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I have read some good number of articles about using or not using a task killer on android phones, I am leaning at the moment to not having one (as i have not installed one and i have had my phone. For about a week or two now). I am extremely interested in hearing some opinions flrom my fellow xda members.
Thanks in advanced for some friendly debate over the issue
-Dave
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
There are already numerous threads about this. Do a quick research and you'll find lots of debates going on.
For example, http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=744101
What's your point to start a new one?
You only need it in emergencies. At first I used it often and decided I was just paranoid and uninstalled it. Device then worked more smoothly then when I was using it. You may get a little nervous about it saying that it only has 70M left, but that's not really true. Most of the apps that you exit out of don't get used by the CPU anymore and just sit in memory (not doing anything). When you launch another app, that applications gets moved out of memory and the new one gets active.
If you install a lot of 3 star apps (crappy apps) and notice that your battery is going low fast or phone getting hot, then use it as it is an emergency. Just try not to make it a habit.
Do not use a task killer unless an app is frozen! It only slows down your phone and causes bugs. Your apps have to reopen every time you want to use it, which only slows things down. It's also possible for apps to lose data because they get stopped prematurely.
Besides, freeing up ram won't make your phone go faster. If the ram isn't being used, then it's doing nothing at all. A phone with 500MB free would be just as fast as a phone with 20MB free.
I used advanced task killer for a while but uninstalled it because i couldnt come up with a set of tasks that i would always want killed.
Plus the purist in me doesnt like the idea of automatically terminating a thread without some kind of collaboration between the threads involved. How does task killer know that any given thread is at a good stopping point?
It seems that background tasks were not nearly as big a drain on battr life as having gps on all the time. Once I installed the power widget on my home screen toggling gps took care of that.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
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
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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
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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
Hey what's up everyone. Anyone know why there is so much RAM being used on the phone? As soon as I bought the phone without installing any apps, I'll open the task manger and see over 430mb's of memory being used, giving me a little over 100mb's left. I'll run 3 apps, bring it into the 80-90mb's left and the phone gets laggy.
Anyone know why the phone is using so much memory with nothing running In the Task manager? I never see it under 400mb's of use.
Thanks
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA App
Is it the same after a reboot?
For my Sensation, I've noticed that after a few times using it and playing with it, the avaliable RAM decreases even if I have no more than 5 apps running
Rebooting the Sensation gives me fresh RAM.
Also you may use a taskiller or task manager, that will show you much more running tasks than what is displayed by the stock HTC task manager
HTC's task manager is not even showing the right amount of ram. Go into menu->settings->applications->running and look at your ram there.
I just pulled the battery out and turned the phone back on. Says 468mb's are being used. Have around 110 availible.
Borodin, thanks. I'll try that. But I've noticed after 5 apps running. The phone will get real laggy. I came from an HTC HD7 and I loved how smooth it was. Not seeing that in this phone much...but still like it.
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA App
I'm not saying that it's not ridiculous that Sense 3.0 is using that much RAM, I'm just saying that may be we have more mem available then we think.
In my phone right now:
HTC's readings are 438 used/120 free
Android's readings are 253 used/263 free.
Phone definitely needs a make over as Sense is just bogging it down.
Supposedly has something to do with the 2.3 Android system
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA Premium App
Yes I don't know why the two are reporting different amounts. But I have a feeling that the one in the running services is showing the correct value.
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA Premium App
I installed ADW ex & checked a few times to see how much ram I had and it shows a little over 200mb free(in tsk mngr). Not to mention this thing is now snappy as hell.
Sent from my HTC Feeling.
Strange, I can reach a max of 338Mb free (according to a task killer and an external task manager from the market) after a reboot and after having killed all unecessary tasks. I use settings=>apps=>running apps to kill some tasks, and taskiller to kill some other, because both of them don't display all of the running tasks and display some that the other doesn't display.
After two days of (eavy?) use, doing the same trick to kill al unwantesd tasks, I can't go over 200 or sometimes 150MB so I reboot.
Just like most modern os you don't have to worry about memory. Android will take care of it. Also remember, if you're not using the memory its useless. It's better to have 10mb of memory free always as long as you don't notice issues. Apart from apps there are cached apps, buffers and other things loaded to keep the phone speedy. Just don't look or think about it and definitely don't use a task killer.
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA App
.....or at least, use a task killer very carefuly if you use one, set it to ignore all the system tasks, and also all tasks the OS will always keep on puting ON again indefinitly if they are killed, your wallpaper, any media related app, etc
(after each reboot, I have Gmail, the reader, news, weather, facebook, messaging, etc opened in the background for nothing, I definitly prefer killing it as they will start again normaly if I need them)
But right, except for N64oid and Fpse, I have never been bothered by too low RAM on the Sensation. And when that happened on these 2 emulators, it was after 2 days of heavy use without any reboot, so....^^
mobilehavoc said:
Just like most modern os you don't have to worry about memory. Android will take care of it. Also remember, if you're not using the memory its useless. It's better to have 10mb of memory free always as long as you don't notice issues. Apart from apps there are cached apps, buffers and other things loaded to keep the phone speedy. Just don't look or think about it and definitely don't use a task killer.
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree with you 100%, and again with your comment about the task killer. Don't install a task killer, and don't obsess about killing about with the built in task killer. Since 2.2 android has done an amazing job at managing and using available resources. It's pre-loading services and apps into memory to have things launch sooner, etc. When the system runs out of available memory it will kill whatever apps it feels it needs to kill in order to give the smoothest experience possible.
Paging Dr B said:
I agree with you 100%, and again with your comment about the task killer. Don't install a task killer, and don't obsess about killing about with the built in task killer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The only reason I have a task killer now is if anything is loading for no reason. With that I found that VTOK & Movies by Flixster were always running & causing the phone to never sleep & draining my battery. They were always listed as in the foreground (along with Tmobile's Wifi Calling & MyAccount apps).
Bloatware!! The sooner it can be removed, the better.
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using Tapatalk
I've noticed that rosie uses alot of ram on every sense build. But 3.0 is a little over the top. It gets killed quite easily as well after using the xda app, browser, and download manager for example. And then sense has to completely reload... Htc obviously noticed it a little late in the game and was quick to make miniscule changes in a desperate attempt to conserve ram usage. No scrolling wallpaper? On a dualcore 1.2ghz processor? Really? Lockscreen lag? Lag at all? Can't wait fire a cooked sense 3.0 rom. The difference will be tremendous!
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA App
Android is at its most efficient when the memory is being fully utilised. Don't think of memory usage in Windows terms.
crx4xharder said:
No scrolling wallpaper? On a dualcore 1.2ghz processor? Really?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ask and you shall recieve, and that's what HTC just did. The no-scrolling wallpaper is considered a UI feature just as it is on the Galaxy S 2. It's also standard on ADW-EX and Launcher pro. I personally dig the stationary wallpaper.
what have you got so bad against task killers??
You just say "don't use it", without any explanation....
I use one, like I do on my 2 other Android devices, my Sensation is extremely stable, and I don't want to lose fps when I use Fpse or N64oid, sorry to tell you you're wrong: having less than 150MB ram, because many apps are running in the background, when starting one of these 2 emus, makes fps drop, or frameskip less efficient.
Try it yourself if you don't believe me.
i900frenchaddict said:
what have you got so bad against task killers??
You just say "don't use it", without any explanation....
I use one, like I do on my 2 other Android devices, my Sensation is extremely stable, and I don't want to lose fps when I use Fpse or N64oid, sorry to tell you you're wrong: having less than 150MB ram, because many apps are running in the background, when starting one of these 2 emus, makes fps drop, or frameskip less efficient.
Try it yourself if you don't believe me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, I don't use emulators. I also don't have a sensation, so I can't comment on gaming on one. I have however played just about every game imaginable on my SGS1 and have never had to worry about closing an app to play any game. The main reason why I tell people like the OP to not use task killers is because they tend to begin automatically killing tasks(the people using them, not the app on it's own), and since the newer versions of android behave they do, those tasks just end up starting again which then leads to an endless loop of task killing, and battery drains for no reason. I also make it a habit of restarting my phones once a day or two, so I never really give the devices to get bogged down with extra crap running. I'm just saying that's my experience. If you like it, then so be it. Kill away.
Another thing you may want to try is, backing out of all of your running apps instead of being addicted to the home button. Home leaves the apps running and using resources; Backing out closes them and keeps the universe in a zen like state. I love the home button, when I know i'm going back to use a certain app immediately. If not then I back out.
allright, I agree with what you say.
Luckilly, I've set my Taskiller not to endlessly kill tasks that always start again (and actually, Taskiller doesn't display them, or don't kill them automatically or in one click on the widget, only if you go to the app itself and select force kill, what I never do knowing they will start again asap).
I mainly use it, from its widget, to kill everything related to messaging, gmail, facebook, reader, tutorial, etc, that tend to start automatically and never stop when I connect datas or reboot the Sensation.
I also most of the time try to back out instead of home button, but for a few apps, it may be loooonng because it will display a lot of pages back before killing the app.
As for newer versions of RAM management, it also depends on the ROM I suppose.
With my stock SFR/Vodafone french ROM, after, let's say, 2 days of use, the RAM goes under 170Mb, even if I close all tasks, I don't know where RAM is drained, I'm pretty sure my stock ROM is responsible for it, so I reboot every day or every 2 days too.
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.