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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
t989 and other large screen devices getting heated up draining battery life is a common sight for the stock rom users. Many blame the bloatware on it, be it samsung, htc, verizon, t-mob etc etc.
However, we install a lot of apps and maybe these are overwhelming in terms of performance but the price we pay is the battery life most of the times. These third party apps can be anything from launchers to widgets to texting apps.
A lot of these apps run in the background and can be categorized as service process, background process, and empty process. This category does not seem to follow a rule in terms of memory consumption.
Why am i saying this?
I observed that installing third party apps which consume a lot of memory(monitoring using task managers/android assistant etc), really drains the battery out of your phone.
I agree there are other several reasons why the battery life could be short.
Major Physical limitations
- Larger display (brighter it is the faster it drains)
- Staying in low network coverage area for longer times
Usage
- Watching videos ( screen is always on)
- Streaming music (always trying to connect to the internet through data)
Software
- rich UI like lot of color rich widgets
- frequent auto updates
- more than once launchers running in parallel
- apps running in background.
But my question is how can i draw a line for an application to use a certain amount of memory. For example a texting app should not take more than X MB of memory, or a launcher is a good launcher if it takes less than Y MB memory.
How do i judge this x and y? What are the best tools you have used?
Please advice
On these notes a BIG thank you to the devs who try to minimize these limitations as much as possible by building kernels(memory mgmt, overclocking), modems(better handling of low coverage areas),radios and of course wonderful ROMS(for better looking, saving user operations, bloat free).
There is no doubt that HTC One X is the most powerful phone on the market yet, despite it's stock of amazing hardware features it also has a few lacks. And on of the biggest perhaps is the short battery life, but with a few tricks and modifications it is possible to overcome that and so increase the battery life of the best phone yet.
Well I found 6 tricks and extras that can really increase your battery life up to 20%:
1. KILL APPS USING TASK MANAGER
Notice or not but there are a lot of apps and services running in the background of your phone that suck a lot of battery and most of them are apps that you wouldn't need so killing those processes can increase your battery life.
To kill apps you have to access the task manager:
Press home icon>all apps>search for task manager and launch it.
Now you have the option of killing separate apps (press X on the process you want to end) or just ending the all by touching the stop all button.
2. Closing open Apps
A great feature in htc one x is also that you switch between open apps but it can also take a lot of battery depending on how many Apps you =have open.
How to close open Apps:
Touch the recent app button (in right to the home button)> now swipe the open Apps (the ones you want to close) to the top.
3.Disable Transition Animation
Transition Animation also take a lot of batter since the require more ram and disabling them can also increase your ram therewith your overall system performance.
How to Disable Transition Animation:
Go Settings>Display & gestures> uncheck the Animation bar
4. External Battery
Well there is always an option of getting an external portable battery which is quit inexpensive and can double your battery life.
5.System directory Modification
Just a few weeks ago a member (mike1986) posted about a file or directory displacement made by HTC that caused the short battery life. And now you can correct it and you could boost you battery life by up to 20%.
LINK TO mike1986 POST
6.Battery Save App
A battery save app could also be a life save as you can monitor exactly how much on what you're spending and then configure power save modes using apps such as Easy Battery Saver.
You can also turn off services such as 3g/WiFi/GPS to save battery consumption advanced users can also scale the CPU and more system operation with such brilliant app as JuiceDefender - battery saver.
RECOMMENDED BATTERY SAVER APPS:
*JuiceDefender - battery saver* Free
JuiceDefender Ultimate Cost Money
Easy Battery Saver Free
Conclusion:
Following those six step should improve your battery life a lot and should therewith resolve the major issue with the HTC One X.
:goodlease Comment and Thank if you think that this post was helpful.:laugh:
Hi
HRandev said:
There is no doubt that HTC One X is the most powerful phone on the market yet, despite it's stock of amazing hardware features it also has a few lacks. And on of the biggest perhaps is the short battery life, but with a few tricks and modifications it is possible to overcome that and so increase the battery life of the best phone yet.
Well I found 5 tricks and extras that can really increase your battery life up to 20%:
1. KILL APPS USING TASK MANAGER
Notice or not but there are a lot of apps and services running in the background of your phone that suck a lot of battery and most of them are apps that you wouldn't need so killing those processes can increase your battery life.
To kill apps you have to access the task manager:
Press home icon>all apps>search for task manager and launch it.
Now you have the option of killing separate apps (press X on the process you want to end) or just ending the all by touching the stop all button.
2. Closing open Apps
A great feature in htc one x is also that you switch between open apps but it can also take a lot of battery depending on how many Apps you =have open.
How to close open Apps:
Touch the recent app button (in right to the home button)> now swipe the open Apps (the ones you want to close) to the top.
3.Disable Transition Animation
Transition Animation also take a lot of batter since the require more ram and disabling them can also increase your ram therewith your overall system performance.
How to Disable Transition Animation:
Go Settings>Display & gestures> uncheck the Animation bar
4. External Battery
Well there is always an option of getting an external portable battery which is quit inexpensive and can double your battery life.
5.System directory Modification
Just a few weeks ago a member (mike1986) posted about a file or directory displacement made by HTC that caused the short battery life. And now you can correct it and you could boost you battery life by up to 20%.
LINK TO mike1986 POST
Conclusion:
Following those five step should improve your battery life a lot and should therewith resolve the major issue with the HTC One X.
:goodlease Comment and Thank if you think that this post was helpful.:laugh:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The biggest drain is the screen, so turn down the brightness.
Those other tips are probably more a placebo, and killing tasks is a bad idea on Android. Most of the apps are just loaded into memory but not actively running so not using power, and when your phone screen is off, nothing is running (unless you have a badly behaved application that is). Even if you have most of your memory empty of applications, those memory chips are still drawing the same power regardless, so it makes sense to keep applications in memory. Why? Because when you want to use the app again, the phone doesn't have to waste CPU cycles and power loading the application from the flash memory, then loading the applications saved state, so power is saved. If you never use the app again, and memory is short, it gets unloaded.
There is also the school of thought that if you shut down all background applications and so you lose functionality (background status updates, location services, push mail services, animations, weather displays etc), you then haven't got much of a smart phone!
The system directory modification related to an old version of the firmware, I doubt anyone is effect by that issue now.
Regards
Phil
It wouldn't effect your internal system apps
PhilipL said:
Hi
The biggest drain is the screen, so turn down the brightness.
Those other tips are probably more a placebo, and killing tasks is a bad idea on Android. Most of the apps are just loaded into memory but not actively running so not using power, and when your phone screen is off, nothing is running (unless you have a badly behaved application that is). Even if you have most of your memory empty of applications, those memory chips are still drawing the same power regardless, so it makes sense to keep applications in memory. Why? Because when you want to use the app again, the phone doesn't have to waste CPU cycles and power loading the application from the flash memory, then loading the applications saved state, so power is saved. If you never use the app again, and memory is short, it gets unloaded.
There is also the school of thought that if you shut down all background applications and so you lose functionality (background status updates, location services, push mail services, animations, weather displays etc), you then haven't got much of a smart phone!
The system directory modification related to an old version of the firmware, I doubt anyone is effect by that issue now.
Regards
Phil
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do appreciate your replay but it only shows you those task that are running separately (not internal system apps) and if you kill them it does make a difference in the overall performance. And some operations like navigation running in the background continuously uses GPS and even Data constantly, so if you end it, it does make a difference.
You are right with the screen brightness, I thought about it and came to a conclusion to just leave it at auto because no one would like a dim display.
So it wouldn't completely turn off your data or calls or corrupt your system since you wouldn't terminate any internal system apps
regards,
HRanDev
PhilipL said:
Hi
The biggest drain is the screen, so turn down the brightness.
Those other tips are probably more a placebo, and killing tasks is a bad idea on Android.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1
And also control 3G/WiFi/BT radios as and when needed , there are battery saver apps like Juice defender that intelligently turn off 3G and data connections.
Advanced users can also play around with custom kernels, CPU speed settings and Kernel governors, etc.. (can help with custom ROMs)
Thanks for the tip, I added it to it.
Actually agree with PhilipL.
Killing or managing tasks in Android is a placebo - and is likely to do more harm (in terms of battery life) than good. Plenty of articles if you google saying task managers are a bad idea.
However, managing screen brightness and background services will help enormously.
Sent from my HTC One X using xda app-developers app
Hey guys I have found this amazing app on the play store, and I would like to share it with you. To go to the original thread click here.
Its basically a freezing app like titanium backup However, it is much more convenient as it unfreezes the app when you enter it. :good:
oasisfeng said:
No more envy of your friends' iPhone which never become slow and battery hungry after lots of apps installed. With Greenify, your Android device can also run almost as smooth and lasting as the first day you have it!
Greenify help you identify and put the bad behaving apps into hibernation when you are not using them, stop them from battery leeching, memory hogging and stealthy running, in an elegant and unique way! They could do nothing without your explicit launch, while still have full functionality when running in foreground. Like what iOS apps act!
The built-in App Analyzer will analyze and show apps in your device that keep running persistent services and those launch itself automatically on a regular basis (when network connectivity changes, or every time you unlock your device, install / uninstall / update your apps, etc).
ROOT is required. If you are experiencing hibernation issue, this may be caused by your root management app (e.g. "SuperUser"), please try installing "SuperSU" instead.
Compared to other popular tools aimed for the similar purpose, Greenify give you the unique experience:
◆ Unlike the "Freeze" feature in "TitaniumBackup Pro" that totally disable your app, you can still use your app as usual, share content with it, without major uncomfortable impact on user experience. Greenify is nearly transparent! Set and forget~
◆ Unlike "App Quarantine", you can launch greenified apps in any way as usual. No more crafted app-launch widgets, no more manual disabling.
◆ Unlike "Autostarts", you can benefit almost all its advantages, but never need to deal with the complexity and risk of obscurely named app components, and never lose functionality when app is actively running.
◆ Unlike any "XXX Task Killer", your device never fall into the cat-mouse-game of stealthy-running and aggressive killing, which unnecessarily consumes much battery juice. Since all greenified apps will be put into hibernation until the next time you launch them, there is no need to "kill" them during the hibernation.
As the bottom line, Greenify do need a background persistent "Cleaner" service to put the greenified apps back into hibernation when you are not actively using them. It is designed and implemented in extremely light-weight, with an average RAM footprint at 2M in total, and nearly zero CPU and battery consumption.
IMPORTANT: Greenifying an app implies that you are aware that all the background functionality of this app will become out of service during the hibernation except when you are using this app. The background functionality includes but not limited to:
* Persistent background services
* Broadcast receivers, which respond to global device events, such as network state change, SMS reception.
* Alarms, which activate background task at specific time or interval.
* Widget update. Widget should display but never update because periodic update involves background task.
* Push messages. Push is also disabled since it would activate background task on Android, unlike iOS which just shows up messages to user.
Please DO NOT greenify alarm clock apps, instant messaging apps unless you never rely on them. Please be sure to verify the impact of greenified apps on which you heavily relies.
[DOWNLOAD FROM PLAY STORE]
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hope you find it useful as I did.
PLAYSTORE LINK: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.oasisfeng.greenify
oae08 said:
Hey guys I have found this amazing app on the play store, and I would like to share it with you. To go to the original thread click here.
Its basically a freezing app like titanium backup However, it is much more convenient as it unfreezes the app when you enter it. :good:
Hope you find it useful as I did.
You Can Find it Here Also: Greenify
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does enable this option help save battery life? as the process is suspended once user quits it. We all know some roguewares would keep themselves active even though not running forground and draining tons of battery.
Unless you are trying to debug an app do not enable this.
It's for developers trying to develop and debug their applications behavior.
MAYBE if u have rogue app installed it may help JUST for that app. But that's a BIG maybe. And then it could cause other apps to have to relaod constantly which will DEMOLISH battery AND performance due to higher CPU usage.
ashclepdia said:
Unless you are trying to debug an app do not enable this.
It's for developers trying to develop and debug their applications behavior.
MAYBE if u have rogue app installed it may help JUST for that app. But that's a BIG maybe. And then it could cause other apps to have to relaod constantly which will DEMOLISH battery AND performance due to higher CPU usage.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I usually choose close all acitive applications upon finish using the phone, so I guess this option would do this automatically for me? I've found if I leave certain apps active my battery drains way faster.
jian1 said:
I usually choose close all acitive applications upon finish using the phone, so I guess this option would do this automatically for me? I've found if I leave certain apps active my battery drains way faster.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The developer setting for kill all apps upon exit is NOT the same as clearing recents. It isn't doing the same thing.
Which apps by the way would you say are "staying active" ?
You can check to see if it is those apps specifically that are causing drain by using apps like Gsam battery monitor (my personal choice due to its user friendliness) or better battery stats app. In Gsam battery monitor you can open the app usage section to see exactly which apps used esactly how much battery/CPU wakelocks/time held awake/background CPU vs. foreground CPU/ etc....
I would say that MAYBE for a very specific type of usage that this option may help in battery life. But it without a doubt will eventual degrade performance, due to more CPU cylces needed to fully open an app from scratch vs having it cached in ram. The setting is for sure meant for developers trying to debug their applications behavior and not meant for users to get better battery or performance. If it WAS meant for those, it would have been enabled by default. It will surely mess up multitasking, which is what android is really all about. TRUE multi tasking with apps running in background. So that is what would really depend on your usage I would think.
ashclepdia said:
The developer setting for kill all apps upon exit is NOT the same as clearing recents. It isn't doing the same thing.
Which apps by the way would you say are "staying active" ?
You can check to see if it is those apps specifically that are causing drain by using apps like Gsam battery monitor (my personal choice due to its user friendliness) or better battery stats app. In Gsam battery monitor you can open the app usage section to see exactly which apps used esactly how much battery/CPU wakelocks/time held awake/background CPU vs. foreground CPU/ etc....
I would say that MAYBE for a very specific type of usage that this option may help in battery life. But it without a doubt will eventual degrade performance, due to more CPU cylces needed to fully open an app from scratch vs having it cached in ram. The setting is for sure meant for developers trying to debug their applications behavior and not meant for users to get better battery or performance. If it WAS meant for those, it would have been enabled by default. It will surely mess up multitasking, which is what android is really all about. TRUE multi tasking with apps running in background. So that is what would really depend on your usage I would think.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think this usage suit my usage very well, I use my phone briefly for calling, maybe very rarely webbrowsing, or sometimes wechat, so I want an app to stop completely once I finished using it since I probably won't open it again in 3,4 days.... I am not those smartphone addicts that's constantly playing their devices.
I only use webbrowser when I was outside and need to lookup an address... no, I don't even use facebook.
jian1 said:
I think this usage suit my usage very well, I use my phone briefly for calling, maybe very rarely webbrowsing, or sometimes wechat, so I want an app to stop completely once I finished using it since I probably won't open it again in 3,4 days.... I am not those smartphone addicts that's constantly playing their devices.
I only use webbrowser when I was outside and need to lookup an address... no, I don't even use facebook.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Use Greenify to stop them automatically
.