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so i found out how to force close apps under settings but theres gotta be a better way.
for example lets say i have browser, market, and facebook apps open. all showing under the window selection button. after time i get a ton of windows there and i don't want all of them open. how do i close them selectively without going through all the settings menu crud?
some apps let me close from within, most don't though and leave me stuck with a ton of windows (apps) open.
What you are asking isn't necessary unless an application has malfunctioned. There is no other way to close applications other than using the force close button in settings. Android handles this itself -- if this doesn't satisfy you download a task manager.
I don't think there is a way yet.
What Google needs to do is make those preview windows in the multitasking bar long-pressable for a menu to be able to close them.
modru2004 said:
so i found out how to force close apps under settings but theres gotta be a better way.
for example lets say i have browser, market, and facebook apps open. all showing under the window selection button. after time i get a ton of windows there and i don't want all of them open. how do i close them selectively without going through all the settings menu crud?
some apps let me close from within, most don't though and leave me stuck with a ton of windows (apps) open.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is no need to manually close out apps. Since 2.1, Android has done an excellent job managing memory. It's been written many times (some directly from Google) that micromanaging your apps will actually hurt battery performance. You'll essentially be working against the system as opposed to helping it.
I am not sure if my task manager is working on this device. I use AutoKiller and when I killed task it doesn't appear as though anything closes. Can somebody confirm?
atoy74 said:
There is no need to manually close out apps. Since 2.1, Android has done an excellent job managing memory. It's been written many times (some directly from Google) that micromanaging your apps will actually hurt battery performance. You'll essentially be working against the system as opposed to helping it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
id like to point out thats NOT the issue.
the issue is the ton of windows you end up having to sort through unless you close them. its a quality of life thing, i don't like having unused unnecessary windows open that i have to sort through to get to the stuff i am using. its just bad form.
foldog22 said:
I am not sure if my task manager is working on this device. I use AutoKiller and when I killed task it doesn't appear as though anything closes. Can somebody confirm?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It will most likely not work until its rewritten. The way 2.2 and now 3.0 allow access is completely different then 2.1 and below. Plus as said about 200 million task there is 0 reason to run a task killer. If you wanna clear them out, even though there is 0 reason, reboot.
Okay, I get the memory management issue, but as the OP pointed out, I've got all sorts of icons in the "task bar area" (bottom right hand corner) that just sit there or keep coming back.
For example, I haven't listened to any music on my Xoom since yesterday morning, yet I've got an icon down there for Music and Rhapsody. Also, there's no way to clear some notifications.
There's got to be a way to at least clear out the notification isn't there?
you tap on the little icon music for example and you will see a little x on the right of it, click that and it closes it from the notification system
There is absolutely no reason to use a task killer or manually kill tasks. 2.2, 2.3, 3.0, etc. handle memory and tasks extremely well. In many cases, task killers will only cost you more battery and more slowdowns than letting tasks just run out and sit in memory. Unless you're seeing rogue or malfunctioning tasks in the background causing slowdowns, there is no need to kill them.
I do wish you could scroll through the recent running apps rather than only being able to access the latest 5, but spam closing background apps doesnt help at all.
arrtoodeetoo said:
I don't think there is a way yet.
What Google needs to do is make those preview windows in the multitasking bar long-pressable for a menu to be able to close them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
While I haven't used a task manager since I started learning how android actually works last year when starting to make apps, I can't help but want the same thing in honeycomb for malfunctioning apps. I think google left it out intentionally to discourage task-killing rampages by oblivious users.
Every time I read "you do not need to close apps" I want to scream. first hour of usage I had a second browser installed and it and the stock browser were conflicting with each other... all I wanted to do was a quick close of one of the browsers.
There are always a multitude of good reasons to want to close a background app. I completely understand the technical reasons why an app does not need to be closed, but from a user experience point of view, it should be made simple.
mjpacheco said:
Every time I read "you do not need to close apps" I want to scream. first hour of usage I had a second browser installed and it and the stock browser were conflicting with each other... all I wanted to do was a quick close of one of the browsers.
There are always a multitude of good reasons to want to close a background app. I completely understand the technical reasons why an app does not need to be closed, but from a user experience point of view, it should be made simple.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Which is exactly why in my first post I said "...isn't necessary unless an application has malfunctioned" otherwise such a thing is barely necessary. And in your case, the classic "Settings > ....... > Force Close" would have easily sufficed.
So what you are saying is that a method to kill tasks is necessary, just not often. I, for instance, just had the xda app stuck on the splash screen. I killed it and restarted the app and all was good. There is a potential for harm if used over zealously but at times it would be nice if there was a more convenient way to close an app when necessary.
Applications do not always behave as they should so to say there is no need to kill am app is making a naive assumption that every android app is perfect.
Sent from my Xoom using XDA App
martonikaj said:
I do wish you could scroll through the recent running apps rather than only being able to access the latest 5, but spam closing background apps doesnt help at all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oddly enough, if you turn to portrait, you get a few more. So, technically its not a hard limit on 5, but rather (literally) limited by space on the screen.
Anyone want to place a bet as to what rev we see scrollability?
Sent from my Evo using the XDA App
JanetPanic said:
So what you are saying is that a method to kill tasks is necessary, just not often. I, for instance, just had the xda app stuck on the splash screen. I killed it and restarted the app and all was good. There is a potential for harm if used over zealously but at times it would be nice if there was a more convenient way to close an app when necessary.
Applications do not always behave as they should so to say there is no need to kill am app is making a naive assumption that every android app is perfect.
Sent from my Xoom using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If this happens use the built in task killer, settings/applications/running tab.
Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk
bwcorvus said:
If this happens use the built in task killer, settings/applications/running tab.
Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did and it worked. As I said it would be nice to have a more convenient way of force stopping apps that are not behaving.
Sent from my Xoom using XDA App
Closing apps isn't necessary for two reasons.
1. Android does a good job at managing apps on its own.
2. You have 1GB of RAM to work with.
Sent from my HTC Vision using Tapatalk
Watchdog does a considerable job since it only lets you know when an app is misbehaving. And since being on 2.3 its barely given me any alerts. Perhaps further proving the awesome memory management.
Sent from my Xperia X10 using XDA App
delete please
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.
Click to expand...
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.
Click to expand...
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.
Click to expand...
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
i installed mango RTM over the weekend and its been great. as i've been playing with it i've noticed 2 things
1. if you're texting with someone and you place the messaging app into "standby" (press windows button) and you get a text msg notification toast, if you click the toast it opens up a new copy of the messaging app. you can verify this by going into the multitasking switcher, you'll see 2 panels of "messaging". is this a bug or is this how its supposed to be?
2. i'm not really a big user of facebook chat but i am on gmail all the time so i was wondering if there's any way we can hack gchat on? gchat and fb chat both use the jabber protocol and since fb chat is enabled natively, we know there's a possibility of it being supported. any ideas?
thanks!
1: The "Multitasking" fast App switcher isn't showing instances of open apps. It's just showing recently use apps. Every app is in stand by mode if you don't "Back" out of them with the Back Button. The Task Switcher also has a 5 page limit. Apps outside that limit are still open/standby, just not in the list. At least this is how I believe it works. No way to tell till we have enough resume enabled apps that are Mango compatible to test this more. It's not the greatest implementation of Multitasking IMO. My 2 complains is this multiple pages of the same app issue that you mentioned & the 5 page limitation. When I'm really active on my phone, I can see this being an issue. Not a deal breaker, more of an annoyance.
1. The task switcher just show what you've done last. Also, native apps are always running and are not confine to the same restrictions as 3rd party apps.
2. Now that Microsoft open up Marketplace for Mango apps submissions, it won't be long before unofficial Google Talk apps show up.
Something that I noticed with wonder reader. Dont know if it's how the app is made, but..
When you open it, you hit windows (home) button, and hit back, it just come back instantly. But if you open it using the tile, it dont resume. It re-open it and it's not instantly.
Anyone else noticed?
mikeeam said:
Something that I noticed with wonder reader. Dont know if it's how the app is made, but..
When you open it, you hit windows (home) button, and hit back, it just come back instantly. But if you open it using the tile, it dont resume. It re-open it and it's not instantly.
Anyone else noticed?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Microsoft made a conscious design decision that apps started from the tile (on the Start screen or app list) are started as a new instance. The only way to fast app switch is by going through the backstack (either navigating sequentially via the back key or directly via the app switcher). I believe "a consistent user experience" was cited as the reason for this behavior.
This is quite different than in iOS, where the app switcher AND the home screen icon will fast resume an app (if still in memory). And that is why iOS has a way to delete apps from the app switcher, because that's the only way to start a new instance (it's also why Windows Phone doesn't need a way to clear apps from the app switcher). I happen to think Apple's design is better because more often than not, a user is looking to resume an experience, no matter how they end up starting app; therefore it should be the default behavior.
With Windows Phone deep linking, clicking on a secondary tile, toast notification, or a search extension can launch directly into a "page" inside the app, but it still takes time to fire up new instances of the app and the page.
You might also be interested to know that an app can only appear in the backstack once. So if you open an app using the main tile, then to go to the Start screen and start it again with a secondary tile, it'll knock the first instance off the backstack.
Anyway, probably more than you ever wanted to know but hope this clears it up.
Anthony
Wonder Reader
Hello there.
First, i'm not trolling.. I just want to be sure i'm not msising anything here.
I've been using Mango for a while, and with some mango updated apps here. Like Gchat, Tasks, Wonder Reader.. Well, I noticed something:
The multitask just works when you use the back button. So if you go to another app, come back to home and open it in tiles, it will reload the whole app instead of resuming. Seriously?!
Or is this an option to developers?
Please, tell me i'm wrong. I love WP7 too much to handle a glitch like this ;/
Thank you guys.
I would say this is up to the developer. There's a resume hack that exists in NoDo, which requires editing one of the app's XML's.
Resumable XAP Tool v0.1 Release
drkfngthdragnlrd said:
I would say this is up to the developer. There's a resume hack that exists in NoDo, which requires editing one of the app's XML's.
Resumable XAP Tool v0.1 Release
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, but resuming apps just works when you use fast switch or back button. Not in home opening the app..
mikeeam said:
Yeah, but resuming apps just works when you use fast switch or back button. Not in home opening the app..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
From the home you just open another instance of the same app ..you are not multitasking ...
If an app let you open multiply instances of its self (the app) its have nothing to do with multitasking.
And by the way i like the title of your thread !!!!! Really ???? Most of the mobile industry agree that the WP7 multitasking its one of the best ...
colossus_r said:
From the home you just open another instance of the same app ..you are not multitasking ...
If an app let you open multiply instances of its self (the app) its have nothing to do with multitasking.
And by the way i like the title of your thread !!!!! Really ???? Most of the mobile industry agree that the WP7 multitasking its one of the best ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But it has to do with the way it's coded or the system does that automatically? Because, seriously, I dont see where it's better than just re-open the same instance that is already opened. Takes much more time.
mikeeam said:
But it has to do with the way it's coded or the system does that automatically? Because, seriously, I dont see where it's better than just re-open the same instance that is already opened. Takes much more time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its app related ...Some apps they do let you open more that one instance ...some other they dont
mikeeam said:
But it has to do with the way it's coded or the system does that automatically? Because, seriously, I dont see where it's better than just re-open the same instance that is already opened. Takes much more time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think that the motivation behind that is that most users wont actively multitask with more than 2-3 apps at a time, and for that holding the back button will suffice just fine. For most users there's better to go to a new instance instead of returning to the old one when they've spent a long time doing something else, and mostly I agree with this.
As smarthphone user (and developer for HTC Charmer few years ago) since 2003, I must agree. I'm really disapointed with WP7 parody to multitasking. Hope things will go better when Nokia reveals their WP devices and more users will force MS to relook their policy.
Cracking this and breaking through this system is currently nonsense - you can only lost excellent WP7 stability and performance. This step must come from core MS developers...
Hope they started WP7 the same way as they did in case of Windows 7 - they started to use "tiny core" minwin architecture which is highly modular. In windows 8, minwin kernel idea is pushed further and it can only be better. This modular core architecture allows them to add major functions without need of complete rewriting the code. WP8 could be a really great system if its handled this way
I wish multitasking was option, as you can turn it off and on via settings. I rarely if ever use it. Its pretty annoying how it works.
Sent from my HD7 using XDA Windows Phone 7 App
There's a difference between third party apps versus the first party apps provided by Microsoft.
First party apps can have multiple entries in the app switcher (One example is the Messaging app where you'll see multiple chat sessions in the back stack).
Third party apps can only have one entry in the app switcher list at any one time. If you have a third party app in the back stack and you start a new instance of it by tapping on its main or secondary app tile, the previous instance of the app is removed from the back stack. So even if an app has multiple entry points (such as if it has more than one tile pinned on the Start screen), it'll only ever appear once in the app switcher. As far as I know, there is no way for a dev to change this behavior.
And it's true that opening an app via its tile will start a new instance, and this is the opposite of what iOS does. I've already described it in some detail here...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=17171504&postcount=5
Since Mango and iOS are the only 2 major phone OS's that do fast app switching, I'd have to agree that Mango's implementation is worse than iOS's.
(Not to be picky, but this is technically not "multitasking". Multitasking on Windows Phone involves the use of background agents. And IMO it has a better multitasking API than iOS because it has periodic agents that can be scheduled.)
SuperSlacker said:
There's a difference between third party apps versus the first party apps provided by Microsoft.
First party apps can have multiple entries in the app switcher (One example is the Messaging app where you'll see multiple chat sessions in the back stack).
Third party apps can only have one entry in the app switcher list at any one time. If you have a third party app in the back stack and you start a new instance of it by tapping on its main or secondary app tile, the previous instance of the app is removed from the back stack. So even if an app has multiple entry points (such as if it has more than one tile pinned on the Start screen), it'll only ever appear once in the app switcher. As far as I know, there is no way for a dev to change this behavior.
And it's true that opening an app via its tile will start a new instance, and this is the opposite of what iOS does. I've already described it in some detail here...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=17171504&postcount=5
Since Mango and iOS are the only 2 major phone OS's that do fast app switching, I'd have to agree that Mango's implementation is worse than iOS's.
(Not to be picky, but this is technically not "multitasking". Multitasking on Windows Phone involves the use of background agents. And IMO it has a better multitasking API than iOS because it has periodic agents that can be scheduled.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I couldnt find that post, and thought no one answered. Glad to see you did. Yes, it helped a lot. I really love this OS, but forcing me to use back button instead of just resuming the app is lame.
Most of users just want it to be fast. Dont care about how they close, or how they open it. Me included. MS could just change it, using the same API as now. Opening in tiles resume the instance. Way faster for most of users.
Now I'm going to try to get used to it. Or just go back to iOS, unfortunately.
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.