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Ok I have looked around and have not found the answer. SO here Goes
In windows if you want to keep the memory that you have clear of background applications, you can run system configuration and just remove the check-mark for those items you dont want to auto start.
I have Advanced Task Killer installed and will set it up to auto kill and will manual kill apps as well. Instead of consistently looking at ATK to shut down apps, is there a way to just keep all the apps you not using nor have ever started from suddenly being there and sucking the life out of your battery?
Having applications "running" in the background (i.e., still in memory but in a suspended state) does NOT negatively affect your battery life. These applications are actually just remaining in memory because that memory does not need to be used by anything else at the moment. If an active application gets to a point where it needs more memory, Android will automatically close applications that are in a suspended state (i.e., not actively being used) to make room.
In other words, using an app killer is NOT necessary and I definitely recommend NOT using one. By closing the application repeatedly, you are just causing the application to take a longer amount of time to start up next time you use it. You're making your Android experience worse by using one, not better.
There is one caveat to this, and that is when you have an application installed that doesn't play nicely -- i.e., even when you stop using that application, it will continue to use up CPU cycles (never go into a suspended state). This is actually pretty rare unless you are installing really poorly written programs, but it can happen to some popular apps too (usually the result of a bug). In this case, you should either uninstall that application or use an app killer to only kill that one app.
I've heard both sides of this argument, and don't know who to believe. I didn't think I needed a Task Killer, but then I saw it repeatedly on "top 10 apps for Android" and "must have Android apps" lists from respected sites like cnet... who to believe?!
Cnet ≠ respected
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drumist said:
Having applications "running" in the background (i.e., still in memory but in a suspended state) does NOT negatively affect your battery life.
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I need to confirm this. Anyone? I dont care about memory because I bet Android excels at that, and at any rate, memory is there to be used, not to keep it empty.
But I come from a Symbian smartphone and "minimized" applications DO uses battery. Maybe little, but noticeable.
Anyone can confirm that background apps consume negligible battery juice?
Additionally, is there a nice task changer? Like windows Alt+Tab. I feel my Android like an iPhone, that I need to press the home button to move to another already opened app and that's just plain stupid. So far I'm using Multitasking Lite, but it can get sluggish once there are too many apps opened. Any suggestion would be warmly welcomed.
"Running" background apps DO NOT consume battery life unless they're actively syncing. If it's just in the memory saving the state of the app then that is fine.
As far as using a task killer, if you are manually killing apps and they keep starting back up then that is a bad thing for your battery. The app uses cpu cycles everytime it starts up again and syncs data. You can use a task killer to close apps that opened on startup or when you're done with them. If they stay closed until you choose to open them again then you're saving memory, but nothing to do with battery life.
ocswing said:
"Running" background apps DO NOT consume battery life unless they're actively syncing. If it's just in the memory saving the state of the app then that is fine
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Thanks for confirming ;]
Darius_bd said:
Additionally, is there a nice task changer? Like windows Alt+Tab. I feel my Android like an iPhone, that I need to press the home button to move to another already opened app and that's just plain stupid. So far I'm using Multitasking Lite, but it can get sluggish once there are too many apps opened. Any suggestion would be warmly welcomed.
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Obviously you can switch over to some apps by pulling down the notification menu and selecting the appropriate app. That only works on apps that put themselves in the notification menu though (multimedia apps and things like Google Nav usually do this).
Otherwise, you can press and hold the home button to bring up the list of 8 most recently opened apps without exiting the active app. This works but like I said, it's the 8 most recent apps, so it will list apps that aren't necessarily still running anymore. It's more of a shortcut to having to go search in your apps menu or home screens to find a recent app than a way to see what is currently running.
drumist said:
Otherwise, you can press and hold the home button to bring up the list of 8 most recently opened apps without exiting the active app. This works but like I said, it's the 8 most recent apps, so it will list apps that aren't necessarily still running anymore. It's more of a shortcut to having to go search in your apps menu or home screens to find a recent app than a way to see what is currently running.
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What can I say, I hate pressing the home key to hunt for the icon that opens the app I already opened more than 6 other apps ago ;] Guess I'll stick to Multitasking Lite for the time being. Thanks!
Right before i gave up on the samsung captivate I had froyo 2.2.1 on it with a custom rom.
one of the benefits of this rom was when you held the home button, you got a list of recent apps (which we have now on the streak).. and a button shortcut to the samsung "Task Manager".
I for one do not believe in task managers, but this feature was very useful when I had apps like NFL gamecenter keep the gps on after close, or if an app just would not close properly. It was very easy to just hold the home button, go to task manager and kill that app.
Is there anything like this that can be linked to the home button? I don't want to use one of those resident task managers that sit in notification or run all the time in the background.
thanks
Check out Free Advanced Task Manager. You can close it so it doesn't run in resident memory all the time. Also, it merely links to the apps "Application Info" system page. There is also a home-screen "shortcut" for "ATMF Press to End" that bulk kills all apps to free system resources. I find it invaluable to end some persistent apps like Angry Birds or Xfinity.
I have the app "Android System Info" from the market and placed its widget which shows battery, ram, and sdcard memory on my homescreen. If i want to kill something and not go all the way into settings-manage applications, i just tap the widget, opens up ASI and kill things from there.
Whats also cool about the app it shows percentages for how long your CPU has been at different speeds, helpful to see how the different governors work on setcpu.
Has anyone found a way to do this yet?
I'm also looking for a way to have a dedicated recent apps icon so I don't need to long press the home button all the time.
HTC Evo 3d Myn's ICS stock kernel
Hi, so a long press on 'home' brings the last 6 apps used. It's so basic it's sad. Is there a way to replace this with a better task switcher? Yes I know how Android manages RAM. I do not want a task killer, but a task switcher that replaces the existing one.
Does that exist? Thank you!
Tried searching the Market?
Task Manager ?
Ok obviously this is frustrating, I think my question has merit and I get the rolling eyes smileys.
Yes I have searched the market. From the ones I tried (must have tried 5 or 6 of them) *not one* of these apps replaces the 'hold home for 2 seconds' behaviour. Not one.
Further more, a lot of them *do not work* on the SGS2. Perfect task switcher fails to render the screenshots for example, other freeze, other are plain broken - displaying all running processes including 'android system'.
What I'm looking for is something that replaces the 2 sec long press and display the most recent used apps.
Maybe try quickdesk.
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LauncherPro has such a feature. You can set one of the dock buttons to "recent apps" and it'll fill your entire screen with your recent apps, not just 6.
I just discovered that you can get rid of apps from the recent apps menu (the square button next to the home button) by swiping them to the side. I don't know why this makes me so retardedly happy, but I am sure that SOMEONE else out there will also appreciate this tidbit of information.
Anyone else have any nuggets of joy to share?
I liked that trick also when I first found out. Another thing too is that you can hold down the app in recent menu and a quicksetting will come up to let you remove it from list or look at app info.
Remember though, this only removes it from recent apps list. It doesn't close down the app itself.
Does it really matter though performance wise? I Always thought Android puts background apps into an "idle" state where they dont take up any resources until used? Although it is cool for people with OCD like me
demandarin said:
I liked that trick also when I first found out. Another thing too is that you can hold down the app in recent menu and a quicksetting will come up to let you remove it from list or look at app info.
Remember though, this only removes it from recent apps list. It doesn't close down the app itself.
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Yes it does close the app. It just doesn't close background processes of the app.
Swiping an app from recent apps menu removes the app from cached memory, but keeps the background sync's (if it has any) still running. So you can kill off Facebook, but it's background sync (that would be started during system boot up anyway) remains.
You can test it, if you swipe browser from recent app's memory, it has to reload the page it was on. Same with Facebook app. But Facebook app's background process keeps running until you 'force stop' it.
Android application architecture runs in two layers, foreground and background processes. UI and the things you can use are written to memory when focus is lost from those apps, clearing them from recent apps also clears the memory those apps take at the time.
Is it useful? Yeah, for some things. But it won't improve your performance in any real noticeable way. Best you can do is swipe away apps that you don't need, keeping only apps that you want to keep in memory should you re-open them again. But that's usually too much micro-management to be worth it.
kristovaher said:
Yes it does close the app. It just doesn't close background processes of the app.
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Perhaps, BUT, not every app in the recent apps list is actually running. That's why many times (most of the time?) the screenshot isn't what you actually see when you select an app from the list--you're really restarting it.
I think it's safest and easiest to just assume that you're really only removing apps from the recent apps list, not actually managing what's running in any way.
DroidHam said:
Does it really matter though performance wise? I Always thought Android puts background apps into an "idle" state where they dont take up any resources until used? Although it is cool for people with OCD like me
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Yeah it doesn't make any difference performance wise, but it makes the menu much more useable for me =D
Thanks for this message, this is my first android device and I've been trying to figure out how to "close" applications. Did a search in here (I think), prime manual search and googled it. I am slightly OCD and like to "close" thinks that I'm not using. Harkens back to my early Windows days when you closed apps to conserve memory.
In the manual it says to close application by clicking on an X in the recent apps menu. Though unless it is super tiny, there isn't one.
redandblack1287 said:
I just discovered that you can get rid of apps from the recent apps menu (the square button next to the home button) by swiping them to the side. I don't know why this makes me so retardedly happy, but I am sure that SOMEONE else out there will also appreciate this tidbit of information.
Anyone else have any nuggets of joy to share?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if you have the dock, 2 finger gestures on the touchpad act as screen swipes. i.e. swipe two fingers across the tab, the tab changes screens. Also, if you want to actually kill the apps, add teh asus task manager widget to a screen. works great!
elybug said:
In the manual it says to close application by clicking on an X in the recent apps menu. Though unless it is super tiny, there isn't one.
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That was an ASUS Honeycomb customization. It went away in ICS...
redandblack1287 said:
I just discovered that you can get rid of apps from the recent apps menu (the square button next to the home button) by swiping them to the side. I don't know why this makes me so retardedly happy, but I am sure that SOMEONE else out there will also appreciate this tidbit of information.
Anyone else have any nuggets of joy to share?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if you have the dock, 2 finger gestures on the touchpad act as screen swipes. i.e. swipe two fingers across the tab, the tab changes screens. Also, if you want to actually kill the apps, add the asus task manager widget to a screen. works great!
kristovaher said:
Yes it does close the app. It just doesn't close background processes of the app.
Swiping an app from recent apps menu removes the app from cached memory, but keeps the background sync's (if it has any) still running. So you can kill off Facebook, but it's background sync (that would be started during system boot up anyway) remains.
You can test it, if you swipe browser from recent app's memory, it has to reload the page it was on. Same with Facebook app. But Facebook app's background process keeps running until you 'force stop' it.
Android application architecture runs in two layers, foreground and background processes. UI and the things you can use are written to memory when focus is lost from those apps, clearing them from recent apps also clears the memory those apps take at the time.
Is it useful? Yeah, for some things. But it won't improve your performance in any real noticeable way. Best you can do is swipe away apps that you don't need, keeping only apps that you want to keep in memory should you re-open them again. But that's usually too much micro-management to be worth it.
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Click to collapse
that's what I meant. I should of been more clear then. just swiping it doesn't close down app "Completely", meaning no background process either. you have to use a task manager or Force stop in order to "Truly" close n stop an app from running.
elybug said:
In the manual it says to close application by clicking on an X in the recent apps menu. Though unless it is super tiny, there isn't one.
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Click to collapse
There isn't any in ICS, only in HC.
i didn't know that either until last week! ice cream is awesome :]
Conduitz said:
if you have the dock, 2 finger gestures on the touchpad act as screen swipes. i.e. swipe two fingers across the tab, the tab changes screens. Also, if you want to actually kill the apps, add teh asus task manager widget to a screen. works great!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You know.....that Asus task manager widget does not work on mine. It doesn't matter if I press x next to one app or select kill all - nothing happpens. I think mine is broken
I removed it from one of my home screens, no need to have it if it doesn't work
demandarin said:
that's what I meant. I should of been more clear then. just swiping it doesn't close down app "Completely", meaning no background process either. you have to use a task manager or Force stop in order to "Truly" close n stop an app from running.
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Click to collapse
It's a bit different though, because those background processes will (likely) already be running even if you don't start the app. Most of those background processes are started by boot activity in Android and others are started by scheduling activities (such as alarms or certain notifications and sync). These will be usually restarted once app is started again too (after Force Close) and if they are not already running (and they usually are).
Force Close is unnecessary unless you know that a certain app is bad for the system and was run accidentally, etc.
On gb 2.3.6. No matter how I quit or clear the memory, the apps will automatically start by themselves without me launching the apps.
Some of the apps, I try to back or find the quit button to exit the app, the app is still shown as running behind the scene.
Besides unibstallibg the app, any way to prevent them from running in the background?
Sent from Android
many apps will run in the background even after you quit, ones that wake the phone i uninstall, theres a program called autorun manager, im not 100% sure it works but i disabled many apps and widgets i dont use and when i boot i dont get alot running and i save more ram and theres less cached programs or programs i use only.
heres a link for info
http://www.xda-developers.com/android/autorun-manager-updated-to-v2-0/
On settings there is developer options. Check the kill app back button. Whenever you need to close the apps, long press the back button.
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jigs0416 said:
On settings there is developer options. Check the kill app back button. Whenever you need to close the apps, long press the back button
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Dude, he's running gb. Also this isn't you're looking for but you can freeze apps with titanium backup. Also with advanced task killer if I remember the name right, you can set autokill for exsample every minute. Also you can update to ics
Sent from my sgs2 running cm9