it dosent. Once the program is closed all of this memory is 'forgotten' instantly and cannot be recovered, so when you restart the program you are starting it over like new. (one exception being programs that stay running in the background after you close the window)
In android, this is all handled much MUCH MUCH more efficiently.
Android apps are made up of processes and services. A process is a foreground window that you interact with. Unless you hit the back key to exit out of the program, it is simply paused. Once paused a process can use NO CPU!! none at all! ZERO! It is still kept in memory so that if you want to go back to the app, or you restart it later, and its still in memory, the phone will spend less time, CPU power, and battery power relaunching it from the start. if the phone begins to run low on memory it starts closing these programs. id say 90% of the time closing a paused process is so fast, and takes so little resources that you cant tell when its happening, even if you watch really closely for it.
The problem with apps using battery in the background is android Services.
Services are different from processes. services have no UI, the user cannot interact with them directly at all, and they should only contain code that is needed to run in the background. When you exit an app through its own menu, it shuts down its own services, unless it believes that they are needed still. These processes can run in the background for as long as they want... to a point. if android needs the memory for something else, and its already killed every process that's not running, it will start killing unused services.
Services are the main thing that separate android from the IOS. Android can multi-task, and services are the way that it does it. The reason that these can suck the battery dry is because of bad programming by the app creator. If your facebook app wants to sync your pictures, it will keep a service running to do that, perhaps using GPS, Network, and SD card data the whole time. Its the app's fault, not android's.
For example:
If your playing music, and you want to go to another playlist, a service is the part of the program reading the song off the SD card, downloading album art, and playing it over the headset. while the process is showing you all this and letting you pick another playlist. if you press your home key in the middle of a song, the process is paused, so the UI can no longer use CPU power, however the service is still running, still playing music. when you stop the music and then close the app, a WELL PROGRAMMED music app will stop its service, then pause its UI. 10 minutes later you want to play music again, so you reopen the app only to find that it is exactly the way you left it! all ready and waiting for you to hit play. this is because while it was paused, it was not using battery or cpu power, but was still stored in the RAM. when you reopened it, the OS just reads all this ram and 'un-pauses' the program for you.
Finally just because an app has a process, does not mean that it is drinking your battery power by the megawatt! Some services are just there, waiting for something, using little to NO cpu power. For example your SWYPE and Android Keyboard services are running constantly. however they are not using much battery power at all. the services are only there listening for android to shout that it needs a keyboard, at which point the service runs the paused process.
one last thing, the reason google maps runs in the background is because something on the phone wants location data. (could be the fact that you checked 'share anonymous data about my location with google' or the fact that you want your weather service to update based on your location, or any other 100's of things) While any program can access GPS data, the numbers you get back are latitude and longitude. This is damn near useless for any location based app, so they ask the Google Maps process to return a city, state, zip code, street address, ect... instead of your Average app maker programming an entire system for this, and getting map data from somewhere else on its own (that will most likely be not as efficent), google made a wonderful maps program and let everyone use it for its location data! Hows that for open source?
As for app killers, they are useless, 100% useless and i think that they are the only thing that should be banned from the google market. they ONLY hurt and NEVER HELP!!! the only thing that is useful is CM7/CM9's 'hold back button to kill app' this can be used to kill that annoying rogue app that has an awful programmer. but even then about 75% of the time the programmer will make it just start back up anyway, so the only solution is to UNINSTALL it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well said, makes it alot more clear to me.
But that being said is there anyone that still has an argument for auto killers?
Or is it pretty much a no across the bored. Here at xda.
If that's the case why are their so many task killers that have a huge amounts of downloads,?
Just a bunch of noobs falling for snake oil?
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA
korny647 said:
Well said, makes it alot more clear to me.
But that being said is there anyone that still has an argument for auto killers?
Or is it pretty much a no across the bored. Here at xda.
If that's the case why are their so many task killers that have a huge amounts of downloads,?
Just a bunch of noobs falling for snake oil?
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes and no.
most people only have experience with windows, and when something is running in windows it is actually running. most people think a computer is a computer (roughly) so they think that running in android means the same. not really falling for something, just a misunderstanding.
also if i made one of these apps (regardless if i knew how it worked at the time or not) im not gonna stop the money coming in because i might be wrong
Klathmon said:
yes and no.
most people only have experience with windows, and when something is running in windows it is actually running. most people think a computer is a computer (roughly) so they think that running in android means the same. not really falling for something, just a misunderstanding.
also if i made one of these apps (regardless if i knew how it worked at the time or not) im not gonna stop the money coming in because i might be wrong
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
True, so true.
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA
Read here also.
http://geekfor.me/faq/you-shouldnt-be-using-a-task-killer-with-android/
Good stuff, Klathmon. Couldn't have explained it better myself.
If you want a "task killer" don't use a task killer use a memory optimizer... such as the v6 supercharger or autokiller from the market. These aren't task killers but they basically just make your phone a ram nazi.
Pin it to Win it.
Allow me to jump on the bandwagon. Don't use them. Allow the operating system to work as it was intended for better or worse.
Thanks everyone for this very interesting thread.