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Hey everyone, I'm posting this to gather information about Android Multitasking.
I have used android since i had my G1, I am now on a g2, otherwise known as the HTC HERO.
In my opinion android multitasks beautifully when we talk about speed! It doesn't however manage it's open applications well at all. I mean switching to a application which is open in the background is tough. Pressing and holding the home button gives you a menu to RECENTLY open applications which doesn't conform to what IS open at that very moment. And the task bar notifications dont really give you a full list of all applications open..only apps that support it.
With the iphone really gathering it's bearings, and beginning to multitask [kinda better multitasking management then android imo] Im beginning to waver in my support for android.
I can imagine if holding the home button brought up a card view like webOS, giving you a preview of all the open applications in the background. Or something similar. I mean if HTC sense has a pinch gesture to view home screen in a hard view environment, i don't see what's stopping android from having a more polished and robust multitasking experience.
What are your thoughts on this?
the iphone 4 implementation looks to be exactly what you are complaining about with android. it offers a list of recently used apps. with iphone none of the apps stay running, they have background services that an app can start but the app will close. Android is similar. the ui for an app isnt necessarily running. it will be killed by the os and started again when you ask to see it.
WebOS does actually show you exactly what is running. I havent used a webos device for an extended period of time, but it dies seem their card metaphor is the easiest to understand for users. if your phone is slow just look at the cards you have open and flick some out.
I agree with your point though, i find the android app switcher inadequate. Far too often the app i want to get back to is no longer in the list. i think the iphone will have the same issue unless their list can grow very long.
It'd solve a lot if the android switcher had a button to pull up the app drawer.
Sent from my Nexus One using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk
hexix said:
the iphone 4 implementation looks to be exactly what you are complaining about with android. it offers a list of recently used apps. with iphone none of the apps stay running, they have background services that an app can start but the app will close. Android is similar. the ui for an app isnt necessarily running. it will be killed by the os and started again when you ask to see it.
WebOS does actually show you exactly what is running. I havent used a webos device for an extended period of time, but it dies seem their card metaphor is the easiest to understand for users. if your phone is slow just look at the cards you have open and flick some out.
I agree with your point though, i find the android app switcher inadequate. Far too often the app i want to get back to is no longer in the list. i think the iphone will have the same issue unless their list can grow very long.
It'd solve a lot if the android switcher had a button to pull up the app drawer.
Sent from my Nexus One using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah I suppose you're right, but i cant help but think the iphone will just be better at it then android.
Other then that. Yes Android really needs to polish it's multi tasking system.
EDIT: Also, I have used WebOS and honestly it's a superior mobile platform to android [imo]. It's community however is not as enriched as the android one and there aren't as many apps available for the palm pre. Palm really screwed themselves over limiting it to one phone...it would have been a strategic move to stop manufacturing phones and start working on EXPENSIVE palm software like webOS
Or maybe you can try AppSwipe!
There's also a nice app (imo) from a user on here, he tried to mimic the webOS cards system, and is doing pretty well until now. No previews yet but its still a nice powerful task manager that views icon in a nice view and has launch on search / camera button press too!
It's called TaskOS!
I've tried both task os and app swipe and still...they are both very unpolished multitasking management systems =/
I hope eventually something will come along.
I came from the Palm Pre before I got my HTC Hero, and multitasking was wayyyy better than Android. In fact, if the Pre wasn't so slow, I would have kept it over the HTC Hero. It took me over a minute to open Google Maps... with nothing else running! (and the keyboard sucked)
hexix said:
It'd solve a lot if the android switcher had a button to pull up the app drawer.
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Click to collapse
Dxtop has a second App Drawer that does just that. It works great.
tdusen said:
Dxtop has a second App Drawer that does just that. It works great.
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Click to collapse
Eh, that shows background services like home and what not..
Personally I'd like to disable the drawer from showing apps on my ignore list
what would be nice is if you held home then cards poped up like in webos and showed your running apps with a preview pic of the app
blaboy51 said:
what would be nice is if you held home then cards poped up like in webos and showed your running apps with a preview pic of the app
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Click to collapse
YEah thats something to look forward too.
XxsydenxX said:
YEah thats something to look forward too.
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Click to collapse
but for that to happen google probley would have to add that in there rom in a update hopefuly it'll happen
nice idea. I wish i knew how to make it happen.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=668232
Wow i was just thinking the same thing today, (i used to own a pre) But check out TaskOS in the market guys!!! It's legit, almost exactly the same as cardview on webos except it just shows icons instead of real time view.
If you want a nice way to switch apps without the stupid home key crap just install advanced task killer and switch the default click option to switch too instead of select/unselect. Its one swipe down for the notifications, one click on atk, and one more click on the app you want. Its not as good as webOS but its the best method I can find for now. I also leave a shortcut to atk on my home screen.
there is also MultiTask Manager. Once again not as good as WebOS card view but its more like an Iphone multitask thing. I think I like TaskOS the best. Well I'm not allowed to post links because of new member thing so just look it up.
It wouldn't be hard if you can get live preview's of the application windows.
I've been searching google for "android sdk live preview" and the like for a while though and its not looking good
can the current state of multi-tasking allows, for example, one uses the phone with the speaker while trying to look up some info/or do something with another application(eg, look up notes that you have written down from an application)?
cheers
hi friends. i know, i know this discussion is premature, but lets talk about what we want from android 2.3 ....to be a good source of inspiration for those who make it
God bless you to have the best inspiration!
Not a bad idea...
They should root it out of the box
Love. World peace.
since 2.2 had a 400-500% performance boost, 2.3 should have a 4000-5000% boostv
They've got the performance down. I think 2.3 will focus more on the user - ease of use and greater stability to compete with the iPhone. This will be shortly followed (3.0 maybe) with a whole new user interface design. They didn't hire the WebOS designer for nothing...
More than anything, I want the application's interface to look better and more unified. Like on an iOS, no matter how bad the app is, it still looks just as good as anything else. On Android, having a good looking UI is rare.
'Settings' in Froyo looks great, black background, white text, easy to navigate. But then you go to settings in Beautiful Widgets, and the text size is different, check boxes are on the left instead of right, and it's just not unified. They need a stricter standard.
I would love to see pinch-zoom on Email/gmail.
Maybe an option to display google voice SMS in the standard MMS app. A more customizable phone app, as in choosing which screen to default to and have a T9 search option... ( Like Dialer One)
Launcher Pro as standard launcher
Hold down volume to switch tracks on default music player
trillonometry said:
I would love to see pinch-zoom on Email/gmail.
Maybe an option to display google voice SMS in the standard MMS app. A more customizable phone app, as in choosing which screen to default to and have a T9 search option... ( Like Dialer One)
Launcher Pro as standard launcher
Hold down volume to switch tracks on default music player
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I approve of this message.
TREYisRAD said:
More than anything, I want the application's interface to look better and more unified. Like on an iOS, no matter how bad the app is, it still looks just as good as anything else. On Android, having a good looking UI is rare.
'Settings' in Froyo looks great, black background, white text, easy to navigate. But then you go to settings in Beautiful Widgets, and the text size is different, check boxes are on the left instead of right, and it's just not unified. They need a stricter standard.
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Click to collapse
Yes, this is a big deal. froyo has most of the basics that people were begging for: voice dialing, apps2sd, latest opengl, etc but they really need to blow everyone away on the UI. The reason why there's so much fragmentation is because of all these custom UI's and the reason why we have those UI's is because there is a perception that Android needs them to look good.
But once you get past the first few screens and into actual apps, there's nothing to hide. There has to be a general system for UI controls for all the apps so that they can look good without much effort.
Also, in many OS's, even the controls are themable and if Google can do that, an OEM could have an Android that looks completely different all the way down but runs all the apps and they would operate the same way.
from what i've heard, there's no 2.3. Gingerbread is a major release.. Android 3.
Here a To-Do list for the android developers :
- add the possibility to hide some apps from the drawer
- add a theme manager to change theme and restore the original one more easily
- enable root automaticaly
- add a feature like "Android Guard" to lock and locate your phone with your google account
- add a backup manager, linked with your Google account which could backup all your apps and data (like Titanium Backup) to switch easily from a ROM to another or to change your android phone.
I've no more idea for the moment but here are some nice features
arctu said:
from what i've heard, there's no 2.3. Gingerbread is a major release.. Android 3.
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2.3 or 3, real flash support, that works well, not just "sort of works well"
Thread moved since it isn't development.
USB TV-Out
I would love the magnifying glass thing the iPhone has when selecting text.
arctu said:
from what i've heard, there's no 2.3. Gingerbread is a major release.. Android 3.
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Click to collapse
that is what i thought as well...
Brian_Fr said:
Here a To-Do list for the android developers :
- add the possibility to hide some apps from the drawer
- add a theme manager to change theme and restore the original one more easily
- enable root automaticaly
- add a feature like "Android Guard" to lock and locate your phone with your google account
- add a backup manager, linked with your Google account which could backup all your apps and data (like Titanium Backup) to switch easily from a ROM to another or to change your android phone.
I've no more idea for the moment but here are some nice features
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Click to collapse
Great ideas!!
[IO]ERROR said:
I would love the magnifying glass thing the iPhone has when selecting text.
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Click to collapse
Sense UI has something similar... and its pretty nice (at least on my evo.
As far as suggestions for the next release...
FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY AND GOOD... GIVE US A TRUE UNIFIED INBOX FOR ALL ACCOUNTS WITH PUSH ENABLED!!! (or at least the option to have a unified inbox.. this is android after all)
frettfreak said:
FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY AND GOOD... GIVE US A TRUE UNIFIED INBOX FOR ALL ACCOUNTS WITH PUSH ENABLED!!! (or at least the option to have a unified inbox.. this is android after all)
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The latest update to K-9 (which I prefer over the stock email app) has this. I was quite surprised when I saw it. Though, it does exclude GMail, but I think that's because GMail inaccessible to third-parties right now.
Android wishes
I would like a task manager that links to calender. Schedule the task to when I know when I want to do it, without writing it all out again. Please.
Unified graphics would be a good look.
mr.trader said:
Not a bad idea...
They should root it out of the box
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Click to collapse
I was randomly thinging of that earlier thtd b good
Better looking widgets / viewports in sdk so apps become better looking/ more user friendly.
Sent from my GT-I5700 using Tapatalk
Google just posted on the android dev blog, a sdk preview for honeycomb is out!
http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2011/01/android-30-platform-preview-and-updated.html
I'm downloading now to give it a go!
Just fired up the emulator. Its dog slow and its stuck in portrait mode on its side! Does anyone know how to get it into landscape mode?
footboydog said:
Just fired up the emulator. Its dog slow and its stuck in portrait mode on its side! Does anyone know how to get it into landscape mode?
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Click to collapse
I tried figuring it out but couldn't, must be a feature.
Yeah, same here. Emulator is REALLY slow. I mean I expected it to be maybe a little slower than previous versions, but holy crap. My computer is by no means the best out there, but it certainly isn't slow. You can barely even tell what's going on when you do something.
footboydog said:
Just fired up the emulator. Its dog slow and its stuck in portrait mode on its side! Does anyone know how to get it into landscape mode?
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Click to collapse
try Numpad 9 and 7
NoEnd said:
try Numpad 9 and 7
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Click to collapse
Or Ctrl+F11 / Ctrl+F12
Yea I had to google search how to change orientation, with numlock OFF, numpad 7 or 9.
And yea the emulator is super super slow.
There doesn't seem to be a lot of widgets in there, or new apps etc.
I know honeycomb is meant to be 'built from the ground up' for tablets, but to me it just seems like a tablet themed front end (launcher and app drawer). I manged to crash the launcher and then I saw the standard android notification bar etc.
As a side note, if honeycomb is going to be released in a few weeks with the Xoom, maybe google is skipping gingerbread on the nexus 1 and going straight to honeycomb?
athornz said:
Yea I had to google search how to change orientation, with numlock OFF, numpad 7 or 9.
And yea the emulator is super super slow.
There doesn't seem to be a lot of widgets in there, or new apps etc.
I know honeycomb is meant to be 'built from the ground up' for tablets, but to me it just seems like a tablet themed front end (launcher and app drawer). I manged to crash the launcher and then I saw the standard android notification bar etc.
As a side note, if honeycomb is going to be released in a few weeks with the Xoom, maybe google is skipping gingerbread on the nexus 1 and going straight to honeycomb?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its not going to work like that. Tablets are going 3.x route
and phones are going to stay 2.x
So the next phone release will be 2.4
I tried the usual emu shortcuts (Numpad 7 and 9, Ctrl F11 and F12) but they just switch the window orientation, not the Android UI. If the window goes into portrait mode its slightly too tall for my monitor (1920x1200 res). If the window is in landscape mode the UI remains in portrait so its sideways on (if you see what I mean).
cainhunpi said:
Its not going to work like that. Tablets are going 3.x route
and phones are going to stay 2.x
So the next phone release will be 2.4
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And you got your Information from...?
Some Android guy confirmed, that Honeycomb isn't Tablet exclusive.
And it also says that 3.0 is specifically optimized for Tablets but NOT that it's Tablet-exclusive! http://developer.android.com/sdk/android-3.0-highlights.html
cainhunpi said:
Its not going to work like that. Tablets are going 3.x route
and phones are going to stay 2.x
So the next phone release will be 2.4
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
According to the interview with Matias Duarte and Engadget, Honeycomb will be optimized for both phone and tablet sized hardware.
In the Engadget interview with the android UI guy, I can't remember exactly what he said, but he hinted that honeycomb is not exclusively for tablets, just what we have seen of it so far is.
I think the phone version of honeycomb will just be like the gingerbread UI with the new apis and features of honeycomb
It is stuck in portrait mode for me too. Ctrl-f11 switches the window layout but the android inside is still portrait...
Apparently you need to go into settings and turn off automatic orientation
Anyone having luck with getting it to run?
So how long before we see the camera app extracted and running on our phones?
Emulator is horrendesly slow. I know it's a preview sdk but urg...
The launcher keeps crashing for me, it worked one but wanted to change resolution so closed it
I think the launcher only works at the default resolution.
I changed the scale when you launch the avd to fit it on my screen
What is new for honeycomb? Sorry if I sound like a noob
Sent from my HTC Hero CDMA using XDA App
The OS seems to be lagging. It could be the hardware or maybe its the infancy stages of Honeycomb, but not a single thing on the TF is smooth.
-Switching home screens lags
-Playing Angry Birds lags
-Window animations lag
[Q] Is anyone else getting these problems?
It kind of hinders the experience, and for industry leading specs, the performance is quite poor.
The only lag I've noticed so far is with the keyboard input on web pages.
denverseven said:
The OS seems to be lagging. It could be the hardware or maybe its the infancy stages of Honeycomb, but not a single thing on the TF is smooth.
-Switching home screens lags
-Playing Angry Birds lags
-Window animations lag
[Q] Is anyone else getting these problems?
It kind of hinders the experience, and for industry leading specs, the performance is quite poor.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried using Advance Task Killer to kill background running apps or processes? This helps me when I experienced any lags.
I have never experienced lag on Angry Birds, but then again you may be running more apps than me.
denverseven said:
The OS seems to be lagging. It could be the hardware or maybe its the infancy stages of Honeycomb, but not a single thing on the TF is smooth.
-Switching home screens lags
-Playing Angry Birds lags
-Window animations lag
[Q] Is anyone else getting these problems?
It kind of hinders the experience, and for industry leading specs, the performance is quite poor.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I experienced this a few days after I got my tablet. It ended up being an app/widget I had installed off of the market called weather3d. As soon as I tracked the problem down and uninstalled the app, it was smooth again. Kind of scary how much a wonky/non honeycomb tested app can destroy the performance of your device.
jimbob1971 said:
I have never experienced lag on Angry Birds, but then again you may be running more apps than me.
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Click to collapse
I checked out my memory usage, at the moment the tablet is telling me I am using 157 mb and have 353 mb of Ram left.
evensen007 said:
I experienced this a few days after I got my tablet. It ended up being an app/widget I had installed off of the market called weather3d. As soon as I tracked the problem down and uninstalled the app, it was smooth again. Kind of scary how much a wonky/non honeycomb tested app can destroy the performance of your device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately, it was lagging out of the box. I was showing it off to my sister and she's like "what are you trying to show me, the sketchy transitions?"
Maybe its all the widgets? I have all the stock ones including calendar, youtube, android market, and browser widgets
Mine is laggy too especially during home screen transitions using the HC launcher. It is noticeable especially if you are coming from an iPad. I have read that 3.1 fixes these problems and transitions are silky smooth with no lag. I'm currently using Launcher Pro with 1 home screen since I don't use widgets and I like to keep all my apps on one screen. This seems to save on RAM and makes app switching smoother.
denverseven said:
Unfortunately, it was lagging out of the box. I was showing it off to my sister and she's like "what are you trying to show me, the sketchy transitions?"
Maybe its all the widgets? I have all the stock ones including calendar, youtube, android market, and browser widgets
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have all of the stock widgets and then some. Runs as fast as any other tab I've seen including if ad. I'm also running the newer firmware 8.2.3.9.
evensen007 said:
I have all of the stock widgets and then some. Runs as fast as any other tab I've seen including if ad. I'm also running the newer firmware 8.2.3.9.
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Click to collapse
How much RAM is everyone getting. My tablet is reading out 185 mb being used and 380 mb free, so a total of 565 mb.
I know the tablet is supposed to have 1 gb of RAM.
Turn the Live Wallpaper off.
denverseven said:
How much RAM is everyone getting. My tablet is reading out 185 mb being used and 380 mb free, so a total of 565 mb.
I know the tablet is supposed to have 1 gb of RAM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
that's shared memory (with video)
atxer said:
Turn the Live Wallpaper off.
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Click to collapse
I don't have live wallpaper. Plus, if I did, isn't it supposed to handle it?
I was getting lag with the default launcher, right now using VTL Launcher and its much better. I am getting lag with the browser (default) but with the debug tweak pages are loading much faster then before but theres times when it does lag. Was getting lag with the asus keyboard and just the android one and its much better.
Like any techsupport would ask:
what have u loaded on-the-job tablet? And don't say nothing because everyone loads at least one thing on a new tablet.
Have u tried to remove all installed apps (and Flash-bet u installed that)?
Have u rooted it yet?
Have u tried to root it yet?
Have u attempted/completed any firmware upgrades?
Are u using a dock?
Have u tried it without the dock?
Have u tried a hard reboot (hold power button for 12-15 secs?
i get panel transition lags when i set some live wallpapers
stock, no root, with latest firmware
If u want no lag and and want to use as many widgets with out system lagging do this
1 download ADW ex in market
2 go to adw setting and go to general behavior,animations and effects, transition effect and select *Curve ( I've tryed all pf them and some reason curve has the best fluid swiping)
4 make sure wallpaper scrolling is disabled
5 set desktop bounce to 15
6 set scrolling to 230
This is my way of a lag free life.
Also turn off alm the gestures there not needed
Ill do a video of before and after soon
You are correct...that really made my home screens fly!
unknown_owner said:
Like any techsupport would ask:
what have u loaded on-the-job tablet? And don't say nothing because everyone loads at least one thing on a new tablet.
Have u tried to remove all installed apps (and Flash-bet u installed that)?
Have u rooted it yet?
Have u tried to root it yet?
Have u attempted/completed any firmware upgrades?
Are u using a dock?
Have u tried it without the dock?
Have u tried a hard reboot (hold power button for 12-15 secs?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
-First thing out of the box: lag from scrolling. Then got flash, still lagging
-then got Angry Birds
-then got other android apps
-Not rooted, haven't tried
-just got notice of available firmware update today, will do after battery charges past 50
-No dock
-hard reboot did help a touch
I think I will try to restore it factory settings first, then runnig the firware upgrade, then getting flash. Will post results
Good News! I restored the tablet to factory settings and actually restored it from backup after that. Here is what I have noticed:
-The tablet is working much faster now, with no appreciable lag. Still some tiny amounts here and there but totally forgivable
-The preloaded music (4 songs) was gone. I think this means that before the ship the tablet they preload it with random software. So now its all gone, and whatever was causing the slow down before is gone now as well.
-I restored from back up so I have all my apps back as well as flash and it works perfect
-Also, the Asus keyboard no longer lags! Which is great because I like it better than the Android one. So if anyone wants to use the Asus keyboard without lag, just reset your tablet to factory settings.
Thanks for all the help everyone, I will still try Cowballz69 idea to speed it up even more
all phone now are try to put ICS on their mobile phone...but i want to know ICS is good or not on our mobile phone? ICS give better performance or not? better memory management? sorry for my bad english..
more features and new layout, runs smother, i might flash ics when the rom is avalibable on my phone but i personaly like cm7 2.3, the whole layout to me is great but ics looks very tempting!
I've tried it on my Motorola Atrix and it looks pretty cool. Widgets are available by picking them up from the app-drawer. You can resize widgets and apps to fit them to the screen.
But I read, that google collects to much stuff, such as credit-card numbers (you can skip this point, but some won't recognize it, see http://www.googlewatchblog.de/2011/11/android-ics-fragt-nach-google-account-kreditkarten-daten/ (sorry, it's in German)).
I've tried the KANG rom (CM9). Camera doesn't work yet, but it looks nice. But for me too less hardware for my Atrix is supportet (HDMI, webtop, fingerprint-scanner...).
But if it's running, I will switch from blured-roms to CM9 ICS
Yeah I'm really wondering about the face unlock and especially the resizable widgets. Does anyone know about how many could fit on screen when resized to the smallest setting? This has been one thing I thought they should have done a long time ago.
I can get the calendar widget down to 2x2.
I'm running sandvolds ics for desire and it is very smooth.
Resizeable widgets
Stacking icons into folders
Can remove apps from the app drawer
Voice commands work quite well, but there is room for improvement