eReaders - HTC Flyer, EVO View 4G

I am not sure about others but one of my primary purposes for getting my View was as a personal entertainment device. I use it for my music, movies, and netflix. I also have installed the kindle, nook, and fbreader apps on it for reading. I was wondering if anybody that has used the readers have some idea of the effect on the battery. I was wondering if one of the apps tended to use the battery faster than the others? I am working on the assumption that if you use the same background, font, and other settings that effect the display, they should all be about the same for battery usage unless one of them is a resource hog.

Related

Would it be ok to stop B&N cloud service?

I noticed that one of the programs that is running that seems to draw a fair about of battery power on a constant rate is is called com.bn.cloud.svc
is this some type of cloud storage?
if so I do not need it, is there a safe way to disable it?
I'm not sure exactly what it does, but I was always suspecting that it was syncing your purchases from B&N to the Nook Tablet and B&N's servers.
I was too scared to do it because of this...I have purchased books and I definitely want to keep my access to their content. It is, afterall, why I purchased the NT. Rooting/making it a tablet-like experience is all extra (for me at least)
Ok I'm tryng to using titanium backup pro to freeze it
Ok I'm tryng to using titanium backup pro to freeze it it does not sem to stop anything I want to do.
but I'l have to check if TB pro uses it own overhead to freeze it, thereby defeating battery usage savings.
You can just firewall it off with droid firewall - when I've done this it actually wouldn't launch in the background. I've also removed the app from the system/app folder (and any other b&n ones too) to a backup folder, and everything ran fine (and worked fine again after moved back+reboot). Shop seems to be the one you want to keep if you want to access your purchases.

Mobile sites vs mobile app counterparts, which do you use?

I have a Verizon Droid Charge, and despite the 512MB of memory, I still find myself struggling to manage memory. I feel like the background services are soaking my resources. Could this be true potentially. Mainly I am referring to the Facebook and Twitter apps, and a few others. So I have resorted to removing these apps and accessing them through the browser. Is there any features or anything I am missing by using the browser over the app? Are there any other excellent mobile sites that can replace having an additional app? So far I feel like there has been some decent improvement in battery life and general speed.

[Q] Cache/RAM management & apps recommendation

I've read many threads on the forum with conflicting views on Cache/RAM management. Generally, I use my phone (X10MP) only for SMS, calls and some very light web surfing (if I can find a hotspot).
Currently my RAM hovers somewhere between 60-80 MB used and 70-90 MB free.
I don't know the exact about of RAM I have though.
Just want to get some opinions if there is a need for me to clear the cache in the RAM. There are many applications that are cached in the RAM which I do not use very often. These range from things such as Media, Google Playstore and a few other things.
Is it possible to prevent these applications from being cached in the RAM? Especially since I do not use them often. I'm aware of apps that can kill such cached apps but the reviews for these management apps are kind of mixed.
Secondly, I'm just trying to fish for some suggestions on QR Code reader. Anyone have good recommendations? The ones on the Market have much mixed reviews so I just wanted to get a second opinion.
Any other applications that are beneficial/essential to help the X10MP run smoothly while not sacrificing battery life?
I'm currently using nAa kernel with MiniCM7 2.20 flashed.
Browser -> Dolphin HD
Gallery -> QuickPic
File Explorer -> Root Explorer (I can't seem to attach files via email using this though.)
Thank you =)

How to have commonly used apps always preloaded into the memory

I was wondering if there is a way to always keep commonly used apps preloaded into memory for instant access. (sms, contacts, browser)
xemi1 said:
I was wondering if there is a way to always keep commonly used apps preloaded into memory for instant access. (sms, contacts, browser)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Start them once, and they will be remaining in memory until Android OS decides the memory is better needed elsewhere.
What you describes is not The Android Way. Primary memory is the most critical resource in Android, lacking virtual memory. Due to this fact, an app may be killed by the OS if more memory is needed for other needs. On the other hand, an app often used, is very likely to reside in memory, giving you this "instant access" you want. If you'd be able to lock an app and its memory, the phone would get out-of-memory not being able to release it when you try stating Angry Birds.
This said, some devices have "Don't keep activities", "Background limit: no processes" or so much bloatware installed, leaving an app gets it more or less instant killed, causing the next start of it to be considerably slower. In this case, the solution is to adjust those parameters, not forcing your apps active.
Read this thread. It might give you some light. Specially the " bulletproof " thing.
The only reason I'm needing this is because of the buggy dialer/contacts that comes with the stock sgs s3 ics 404, where if they go out of the memory they take like 1 sec to load, whereas different dialers and any other stuff is pretty much instant.
It's annoying to experience that delay whenever you need to make a call on a flagship smartphone.
And other market dialers are ugly and/or need the stock dialer to open for them to work.
I would like to avoid rooting g and losing my warranty as well.

extended, elevated CPU usage when lots of files change?

I've seen this problem discussed before, but not specifically in the context of using BitTorrent Sync. Since I've started using BitTorrent Sync as a Dropbox replacement to sync about 16GB and 24,000 files, every 1-3 days (sometimes more frequently) my S4 goes into a period of high CPU usage (30-40% capacity, all cores pinned at 1.6GHz) that lasts 2-4 hours, while it consumes battery at about 20% per hour. Using performance analyzers such as Android Tuner, I've ruled out any single app hogging CPU, and the culprit is the Android system itself. I've tried many things to try to stave off or reduce the battery drain if it happens at a bad time, but there seems to be no way to exert any kind of control at this level. I figure that putting governors on the cores won't help because it will reduce my phone's performance while merely extending the time the maintenance requires before it will let my people go, saving no power in the end. Yes, I shut as much stuff down as possible--even going into airplane mode--but once this annoyance begins, it overwhelms any energy conservation efforts. My only viable strategy is then to find an AC outlet and weather the storm there, or plan to finish using my phone within a couple of hours.
I gather from comments people have made in other contexts that if a lot of files change status, then the system needs to do a bunch of stuff, but I'm really not changing that many files, or moving folders around, etc. But it could be that BitTorrent Sync changes a lot if its own system files (while checking in with peers, maintaining its db, and whatever it does), so in response Android then has to do a lot of work maintaining files that the user never directly sees or uses. I do use BitTorrent Sync's auto sleep function, but still.
So I'm wondering if the scenario I'm describing sounds plausible. I'd have to shutdown data sync completely for several days just to do one trial, and it would take several trials to confirm more positively that using BitTorrent Sync is the root of the problem. But I need my data to sync more than I need my battery, so I'm willing to live with short battery times. But it's still a pain in the a$$--and the instances of 2-3 hours battery time are really crippling--so I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions how to analyze or improve this situation because I don't really know enough. Then maybe I'll be able to suggest something to the BitTorrent Sync devs. I don't want to raise the problem in the BitTorrent Sync forums because very few of the active people there are well-versed in Android, the Windows/Linux/OSX crowd being much more numerous. Any comments are welcome: I want to start collecting info on this issue so that it can be discussed more profitably at the BT forums.
Jimmy34742 said:
I've seen this problem discussed before, but not specifically in the context of using BitTorrent Sync. Since I've started using BitTorrent Sync as a Dropbox replacement to sync about 16GB and 24,000 files, every 1-3 days (sometimes more frequently) my S4 goes into a period of high CPU usage (30-40% capacity, all cores pinned at 1.6GHz) that lasts 2-4 hours, while it consumes battery at about 20% per hour. Using performance analyzers such as Android Tuner, I've ruled out any single app hogging CPU, and the culprit is the Android system itself. I've tried many things to try to stave off or reduce the battery drain if it happens at a bad time, but there seems to be no way to exert any kind of control at this level. I figure that putting governors on the cores won't help because it will reduce my phone's performance while merely extending the time the maintenance requires before it will let my people go, saving no power in the end. Yes, I shut as much stuff down as possible--even going into airplane mode--but once this annoyance begins, it overwhelms any energy conservation efforts. My only viable strategy is then to find an AC outlet and weather the storm there, or plan to finish using my phone within a couple of hours.
I gather from comments people have made in other contexts that if a lot of files change status, then the system needs to do a bunch of stuff, but I'm really not changing that many files, or moving folders around, etc. But it could be that BitTorrent Sync changes a lot if its own system files (while checking in with peers, maintaining its db, and whatever it does), so in response Android then has to do a lot of work maintaining files that the user never directly sees or uses. I do use BitTorrent Sync's auto sleep function, but still.
So I'm wondering if the scenario I'm describing sounds plausible. I'd have to shutdown data sync completely for several days just to do one trial, and it would take several trials to confirm more positively that using BitTorrent Sync is the root of the problem. But I need my data to sync more than I need my battery, so I'm willing to live with short battery times. But it's still a pain in the a$$--and the instances of 2-3 hours battery time are really crippling--so I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions how to analyze or improve this situation because I don't really know enough. Then maybe I'll be able to suggest something to the BitTorrent Sync devs. I don't want to raise the problem in the BitTorrent Sync forums because very few of the active people there are well-versed in Android, the Windows/Linux/OSX crowd being much more numerous. Any comments are welcome: I want to start collecting info on this issue so that it can be discussed more profitably at the BT forums.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I imagine most of the file you are syncing are media files, and here probably lies your problem/solution.
Your drain is more than likely Android Mediaserver which analyzes media files (images, sounds, videos).
You should troubleshoot using BetterBatteryStats to confirm this.
You can always "kill" the Mediaserver, however you'll lose functionality (your phone won't find new media, quite annoying).
The alternative and the better solution in my opinion is to create a .nomedia file in the root directory where all your files are synced so mediaserver skips them completely. This might not be possible if you have a strange hierarchy though.
The vast majority of files are not media files (mostly docx, pdf, and txt), but there are a large number of media files scattered about. The media files don't change much, but if a few changes trigger the media server to perform major operations, then that might explain it.
If I put a ".nomedia" file at the top of a highly nested file hierarchy, will that suppress finding new media throughout the entire tree? That behavior would be fine in my case because the media that I actually use with any frequency is all in its own tree. But if I use the .nomedia trick, will file browsing apps still be able to list the files that are in media format? In that case, I don't see why I'd care if Android's media server ever runs or not. I mean, I do take some photos, but very few. And I always have to use PowerAmp's media scanning function to listen to my mp3's, which are all in their own file hierarchy.
EDIT: I should that I never use any of the stock Android media apps. In that case, do I even need Android's Mediaserver at all?
I put .nomedia files at the top of all my file trees, but I'm still getting, periodically, massive batter drain from the Media Storage process. It will run for hours constantly using more than 25-30% CPU, thus running down my battery entire in a few hours. I don't know how to check for sure, but this seems to indicate that Media Storage does a lot of work involving the trees where the .nomedia files are. I mean, there's no way my phone could be running at a constant 30% without me being able to account for it. Do I need to put .nomedia files in every folder under the same hierarchy? Is Media Server known to sometimes just ignore the .nomedia directive?
Since Android 4.0/1 the media server now references every files on your SD cards. So even those are not actual media files, that might still be the issue.
Not sure BBS or Android Tuner battery stats will reveal anything particular in this situation, but might be worth adding a .nomedia file at the root of your sync folder, at least to confirm.
Since my original post, I've concluded that BitTorrent Sync is the source of Media Storage running so frequently. It's not an error exactly, but because I sync about 16GB in 20,000 files, then each time a file changes on one of the sync peers, then when the phone syncs and changes the file, it causes Media Storage to want to run again. So Media Storage was running 1 or 2 times a day, every day, at the cost of 20-30% battery each time. It looks like bad software design rather than an error. The only thing I could think of was to freeze Media Storage, which turns out not to be as annoying as one might think because apps seems to be able to find the media files, and my file explorer works fine. But I have the annoyance of missing basic things in the Android UI, like ringtones, so my phone never rings for a phone call, only vibrates. I don't care about the other stuff in the OS UI that I'm missing because I have no interest in any kind of theming, but I don't think many people would like freezing their Media Storage process.

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