Develop Bugs

Task manager or no task manager

When I got my desire it was stable and fast the more I put on it the slower it gets . I've tried numerous task killers and some of them screw the phone up . On one thread someone suggested leaving the phone to manage its own background programs . What does everyone thing is it better with no task manager ?
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My personal choice is to leave taskiller off the desire. I put a taskiller on and almost immedietly the phone started acting wierd eventually getting into some sort of loop rebooting itself. After many reboots it eventually gave me enough time to uninstall the taskiller. Obviously that was the problem as it has never repeated itself since. My phone runs fine without it.

I really cannot understand why people use task killers. As I have said before if you are a real expert and you have a badly behaved program that you have to use you might just have to use of a task killer.
If you are not a real expert or are even asking the question don't use one. You will almost certainly end up with worse performance and decreased battery life.
I have 60 plus applications on my Desire and don't suffer any slowdowns or other problems. There is just no need for task killers/managers. This is NOT windows!
Android has a built in task killer. It's pretty good and IMHO difficult to improve on.

Kill Task Killers!!
Agree with others, you only need it to kill a rogue app without reset.

I have around 100 apps and the only semi-slowdown I can feel is by putting complex widgets and live wallpapers together. Otherwise I've tried some of these task killers and even killing all the 20-30 processes 'frozen' or active in the background had no effect.
Still I keep it in order to kill those badly designed applications that have some glitches in going back to the main screen or rarely get stuck.
I would think that if you experience some problems they are not related to the quantity of applications open in background, but rather by a single one that has some design flaw.

andycted said:
I have around 100 apps and the only semi-slowdown I can feel is by putting complex widgets and live wallpapers together. Otherwise I've tried some of these task killers and even killing all the 20-30 processes 'frozen' or active in the background had no effect.
Still I keep it in order to kill those badly designed applications that have some glitches in going back to the main screen or rarely get stuck.
I would think that if you experience some problems they are not related to the quantity of applications open in background, but rather by a single one that has some design flaw.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well said.
The trouble is people use a task killer when they don't have a problem. They just kill apps. without a clue what they are doing.
I repeat don't use a task killer until you really have too.

and what about battery life?is too many running apps affecting battery?

polystirenman said:
and what about battery life?is too many running apps affecting battery?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Doesn't affect battery at all. Almost all apps. are suspended in the background when you move away from them. Task killers are the major cause of poor battery performance as killed apps. then have to be reloaded instead of resumed. Try switching between say six applications, and using them, with and without task killing. I bet you will see a massive performance gain without the task killer.

polystirenman said:
and what about battery life?is too many running apps affecting battery?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If an application keeps going in the background in some way/service it's because it's meant to be, like an updating rss feed reader, a live wallpaper, an email client pulling mail from the server, widgets or music player streaming/playing music. If you don't want those to run in the background you obviously should set them not to update, remove them from the desktop, stop them manually, etc.
Otherwise every other application you open and then leave when you switch to another application, gets stopped and 'frozen' in the state it had so that when you switch back to it or reopen it, you find it in the same state, giving you the impression of having been running in the background (but it didn't).
It's a smart way to combine the speed of single-running applications in dumb iphones and the flexibility of more complex os like WinMo. It's also apparently the same way as WP7 will work.
Like mentioned above by killing processes you mostly cause disruption in the pre-ordered way they work and probably cause more battery usage since they have to restart from scratch for the most part. More importantly real-time monitoring of processes and auto-killing them is most likely eating battery a lot since every real time monitoring does that, like many real time battery widgets and such.

Ok.thx for answers guys.i am geting rid of task killer right now.

Same here .. I'm a techie on most things obviously not Android must try harder !
Must admit did complete hard reset yesterday got rid of task killer after first posts phone seems more stable
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I have a task killer, but only for killing appliactions which aren't written good and causes some lag or they don't want to close..

I just looked at the comments on the Advanced Task Killer (free, high in the list in the Market).
I wanted to believe you guys here at XDA. But I went trough the comments on that ATK and 95% was 4 to 5 stars. All with reply's like:
"must have app"
"should be included in Android"
"doubled my battery life"
Now if SO many people say that, I can't imagine that they are all wrong. Why would they all lie?
I myself have been using that ATK for a while, killing only some things that don't close (like games,Facebook or Twitter, etc...)... battery life is still not as good as I would like it to be, but I only have had my Desire for a week.
Are you guys REALLY sure that stopping to use ATK will improve battery life?

XDA mark said:
I just looked at the comments on the Advanced Task Killer (free, high in the list in the Market).
I wanted to believe you guys here at XDA. But I went trough the comments on that ATK and 95% was 4 to 5 stars. All with reply's like:
"must have app"
"should be included in Android"
"doubled my battery life"
Now if SO many people say that, I can't imagine that they are all wrong. Why would they all lie?
I myself have been using that ATK for a while, killing only some things that don't close (like games,Facebook or Twitter, etc...)... battery life is still not as good as I would like it to be, but I only have had my Desire for a week.
Are you guys REALLY sure that stopping to use ATK will improve battery life?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Read this article:
http://geekfor.me/faq/you-shouldnt-be-using-a-task-killer-with-android/

it's the placebo effect. A While ago there was a thread on a winmo forum for a new overclocking application. It had tons of "amazing", "must have", "goes way faster", comments, it became incredibly popular. then the developer made public the fact that it was a social experiment and the application did absolutely nothing other than having a nice interface for reporting fake cpu .
As said if you have a single bad-behaving application (which is very rate) only kill or rather uninstall it. Games don't run in the background, battery becomes great after one-two weeks, but still you can't expect it to run for 10 hours of continuous heavy usage. Buy a second battery if you need that

XDA mark said:
Now if SO many people say that, I can't imagine that they are all wrong. Why would they all lie?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No one is saying they are lying - personally I see it more as a placebo effect, but I do understand there are certain situations where task killers come into there own. Having owned 3 Android phones though, I can say that in my case leaving Android to do its own thing works very well for me - I don't believe that it actually increases battery life significantly, but I do firmly believe it improves the overall stability of the platform.
One thing that probably should be added, is that using swap on an Android device will cause problems with Androids own internal resource management because it cannot distinguish between real memory and the virtual memory made available using swap. See here for more details. I wouldn't be at all surprised if those people who get the most "benefit" from task killers are also using swap.
Regards,
Dave

[Q] Whats the final verdict with "APP KILLERS"

I read and watch so many contradicting things about this subject, I just cannot seem to understand the truth..
I know Android works off of a linux type of OS, and that the memory function is superior to many others..
I read that having any app killer is actually bad because it drains your battery even more than if you don't have it, that the apps running in the background aren't really running as the memory or most of it is now running the application you're using.
Now what if the app killer program has a function that lets you disable the auto kill, I assume that is the part that runs and drains the battery?
would it be good then? or is it still bad?
Finally if so, do I even bother to close out the applications after a full days use?
It just seems very confusing when a large group of people tell you NO and a large group of people tell you YES.
and its reputable places too, not just amatures
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVWZFNHq0uQ

I would just like to add to your confusion by saying that I read that the new Android 2.2 API disables the ability to "kill" apps. It can kill background services or something to that effect, so the program is still in memory, but not actively performing operations or something. That's all paraphrased from a 3 month old memory, so take it with a grain of salt, but if that is true, is there any point to a Task Killer if you have Froyo?

Actually, thinking about a reply gave me a good idea. More on that some other time
Long story short: it all depends.
Short story long:
Anyways, task killers are not inheritly bad, but they are "dangerous". How dangerous depends entirely on how you use them. In general I would say, if you have a device with sufficient memory available, I would only use a task manager to manually kill games (only) that you played but are no longer playing, or some apps if you understand what they do and how they work. Generally we refer to task killers that do not have an automatic component as task managers instead of killers.
One danger is how the app is killed. If it is not killed "gracefully" corruption may occur. This is very rare to occur, though. Apps will almost always be killed gracefully.
Another danger is killing apps that are tied to background services. In most task killers (if not all) there is no way to see if they have such a background service. What most task killer display is actually only visible components of applications. However, killing them will also kill the background services. This may prompt Android to just restart it, but this time invisibly, and you just wasted quite some CPU (not to mention time) to save a little bit of memory you won't miss. Some services are hefty on the initialization but light on running on purpose, and this will make the effect bigger. Another option is that the service simply no longer runs -as it is NOT restarted- and some part of your phone may not behave as you expect it to. Common sense helps here. For example, you could kill the browser like this, but killing a system service app like (I assume) SetCPU, JuiceDefender, etc will generally be a bad idea. Automated task killers do not usually distinguish between these.
Now, Android's internal killer does distinguish between these things (and many more important factors). Say you are in this situation:
- A is running in the foreground
- B is in the background and has a service
- C is in the background
- D is in the background
If we run low on memory, Android will kill C and D before killing B, and it will kill B before killing A. Which is pretty much exactly how we want it done. Android will know when it is necessary to do this. An automated task killer may for example kill B. But B might automatically restart it's invisible parts. Then the automated task killer is in the same situation again, and will shortly after that kill C or D. This operation just wasted a whole bunch of CPU cycles!
Keep in mind, that if an application is not specifically built to do something while it is not in the foreground (i.e. directly visible on your screen), it will not actually be executing any code at all. It will just take up some memory. This is a good thing, because if you go to this app again it will still be exactly as you left it, without the app having to go through all the loading and initialization steps again. How much effect that has depends on the app, obviously. You should see this more as a cache, or ramdisk, or something similar. Well-built apps do generally not have a negative effect on CPU or battery use when they are not in the foreground. They would only use background resources if truely needed.
There is no noticable negative side effect on battery to this. If Android needs the memory and it doesn't have any to spare (for example for your foreground application), it will simply kill off one or more of the background applications.
Also keep in mind that if you "close" an app by using the back button, on many devices and ROMs this will actually close the application instead of keeping it in the background. There is no foreward button, after all.
Now, to the battery issue. I have seen, heard, and read endless complaints by many users regarding poor battery life, RAM being full (there is hardly any reason to care, on a proper firmware), etc. and that these task killers help them. The fact is, that 95 times out of 100 these users are running "a bunch of crap". Because make no mistake, there are a lot of crap apps, widgets, even complete custom ROMs out there. Using system resources when they don't need to, using background services when they don't need to, constantly polling data instead of being event based, etc. Just badly done stuff.
Finding the culprit is often difficult, though in my personal experience (your mileage may vary) the culprit is most often a app+widget combo rather than a bar app. That is, unless you install a serious hack (again, like CPU speed managers, battery savers, etc) and configure them exactly how they shouldn't be configured for your usage situation, with all the resulting adverse effects. When someone I know personally has these issues, the first thing I have them do is uninstall all apps that provide widgets. You would be surprised how often that has solved the issue altogether.
Automated task killers are a band-aid solution in these cases. Of course, there also exist cases of improperly configured Android memory management in the firmware, and if you have a device with very little RAM this can also be problematic, but these are much less common than the user installing crappy stuff (though sometimes it is the carrier with bad bloatware). Usually, automated task killers just fight symptoms, not the cause.
My advice would definitely be, check what you're running and what you install. If you're a bit techsavvy, use a task manager, but only kill tasks manually. Never "kill all" unless absolutely necessary, and don't run it automated unless you are absolutely sure the developer is worth his salt. Even then, don't make a habit out of killing apps manually. Do make a habit out of exiting apps (especially games) with the back button, instead of for example using the home button to switch to the app launcher.
A case can be made for manually killing apps as it gives you more control over what is killed when, but the time you would spend doing it is worth more than what you would save (generally). Also keep in mind that the automated task killer itself will also be running a background process to check on your situation and kill apps, and thus may actually be part of the problem instead of the solution.
@nukedukem: I'm running Froyo and the task manager I'm using kills apps just fine when I tell it to do so...

I say they are bad unless you have rogue apps. And even then they are not needed. Hit Menu-Settings-Applications-Manage Apps-Running Tab-Click App-Kill. But instead of that, you can make a widget on your homescreen that goes straight to it. Long press homescreen-shortcuts-settings-manage applications. Done. I use that when I want to kill a game or something eating CPU. Otherwise I just let Android do its thing. Also, I like Watchdog Lite. It monitors apps using the CPU and alerts you when one exceeds the threshold and gives you option to kill or ignore(app may have a legitimate reason for hogging CPU) the app in question. This is good because app or processes are really only hurting or effecting the battery when they are using the CPU, not RAM. However, another option for task management is Autokiller in the Market. It allows you to change Android's minfree settings, or internal task manager, to kill off apps sooner. I set mine to be aggressive. I actually never worry about task management. Unless Watchdog beeps at me. I think the last time I killed an app was 3 weeks ago. I remember the day Autokiller came out well. I had the HTC Hero back then. To do what that app does I had to change them manually each boot and eventually a script was made to change the settings. Those early days of Android were so much fun. ;D
If anymore questions let us know.

They are just like everything, use in moderation. I use mine all the time but I don't mess with system services and only use it to kill stuff I've been using.
And yes they still work in 2.2 as long as the app is not active

Too many programs running ? Fix?

I just installes arhd 2.1 rom and evrrything works fine.
I got most things installed.i need like twitter, fb, adv. task killer,
even auto startup killer, titanium, juice, setcpu and some more.
I disabled all notifications.
I prevent all startup apps i didnt want (all but 2,or 3)
I set sync to off. I checked all app settings twice.
Still there.are mostly like all apps running after i start my phone
And if i kill them it takes a while but they come back...
How to fix that ? Beside all my programms things like internet, mail, messages are also on.
My ram is down to like 210mb, when i kill its back to 480.
Thanks guys!

Android is nothing like windows.
Killing apps & processes to save memory is bad for your phone. Android handles its memory very well, and you killing apps interferes with that.
Apps are loaded into the RAM, for your convenience, if Android runs low on memory, it will decide what apps to kill.
I'm sure there is a guide that explains this.

andyharney said:
Android is nothing like windows.
Killing apps & processes to save memory is bad for your phone. Android handles its memory very well, and you killing apps interferes with that.
Apps are loaded into the RAM, for your convenience, if Android runs low on memory, it will decide what apps to kill.
I'm sure there is a guide that explains this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So (Auto)-Taskkillers are Bull**** ?
Also Startup Prevention ? Everything like that ?
Or anything "good" ? I guess SetCpu is something useful which comes
into that area.
If someone has a guide, give me a "call"

Task killers should only be used to kill rogue apps, apps that are poorly coded. They shouldn't be used to manage your memory.
SetCPU is kinda different, all it does is allow you to alter the speed of your CPU.

mydanny said:
So (Auto)-Taskkillers are Bull**** ?
Also Startup Prevention ? Everything like that ?
Or anything "good" ? I guess SetCpu is something useful which comes
into that area.
If someone has a guide, give me a "call"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I find it very difficult to understand people who are using taskillers in their phone. The whole point, i guess, is to save some battery? But do you know that taskillers run constantly and consume even more battery? And you might end up messing up with your system and experiencing lags/problems.
The memory management of android system is different than what we are used to. You should let android manage the memory. If you still want to quit some of the apps which you think are using up your memory, you can do it manually via "manage applications" in applications.
I m also using ARHD. And i don't use any taskillers/ startup managers. I never experienced lags when playing gameloft games (i tell you they require lots of memory) or angry birds. I have my wifi-on, sync on all the time.
SetCpu is used to manage the cpu speed of your DHD. This can be used to create profiles (or comes already with some profiles like ondemand etc.) and the program itself understands the need for memory and adjusts your cpu speed according to that. It might give you some more bat. life.
Of course what kind of programs we want to use in our DHD is upto us. And people will have a divided opinion on whether to use taskillers or not. But if you ask me (and my almost 3 years of android experience), you are better off without any taskillers.

sphuyal said:
I find it very difficult to understand people who are using taskillers in their phone. The whole point, i guess, is to save some battery? But do you know that taskillers run constantly and consume even more battery? And you might end up messing up with your system and experiencing lags/problems.
The memory management of android system is different than what we are used to. You should let android manage the memory. If you still want to quit some of the apps which you think are using up your memory, you can do it manually via "manage applications" in applications.
I m also using ARHD. And i don't use any taskillers/ startup managers. I never experienced lags when playing gameloft games (i tell you they require lots of memory) or angry birds. I have my wifi-on, sync on all the time.
SetCpu is used to manage the cpu speed of your DHD. This can be used to create profiles (or comes already with some profiles like ondemand etc.) and the program itself understands the need for memory and adjusts your cpu speed according to that. It might give you some more bat. life.
Of course what kind of programs we want to use in our DHD is upto us. And people will have a divided opinion on whether to use taskillers or not. But if you ask me (and my almost 3 years of android experience), you are better off without any taskillers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Word. Sounds convincing.
I will remove the **** from my phone - Task Killer and Startup Manager.
You also dislike Juice Defender ? I heard only positive things about battery.
Or is this 100% crap, too ?

mydanny said:
Word. Sounds convincing.
I will remove the **** from my phone - Task Killer and Startup Manager.
You also dislike Juice Defender ? I heard only positive things about battery.
Or is this 100% crap, too ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have never used Juice Defender but it is a OK app (it uses some bat. though). All i use i "currentwidget" to monitor what causes battery drain (if any). If i were you, i would see how the DHD goes along with/without juice defender for 48 hours. And then evaluate if i really need juice defender.

Killing apps is liking turning your car engine off on every street you go down. It's better to keep the engine running, it uses less petrol.
Same with memory management on Android, if you keep killing, it has to startup the app again each time you use it which actually uses more battery.
The only thing I use is setCPU on a smartass governor with a profile for when the screen goes off to reduce CPU usage to 450mhz. Mine idle's at 1-3ma.

What a bunch of rubbish. Task killers are an excellent easy to keep your phone running fast and smooth. They also save your battery by not letting tasks run in the background and eat battery unnecessarily.
I hope that wasn't too obvious a troll ...
Task killers suck. They are the Android equivalent of Windows registry cleaners. Sold to you to speed up your system but really they break it.
Sent from my super slick Android device.

dr.m0x said:
What a bunch of rubbish. Task killers are an excellent easy to keep your phone running fast and smooth. They also save your battery by not letting tasks run in the background and eat battery unnecessarily.
I hope that wasn't too obvious a troll ...
Task killers suck. They are the Android equivalent of Windows registry cleaners. Sold to you to speed up your system but really they break it.
Sent from my super slick Android device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You had me for a minute there

How do I stop apps auto opening

The title is basically the question, im fed up of alot of programs auto opening on my android phone, it takes battery and is slightly annoying receiving notifications off apps i dont really care about such as the NFL game tells me about small things in the NFL, im in the UK, i dont care.
If you argue that it doesnt take alot of battery currently have 117mb free ram, (2 secs later) killed all my selected apps now have 201mb free so im using 80mb of ram on apps im not using. Ive made 2 or 3 phone calls today no more than 30 mins long altogether and ive lost 55% of my battery since about midday, which is when i unplugged the phone.
And I think all these apps are the problem so how can I stop them from auto opening, please help

Search the market for startup cleaner
Sent from my A101IT using xda premium

yusuo said:
If you argue that it doesnt take alot of battery currently have 117mb free ram
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
More free RAM doesn't really equate to longer battery life or lower power consumption.

Better search for auto starts, this asp shows you the conditions an asp can turn back on and you can bin it off, Facebook for example had like 8 conditions, from full to medium battery life, on charge and change in network....... Use it
Sent from my HTC Desire using xda premium

rootSU said:
More free RAM doesn't really equate to longer battery life or lower power consumption.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There's still no reason for most of this apps to use RAM. Apps like facebook and skype shouldn't be actice without user permission. Without login they are complete useless.
I'll try Startup Cleaner, thx.

It's how android works and what RAM is for. There is always a reason.
Sure if someone doesn't use Facebook, it should be uninstallable, but its not and its not causing any harm
Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk

The problem isn't that apps start when I turn on the phone its that even after i use task manager to close they keep reopening and use over 100mb of ram, earlier I checked and only had 78mb ram available.
This must have an effect on battery to some degree i want to kinda ban certain apps from running in the background unless i specifically tell them to

RAM doesn't use more power, the more its used, no.
You don't need a task killer. You do not need to obsess about RAM. Forget about RAM and enjoy your phone
Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk

rootSU said:
RAM doesn't use more power, the more its used, no.
You don't need a task killer. You do not need to obsess about RAM. Forget about RAM and enjoy your phone
Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for you reply but its not really an answer its more of a contradiction, what I was asking is how to I stop apps from auto starting and eating up RAM, regardless of how long the phones been on

...and I'm telling you its a pointless, unecessary waste of time. Also it is not possible. Autostarts as already mentioned is the closest you'll get
Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk

I also turned off the autorun permissions of a lot of apps, for 2 reasons: 1) a device that is smooth sooner after booting, using less cpu cycles/power. 2) preventing Sense from reloading due to RAM shortage and have smooth multitasking.
1) Android loads a bunch of apps to the RAM that have the autorun permission, until it thinks it is "enough" and useful to you. No matter how many apps you have installed, the amount of free RAM is always about the same, just the number of "unwanted" apps in the RAM differs. Removing the autorun on boot permissions prevents the loading of unnecessary apps that will immediately be removed from the RAM the moment you start the browser/a game, saving cpu cycles=power. So for me there is no point in loading them in the first place, because I am never going to use them (right away). I want the apps that don't to any syncing loaded on demand.
2) I hate slow multitasking and I hate it even more when Sense reloads because it got kicked out of the RAM after each time I press HOME.
I use 3G Watchdog (~12MB RAM), Unlock with Wifi (~8MB), Whatsapp (~15MB), Handcent SMS (~18MB), Droidstats (~13MB), Extended Controls (~12MB), Battery Monitor Widget Pro (~13MB). Okay, I maybe could delete some of them, but these app are "OK" to me, because I use them actively or just need a background service to operate normally.
With Gemini I disabled apps like Facebook, a screenshot tool (just load when I want to make a screenshot..), various public transport planning tools, etc from autostarting.
No joy moment: after using the Facebook app (market version), it may take up 50+ MB and it will not be closed when I start another RAM intensive app, because it is a high priority service. Result: Sense gets kicked out of the RAM. Or, when the situation is somewhat less critical: multitasking is as good as unusable: switching between apps makes them load over and over again, because app2 kicks app1 out of the RAM and vice versa, causing unnecessary lag. Therefore: when I am done with facebook, I close it, then STAY the hell closed It may only autostart when it receives a push message. In that case it is nice to have FB already in RAM when I tap the notification.
Why do even some games have background services, or the Engadget app, or .. , or... all eating precious RAM. And yes, I know, once IN the RAM they eat no battery, but they DO eat battery when the app loads itself back in the RAM when it thinks it needs to, after it got kicked the moment I decided to so something else.
Hmm, spent way too much time to try to explain my frustration Oh and by the way, I have a Legend, but the basics are the same of course.

Dwnload an app called internet commander from the market. It shuts off the internet when your screen turns off but still let's you get calls and texts. I've got my phone , rooted of course, clocked to 710 and my battery will last for days.
Sent from my Eris using xda premium

I just re read your post, that won't help with apps but it will help save battery. And when you turn your screen on the internet kicks right on instantly. Good luck
Sent from my Eris using xda premium

yusuo said:
The problem isn't that apps start when I turn on the phone its that even after i use task manager to close they keep reopening and use over 100mb of ram, earlier I checked and only had 78mb ram available.
This must have an effect on battery to some degree i want to kinda ban certain apps from running in the background unless i specifically tell them to
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The guys here have already suggested you use a certain program from the Market. Have you tried it?
Regarding the whole RAM consumption issue, Android has its own built-in memory management system that ensures that there's always enough RAM for an app whenever it needs it, even if the memory manager shows like 40 MB free. Basically it "ejects" all background, unused apps, from memory making room for the foreground app which needs it most. If for some reason you need to fiddle with that, you can try using the V6 Supercharger script. I find it suitable for my needs but YMMV. It's completely reversible, so if you don't like it you can uninstall it just like that.
P.S. - I agree with rootSU, the ammount of free RAM has nothing to do with battery consumption. If you suspect that an app is draining your battery, check Android's battery statistics to find the culprit.

TVTV said:
Regarding the whole RAM consumption issue, Android has its own built-in memory management system that ensures that there's always enough RAM for an app whenever it needs it, even if the memory manager shows like 40 MB free. Basically it "ejects" all background, unused apps, from memory making room for the foreground app which needs it most. If for some reason you need to fiddle with that, you can try using the V6 Supercharger script. I find it suitable for my needs but YMMV. It's completely reversible, so if you don't like it you can uninstall it just like that.
P.S. - I agree with rootSU, the ammount of free RAM has nothing to do with battery consumption. If you suspect that an app is draining your battery, check Android's battery statistics to find the culprit.
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I respectfuly disagree. Android built in ram management is just silly. If I open xda app for example (it could actually be any app for that matter), reply to a few posts, read a few more and close it, why does it need to stay in ram? It reloads anyway when I run it again after I've closed it (using the back button or the actual exit command in the app itself). Why does the camera app need to stay in the background after I just shot a few photos and closed it? Because I may or may not use it again in some time? It's rediculous. And the whole theory that ram management doesn't require any power/cpu usage, how do you guys think all those apps get killed? Android will power?! No, kernel scans all running apps and kills the ones based on built in heuristics so it also reads them first. So that doesn't require any power/battery? Awesome if it's true! Although I wouldn't bet on that. And all this fuss just because you may or may not launch the same app sometime during the next day/week/month/year or it'll eventually get killed? Now that's just plain stupid. I get apps that need services like widgets, push notifications etc. but random apps like root explorer, xda app, titanium, youtube etc. which are opened specificly by the user shouldn't be in ram just for the sake of it after they're closed. I closed it, meaning I don't need it anymore. And I don't need the kernel to scan all apps and running services every time I launch an app so it could provide the free ram that app needs. Consumes cpu time, battery, i/o ... every piece of hardware actually just to free some ram that shouldn't be occupied in the first place. Every app that I ever opened on my phone got loaded almost instantly and that's just after phone had been booted. So after that it should stay in ram so I could open it in a blink of an eye instead of instantly? That's just funny.
Anyway, I'm just thinking out loud so don't flame me immediately. There probably are apsects of it that I didn't mention here or am not aware of. And I'm not saying that I'm right and you guys are wrong, I'm just saying what I know and think about this subject.
-. typewrited .-

PlayPetepp, while it might be true that the OS allocates (thus use) some resources to memory maintenance, the impact on battery life is negligible. In the Android OS, apps in memory are ordered according to priority and state, so the OS always knows which apps to kill first if it needs to make room in RAM, without much of a hassle. The only bad consequence of this system seems to be the fact that once the memory fills up, the launcher may lag or even be evacuated from memory. But, as i've mentioned in my previous post, there are ways to prevent that, either via scripts or, if you know what you're doing, via editing system files.

So the OS doesn't need to scan anything as it keeps everything in memory again? Seems like an endless loop. Open, sort, kill if needed, reopen, sort again, kill ... to what end, constant unneccessary multitasking that user is unaware of? I really don't see any benefit of that system and am only seeing the downsides. I mean, who needs every app they ever run remain in ram even if they close them after using? And then opening another app and "waiting" for whatever needs to be closed to get it running. Sure you can mess with the scripts (init.d, init.rc, etc.) but the underlined conditions stay the same. I hope I'm making sense here. Or am I fighting against windmills.
I just figured out that I strayed from the topic of this thread so won't be continuing this discussion if it's considered offtopic.
-. typewrited .-

Stop looking for excuses for poor multitasking in Sense 3+ roms

erklat said:
Stop looking for excuses for poor multitasking in Sense 3+ roms
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Hello again nice to see you here
Here's an interesting article on what I was talking about. Sense 3.5 doesn't need that many mbs of ram to work smoothly. After booting and setting everything up I have 150+ mb free. That should be enough for decent multitasking but all those apps not getting killed when you close them are eating too much. Can anyone explain in detail what hidden app, perceptible app, backup app and heavy_weight app means? I've been googling this for a week and can't find any decent explanation.

@PlayPetepp - I think i have already said (in my previous post) that the OS does indeed use some resources for managing the memory, but they are negligible in terms of their impact on battery life. IMHO, the only thing a 3'rd party memory manager (task killer) WILL do is improve lanuncher responsiveness (lag) as the lag does increase when free RAM drops under a certain limit. Thus used wisely, a task killer can improve responsiveness, but battery life... very little, in rare cases (it does the opposite, most of the time).
Regarding the so called "memory slots", here's an excerpt from this article:
FOREGROUND_APP: This is the application currently on the screen, and running
VISIBLE_APP: This is an application that is open, and running in the background because it's still doing something
SECONDARY_SERVER: This is a process (a service that an application needs) that is alive and ready in case it's needed to do something
HIDDEN_APP: This again is a process, that sits idle (but still alive) in case it's needed by an app that's alive and running
CONTENT_PROVIDER: This is apps that provide data (content) to the system. HTC Facebook Sync? That's a CONTENT_PROVIDER. So are things like the Android Market, or Fring. If they are alive, they can refresh and provide the content they are supposed to at the set interval. If you kill them, they can't of course.
EMPTY_APP: I call these "ghosts." They are apps that you have opened, but are done with them. Android uses a unique style of handling memory management. When an activity is ended, instead of killing it off Android keeps the application in memory so that opening them again is a faster process. Theses "ghost" apps use no battery or CPU time, they just fill RAM that would be otherwise empty. When this memory is needed by a different application or process, the RAM is flushed and made available for the new app. To satisfy the geekier people (like myself) Android does this by keeping a list of recently used apps, with the oldest apps in the list given the lowest priority -- they are killed first if RAM is needed elsewhere. This is a perfect way to handle 'ghost' processes, so there's no need to touch this part
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[Q] Dose installing many apps drain the battery more quickly

I have heard somewhere that installing many apps can drain the battery more quickly
I just want to know wheter or not installing apps that are not running in the background drains the battery?.
Thanks.
Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda premium

Not if they are not running in the background
Some people have installed more than 300 apps (user apps)
scribbled from my note 2 (N7100)

It's no different than your computer. You can have 50000 apps installed, but only the ones running consume active (ram, battery, network) resources.
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I would love to help you, but help yourself first: ask a better question
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

Be aware though that many do run in the background even if you haven't run them.
Sent from my GT-N7100 using XDA Premium HD app

In General Yes, but I'd say depends on the apps, if there are 200 quality apps, (however I don't know how many are there in Play Store), and you've not turned on the background data for them, then it might not drain much. But if you've even 5 crap apps installed then they'll be enough Culprit to hog the juice more than those 200 apps.
In short, DO NOT install crap apps, do not install whatever you see. Read user reviews, see ratings, then decide. I, for me, think 3 times before installing one, even if it comes from a Top Developer tag.

Yes it does take more battery. So install the apps which you are going to use.

AlanDS said:
Yes it does take more battery. So install the apps which you are going to use.
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Can you please back this up? Used storage doesn't increase battery usage.
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I would love to help you, but help yourself first: ask a better question
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

It totally depends on applications you have installed
If you have hundreds of application and they don't autostarts or have no sync function and just occupying storage, it won't drain battery, in usual course i do have 150 user application installed but hardly it even drains recordable juice except some of it requires auto refreshing and sync
Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda premium

There are application that can disable the apps you've installed from auto starting or running in the background. Usually the biggest culprits are the free ad supported apps that tend to randomly call up even when the phone is in sleep mode. There are many ways to stop it from happening.. If you can pay for ad free app then go for it otherwise a lot of 3rd party apps will allow you to disable those features. I don't understand why someone would install 200-300apps in the first place when you only end up using less than a quarter of those. I guess its that "you never know when you're gonna need it" habits.
Sent from the Rabbit Hole

There are a number of apps which do run in the background, even when you don't manually run them first. Applications can register receivers to trigger at various events (such as boot-up complete, call ended, etc) and complete tasks in the background, or register themselves as services. You can check these with an autostart app, or I use ROM Toolbox (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jrummy.liberty.toolboxpro&hl=en - there is a free version available too).
On top of that, apps can also run scheduled tasks which can wake the phone out of deep sleep in standby, which can cause additional battery drain, through either CPU or network usage.
Unlike iOS which kills most background apps after a couple of minutes, Android apps can run indefinitely in the background, unless of course they are killed by memory management first.