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hi i have only just got the hero and was wondering how to close apps properly. i have noticed that when you hold the home key for a while a window pops up showing some apps ...is this how you close them? or is simply pressing the home key shutting them .
The long press on home just brings up a list of apps that have been recently run. It's almost a task switcher, but not quite!
Many apps will exit if you "back" out of them - i.e. when in the app keep pressing back until you get back to the home screen. However, this isn't the case for all applications. Some may have an explicit exit or close button, whereas others may have nothing at all.
However, Android is pretty good at managing its own applications, and will kill/exit them as necessary. In my experience, there's little to be gained from explicitly killing applications using a task killer, but some people swear by it.
Regards,
Dave
foxmeister said:
The long press on home just brings up a list of apps that have been recently run. It's almost a task switcher, but not quite!
Many apps will exit if you "back" out of them - i.e. when in the app keep pressing back until you get back to the home screen. However, this isn't the case for all applications. Some may have an explicit exit or close button, whereas others may have nothing at all.
However, Android is pretty good at managing its own applications, and will kill/exit them as necessary. In my experience, there's little to be gained from explicitly killing applications using a task killer, but some people swear by it.
Regards,
Dave
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Most Task Killers free up memory thats used by background apps.
so basicly back out of the app and let android do the rest of the worring. thanks for advise
risterdid said:
Most Task Killers free up memory thats used by background apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, but the point is that Android itself will start killing applications if it starts to run low on resources. (see http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/fundamentals.html)
Regards,
Dave
I'll attempt to sum it up once and for all, to try and set the record straight.
In Android's virtual machine, there is no functional differentiation between "closing" an app and "switching away from" an app. They are the same (the exception is things like music players which need to keep playing after you switch away from them, but even then only the 'service' part needs to keep running).
Whenever you switch away from an app, its current state is remembered so that even if it is effectively "killed" it can be returned to in just that state next time it's opened. Then Android either kills the process or it keeps it open, killing it when it needs the memory. You won't notice any difference between either scenario, except maybe that an app loads a little bit faster if it was kept in memory. At any rate, "closed" apps do not "run", and they do not take RAM or CPU cycles from other apps.
In terms of process/memory management, Android's VM has more in common with a web browser than a desktop OS - sure it can remember your state when you switch apps (like switching tabs, going back/forward/home in a browser) but whether behind the scenes it loads it all into and out of memory when you switch back and forth, or it all stays in memory is irrelevant to the user. Nobody worries that a long forum page on another tab or in their back button history is occupying 80 megs in the background or not, the browser takes care of loading/unloading it from RAM as needed, and that's just like how Android's VM works when switching between various pages of various apps.
Once you understand this you understand that all these 'task killer' apps are really unnecessary - all they'll do is make it slower to restart an app once closed. They don't reclaim RAM that was previously unavailable to other apps.
To cut a long story short, pressing "home" is a great way to close an app, whether you want to return to it later or not.
MercuryStar said:
Nobody worries that a long forum page on another tab or in their back button history is occupying 80 megs in the background or not, the browser takes care of loading/unloading it from RAM as needed, and that's just like how Android's VM works when switching between various pages of various apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
that is not true for me, my firefox can eat a lot of resources as long as it is open. and i can see a performance difference when having a lot of apps open on my hero. not that it would be a problem, but you can see the menus scrolling more "fluid" after killing all bg apps, for example.
kendong2 said:
you can see the menus scrolling more "fluid" after killing all bg apps, for example.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would wager that's the placebo effect. It feels faster because you believe it should. If you understand how the OS works you realise that apps you've switched away from do nothing to slow down or take memory from any other app (see my exception above about apps that launch background services such as music player).
kendong2 said:
that is not true for me, my firefox can eat a lot of resources as long as it is open. and i can see a performance difference when having a lot of apps open on my hero. not that it would be a problem, but you can see the menus scrolling more "fluid" after killing all bg apps, for example.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do notice this too. There is a general 'sluggishness' with my Hero when there are lots of app sleeping/running/hibernating/whatever in the background. As soon as I kill off a few unwanted ones, all the menus scroll faster and home screens change quicker.
And this is not the placebo effect either. The menu's DO scroll more fluidly after I have killed a few apps, regardless of how you describe the RAM management...
Micksta said:
And this is not the placebo effect either. The menu's DO scroll more fluidly after I have killed a few apps, regardless of how you describe the RAM management...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
exactly, you can tell easily if it is one motion or looks like it is "skipping frames". even it is only because it takes the device some cpu cycles to kill other apps, it does make a difference. like i said a rather cosmetic one, since it doesn't really effect the general usage. nevertheless i like to know what is running and what's not, and so far im running good with advanced task manager free.
WOW i didnt expect a massive response for my question but i thank you all for your responses
MercuryStar said:
I would wager that's the placebo effect. It feels faster because you believe it should. If you understand how the OS works you realise that apps you've switched away from do nothing to slow down or take memory from any other app (see my exception above about apps that launch background services such as music player).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
that's not true, my phone gets so sluggish sometimes that i can't answer a phone call, the phone doesn't register that i press the answer button. and when that happends i usually have like 20 mb of free ram.
Daniehabazin said:
that's not true, my phone gets so sluggish sometimes that i can't answer a phone call, the phone doesn't register that i press the answer button. and when that happends i usually have like 20 mb of free ram.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just as a matter of interest, do you use swapper or AppsToSD?
My phone never gets into the situation you've described, but even though I do have the full version of TasKiller, I almost never use it, and I don't see a need at present to use AppsToSD.
In addition, I'd imagine that having a swap partition would cause an issue with Androids own memory management, since I guess it can't distinguish between real and "virtual" memory. So where a "non-swap" device would start killing processes, a "swap" device would just continue on regardless because it thinks it still has physical memory available.
Regards,
Dave
Yesterday I downloaded "Advanced Task Killer Free"... anyone who has experiences with this? Is is better than just "Task Killer" or is it just an updated version of "Task Killer" ?
thanks!
have been using atk free for a while (lol 2 weeks since i got the hero) now, i really like it. its advantage over all other task managers IMHO: it has an ignore list, things you ignore are not shown in the running tasks list. in the list you have check boxes, where you can select the tasks that will be killed, and this list is remembered. for example "htc sense" is on my ignore list, but "music" is only checked, so i can uncheck it when i don't want to kill it while listening to music. next time i want to kill music i just have to tap the checkbox, no dealing with the ignore list here...
Daniehabazin said:
that's not true, my phone gets so sluggish sometimes that i can't answer a phone call, the phone doesn't register that i press the answer button. and when that happends i usually have like 20 mb of free ram.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I get this problem a lot, and in answer to fox meister, I don't have AppsToSD.
I don't know if the problem is RAM or CPU related, but the CPU often jumps to 100% when things are really slow.
Is the issue likely to be background apps, or widgets even?
Sausageman said:
I get this problem a lot, and in answer to fox meister, I don't have AppsToSD.
I don't know if the problem is RAM or CPU related, but the CPU often jumps to 100% when things are really slow.
Is the issue likely to be background apps, or widgets even?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same for me with the processor.
When i reboot my phone i usually have 90 mb of free ram, after starting a few applications, like browser and phonebook, it plummets down to 20 mb.
I do have some extra applications that starts as services, like systray monitor and 3g watchdog.
when i open atk after a fresh reboot i see that some applications that i don't even use is started, like footprints, settings and calendar, even my webrowser is started, whats up with that, can it be disabled?
I think the issue is that we have some applications that autostart withous us using them, and also programs that we download that autostarts as services and maybe having memory leaks...
I came to chime in with my experiences of the CDMA hero and sluggishness.
I watch memory like a hawk (thanks Mogul) and I too have around 80-90mb free ram on start, but it can get down to around 30 rather quickly. Once it gets down here, I notice that screen transitions and random lag occurs in apps. If I go into Advanced Task Killer and kill many of the stragglers, my menus are as smooth as can be.
It is most certainly NOT a placebo effect.
One thing I really like about Advanced Task Killer (pay version) is that it has the "Auto End" feature, where it will kill all apps not chosen to be excluded at the interval that you choose. For example, I have determined the system applications that need to be on all the time, and I've excluded those. Every hour, ATK kills everything else. For the most part, my Hero hovers around 70MB now at all times, although it can get down there to around 30-40MB if I'm right around the 1 hour mark.
That feature alone makes it much better than Taskiller IMO. Totally worth 99 cents
This definition would imply that android works exactly like the iphone osx? I mean saving "screenshots" of the last state of an app. But NOT having real multitasking?
Because it's not possible to have multitasking and at the same time "inactive" background apps everytime you hit the home button...
MercuryStar said:
I'll attempt to sum it up once and for all, to try and set the record straight.
In Android's virtual machine, there is no functional differentiation between "closing" an app and "switching away from" an app. They are the same (the exception is things like music players which need to keep playing after you switch away from them, but even then only the 'service' part needs to keep running).
Whenever you switch away from an app, its current state is remembered so that even if it is effectively "killed" it can be returned to in just that state next time it's opened. Then Android either kills the process or it keeps it open, killing it when it needs the memory. You won't notice any difference between either scenario, except maybe that an app loads a little bit faster if it was kept in memory. At any rate, "closed" apps do not "run", and they do not take RAM or CPU cycles from other apps.
In terms of process/memory management, Android's VM has more in common with a web browser than a desktop OS - sure it can remember your state when you switch apps (like switching tabs, going back/forward/home in a browser) but whether behind the scenes it loads it all into and out of memory when you switch back and forth, or it all stays in memory is irrelevant to the user. Nobody worries that a long forum page on another tab or in their back button history is occupying 80 megs in the background or not, the browser takes care of loading/unloading it from RAM as needed, and that's just like how Android's VM works when switching between various pages of various apps.
Once you understand this you understand that all these 'task killer' apps are really unnecessary - all they'll do is make it slower to restart an app once closed. They don't reclaim RAM that was previously unavailable to other apps.
To cut a long story short, pressing "home" is a great way to close an app, whether you want to return to it later or not.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Shahpur.Azizpour said:
This definition would imply that android works exactly like the iphone osx? I mean saving "screenshots" of the last state of an app. But NOT having real multitasking?
Because it's not possible to have multitasking and at the same time "inactive" background apps everytime you hit the home button...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, you've not understood the explanation.
The iPhone will always* terminate an application that isn't on its list of "approved" multi-tasking apps once it isn't active any more (i.e. you've switched tasks).
Android will try to keep whatever it can in memory, but eventually will start killing processes in order to keep the system running.
So, if you're on an iPhone listening to something on Spotify and you want to browse something on the web, the iPhone will "kill" Spotify when you switch to the web browser. On Android this won't occur except in the most critical of resource low situations, but then again, I'd imagine other apps would get killed before Spotify.
Read this article, specifically the section from "Component Lifecycles" onwards specifically "Activity Lifecycle", "Saving activity state" and "Processes and lifecycles".
Regards,
Dave
* Unless it has been jailbroken!
Hi all,
I just got my Transformer Prime this week, and as a new user both of Android (my phone is a WP7 device) and of tablets in general, I do have a couple of questions that maybe you guys can help me with...
1) Shut it down or not?
Being a tablet something in between my phone and my laptop, I'm still not sure exactly how to manage it. I know this will come with experience, but do you guys leave it always on like your phone or do you shut down like a laptop? I actually only hibernate my laptop, but I don't know how to do that on my TP... is it possible?
2) Services: my battery and OS responsiveness
OK, so I got my TP and started downloading apps... Skype and Facebook were one of the firsts. I quickly realized that, by default, after opening them for the 1st time, they kept giving me notifications, even if I swiped them left of the task manager (i.e. closed them, AFAIK). This is OK for Skype, but I really don't want Facebook bothering me that much, so I disabled notifications on its settings. Is that all that is needed to remove these permanent services? Does the "services" tab under Settings -> Applications really show everything that is running or can some apps hide from there?
3) Closing apps: should I care about it or not?
I still didn't fully understand how "closing apps" work on Android (ICS at least). If I have an app with notifications enabled (i.e. its service is enabled, right?), even if I close it from the task manager, the notifications keep coming. However, if notifications are disabled, is swiping them left from the task manager REALLY closing them? At the end of the day, to improve battery and responsiveness, should I keep closing my unused apps?
4) Launcher: Is ICS launcher the best for tablets?
This is actually part of a more general question, coming below. But anyway, I read that the ICS launcher is much improved from previous Android versions, and at the same time I didn't find a good launcher comparison for tablets only. Many of the launchers reviews only apply them for phones, and only compare them to the Gingerbread launcher (or some device-specific launcher). Since many of the launchers are paid apps, I would like to know: is there any launcher that is really worth trying in my new TP? What do you guys use?
5) Tablet-optimized apps???
I don't have my TP for even a week and I'm already tired of reading great things about an app, only to download it and see that it is not optimized for tablets at all. So, is there any good source of info/reviews on tablet-optimized apps?
Many thanks!
Leo.
1) Shut it down or not?
Personally, I always leave mine tablet running. There is a price to pay from a battery perspective when shutting down / starting up, so unless you know you are not going to be using it for an extended period of time, I would recommend leaving it on.
2) Services: my battery and OS responsiveness
I believe the 'Services' tab will show all the user app services that are running, but I am not sure if you can permanently prevent them from starting back up with ICS. I have seen task manager apps in the market that can prevent services from starting up. In all reality though, if you are concerned about background services draining your battery, the Prime has excellent battery life to begin with, especially if you have the dock, so if I was you I wouldn't get too worked up over the background services. Now if we were talking about a smart phone here (like my Thunderbolt for example which has horrible battery life), I would be much more concerned about this type of thing as I would want to do anything possible to squeeze as much life out of my battery just to get through an entire day.
3) Closing apps: should I care about it or not?
From my understanding swiping an app on the Recent Apps tray won't actually kill the process. Swiping an app from the Recent Apps tray more or less just removes the app from the list of Recent Apps. ICS automatically takes care of shutting down processes and releasing memory when appropriate. If you want to manually kill an app you can Force Close it from the list of apps from the Settings -> Applications menu. But again, my personal preference is to let ICS do its thing and take care of process management. I will remove apps from the Recent Apps tray just keep the tray less cluttered with apps that I don't use or need to switch to that often but I normally won't kill apps manually from the task manager.
On a side note, I would think removing an app from the Recent Apps tray would signal the OS that I am not going to be using the app again any time soon and the OS is free to shut down the process and release its memory, but I am not sure if this is what happens or not. All I know is that I have read elsewhere that removing an app from the Recent Apps tray will not immediately kill the process.
4) Launcher: Is ICS launcher the best for tablets?
Personally, I really like ICS so I haven't tried any of the other launchers that are out there (on the tablet side of things anyways). I used the GO Launcher on my phone for a little while but ended up switching back to the default HTC Sense launcher. This is one of the things I love about Android though; the ability to totally change the look and feel the device by simply customizing and switching between different launchers. If I ever get tired or bored with ICS, I can download a new launcher and just like that, everything will seem new and fresh again.
5) Tablet-optimized apps???
This is one of the big problems with Android and the Android Market right now; not just the small selection of tablet optimized apps but being able to find these apps in the Market. There is an 'editors top picks for tablet apps' section or something like that in the Android Market that I have used. Unfortunately, many of the apps in there are not that great, but at least they are optimized for tablets. Typically I will just do a google search for 'top android tablet apps' to get a feel for some of the best tablet optimized apps that are out there.
Try the Tablified website or app to find tablet optimized apps. Can't download directly from there, but the install link will take you to the market page for whatever app you want.
http://www.tablified.com
jordache16 said:
1) Shut it down or not?
Personally, I always leave mine tablet running. There is a price to pay from a battery perspective when shutting down / starting up, so unless you know you are not going to be using it for an extended period of time, I would recommend leaving it on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First of all, thanks for taking the time to reply me! Anyway, my point was exactly about the times when I will not use it for an extented period, like when I go to bed or something... But I guess since I don't want any notifications when I'm sleeping, I think it is wiser to shut it down. On the other hand, is there a quick-way to completely silence the tablet, i.e. turn off the volume AND the vibrations?
jordache16 said:
2) Services: my battery and OS responsiveness
I believe the 'Services' tab will show all the user app services that are running, but I am not sure if you can permanently prevent them from starting back up with ICS. I have seen task manager apps in the market that can prevent services from starting up. In all reality though, if you are concerned about background services draining your battery, the Prime has excellent battery life to begin with, especially if you have the dock, so if I was you I wouldn't get too worked up over the background services. Now if we were talking about a smart phone here (like my Thunderbolt for example which has horrible battery life), I would be much more concerned about this type of thing as I would want to do anything possible to squeeze as much life out of my battery just to get through an entire day.
3) Closing apps: should I care about it or not?
From my understanding swiping an app on the Recent Apps tray won't actually kill the process. Swiping an app from the Recent Apps tray more or less just removes the app from the list of Recent Apps. ICS automatically takes care of shutting down processes and releasing memory when appropriate. If you want to manually kill an app you can Force Close it from the list of apps from the Settings -> Applications menu. But again, my personal preference is to let ICS do its thing and take care of process management. I will remove apps from the Recent Apps tray just keep the tray less cluttered with apps that I don't use or need to switch to that often but I normally won't kill apps manually from the task manager.
On a side note, I would think removing an app from the Recent Apps tray would signal the OS that I am not going to be using the app again any time soon and the OS is free to shut down the process and release its memory, but I am not sure if this is what happens or not. All I know is that I have read elsewhere that removing an app from the Recent Apps tray will not immediately kill the process.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hum, ok, I will try to freak out less about open apps. What's still bugs me, for instance, is the behavior of Google Talk vs. Skype. After turning the tablet on, Skype doesn't open automatically, and after I open it, it will gracefully inform-me of its status on the notifications bar. However, today I just got surprised by a incoming IM from Google Talk, even if I did'nt open it! I realized that it is hidden under "Google Services" in the app list, but there is no setting in the app to disable it from running on start-up! I can only "sign out"... Anyway, on the other hand, there's no setting to have Skype launch automatically on start up...
jordache16 said:
4) Launcher: Is ICS launcher the best for tablets?
Personally, I really like ICS so I haven't tried any of the other launchers that are out there (on the tablet side of things anyways). I used the GO Launcher on my phone for a little while but ended up switching back to the default HTC Sense launcher. This is one of the things I love about Android though; the ability to totally change the look and feel the device by simply customizing and switching between different launchers. If I ever get tired or bored with ICS, I can download a new launcher and just like that, everything will seem new and fresh again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll second that. I've quickly used the Iphone 4 a couple of times and its dullness just bores me to death... hehe
jordache16 said:
5) Tablet-optimized apps???
This is one of the big problems with Android and the Android Market right now; not just the small selection of tablet optimized apps but being able to find these apps in the Market. There is an 'editors top picks for tablet apps' section or something like that in the Android Market that I have used. Unfortunately, many of the apps in there are not that great, but at least they are optimized for tablets. Typically I will just do a google search for 'top android tablet apps' to get a feel for some of the best tablet optimized apps that are out there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I saw that, but I hate that I cannot filter that list between apps and games... stupid Google or stupid me? hehe
wikedawsum said:
Try the Tablified website or app to find tablet optimized apps. Can't download directly from there, but the install link will take you to the market page for whatever app you want.
http://www.tablified.com
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the tip! I'm cheking it out right now...
reguarding open apps
At times i noticed my stock launcher was laggy to switch between screens. After swiping to close the recent apps it was a lot more responsive, so i think that swiping the apps from the recent list does close them, at least in mose cases.
As to optimization apps, usually they are intended for phones running older software. You need to remember that every phone (aside from the google phones) is running a slightly different version of android.
Since each version of android is different, even between the Froyo on my phone and your phone, because they have different modifications on them there is a chance that the customized software on my phone may be better at handling unused tasks than your phone (in fact HTC phones by default have a LOT of running processes in the background, whereas Samsung phones generally have fewer).
A lot of these optimization apps do several things:
Turn off wifi and bluetooth when not needed
Close tasks when they are unused
lower screen brightness
turn off 3g and use 2g if available and not in a call
Now this may be excellent for your phone, it spends most of its time in your pocket, soon as you unlock it it can connect to wifi again, turn on bluetooth, etc.
HOWEVER!
If you have, say, the weather widget, or a clock, or in my case battery monitor pro, and the task killer is killing those tasks those widgets will no longer update.
Some tasks, like Maps, tend to start up automatically, meaning your wasting MORE battery life closing this app and then it restarts and you have to close it again. It takes less battery life having it run in the background.
Sometimes an app will close (like the browser) that your not fully done using. Theres a difference between the app being frozen in memory and fully closed. Both do not require much power, however when you open that process again the frozen one takes a LOT less battery than the unfrozen one.
On a tablet, having a case that has a magnet in the apropriate spot and, say, tasker (very good app for custimizing your own triggers to turn things on and off) to detect that sensor and shut off wifi, gps, bluetooth, etc. would be very cool. Many apps use the proximity sensor to detect if its in a pocket and shut off everything, or the lockscreen. Because the way a tablet is used many of these battery saver apps will actually use more battery than what would be used in the first place.
You also have to remember that as android advances there are more tweaks for battery life put into them. For instance, you can have ICS close tasks that are not being used right away to save memory and its pretty good about freezing things in background memory.
Older versions of android lacked these features, or they were poorly implimented. I remember on my vibrant i was always going back to make sure all my tasks were closed properly when i was done with them. With newer devices its not an issue android takes care of that for me.
TLDR: Try as many battery saver apps as you like, just be warey as to what devices they are designed for and what version of android they were made for. Doesnt mean they wont work, just means they may do something thats useless for using on a tablet.
1) Shut it down or not?
Never. We got the companion core for a reason.
2) Services: my battery and OS responsiveness
No, everything is shown except core processes. You can get systempanel if you want to see.
3) Closing apps: should I care about it or not?
Don't unless you somehow got froyo or eclair onto your tablet.
4) Launcher: Is ICS launcher the best for tablets?
Depends on your tastes. I would suggest trying all of them.
5) Tablet-optimized apps???
What the other people said.
1) Mine is always on. I shut down when I expect it to be idle for a long time or when I want maximum battery conservation while idle. Pressing the power button is as close as you get to hibernate, officially with Android. I'm interested to know if any of the usual Linux power management stuff applies to these systems or if it's tied to ACPI (A PC thing), and if there would be a way to wake the system. It's certainly not supported by ASUS .
2) Google how Android services work and about the application life cycle. For the most part things like Facebook don't do all that much harm, unless it is dealing with a lot of data. If you do not want it to run and the application lacks a setting for turning the service off, uninstall the app. A startup manager may or may not be able to help but be warned: auto task killers are generally bad, you would actually want to manage the startup services not auto kill them!
3) No. Android will take care of this OK. Closing apps generally refers to the "Activity" not the service. Android has taken decent care of that since at least version 2.2 and this tablet runs 4.0.3 . Swipping stuff out of the multi-task menu is most useful for keeping it tidy, it will not generally improve your life in most cases. For a good explanation you should look for a post Dianne Hackborn reshared on G+, I believe Android Police even carried it.
4) Depends on what is best for you. It's great except for the lack of customization. Nova Launcher offers a bit more. ICS's launcher versus e.g. GB's is almost what could be called a basic custom launcher, i.e. all the important stuff is there but you can't tweak the hell out of it. For more serious work try ADW Launcher Ex (scrolling widgets currently broken) or Go (not quite fully tablet optimized yet but works). I use ADW Launcher Ex, and there is a free version with less features.
5) Tablified Market and XDA usually helps I guess. I rarely have problems except with rarely updated stuff.
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Tapatalk
Hi Everyone,
Basically, I got my Samsung Galaxy Player 4.0 in January, and when it comes to the features, I have been loving it. This is my first Android device.
However, I have been having problems lately. First, some basic information: it's an 8gb device, and I have a 32gb class 10 microSD card in it. I have a huge number of apps on it (over 200), however, I keep careful tabs on what is running in the background, reporting an app if it runs in the background even when not needed and that will reopen if killed, and if I don't really need it, deleting it after a week. I've only had to do that with a couple of apps so far. As I use this a lot as a PDA (I don't have a phone, this basically covers those bases), I have a couple of things that always run in the background, which I want there (textplus, Linphone, MailDroid, SwipePad). After getting rid of the services that I don't need, I'm still looking at over 100MB free RAM. I'm still on the stock ROM, and I'm using GO launcher Ex. I reboot daily.
My problem is that it crashes often - sometimes daily. Usually, it will go something like this: An application freezes, the whole system becomes unresponsive, and I either have to reboot it by holding down the power button for 8 (?) seconds, or something snags and it reboots by itself. Usually the first sign is that the haptic feedback for the home button comes about a second later after I press it - except then it is almost always too late. The power button will usually turn the screen on or off, but the lockscreen won't appear, I'll see the screen as it was before, frozen. Sometimes, it eventually reboots, while sometimes it doesn't, making me hold down the power button to reboot it, and sometimes, just as it will start "becoming unfrozen" (it goes to the home screen and it starts loading), it will reboot.
It seems to be that after an approximate time of active use, it will crash. Before that, apps can freeze, FC, and within a few seconds, I'll be back on the home screen or in another app, doing something else. After that, on the other hand, it seems to me that whenever an app freezes or has a problem, it basically takes down the whole system with it.
Something tells me that this isn't just normal (otherwise Android wouldn't have over 50% of smart phone market share ), because I haven't heard of problems like this before, and other people with Android I know don't seem to be having the same problems (if any, at all). I have been reading around, and saw some thread about another phone describing similar problems, and it turns out it was a motherboard problem, so the phone was returned for warranty, except I don't remember where that was, I'm just hoping it's something like that...
OK, now that you've read my long post (sorry, I thought it would be best to give more details than get asked about them), I really hope this isn't something normal, because outside of this problem, I'm really enjoying all the possibilities, capabilities and flexibilities of Android (I'm looking at you, iPod). It's really quite aggravating, today I lost my public transit itinerary on Google Maps (I feature I love), and thankfully, I remembered enough to make it through, but it is quite frustrating. Please tell me this is not Android being Android?
Go Launcher is not Officially supported on these devices and swallows the small amount of ram very quickly, I tried it for a day and got rid of it because of how badly it impacted performance.
edit: looks like since I tried it they added support for our players, still won't run it, its to much of a system hog.
I don't know, but I tried switching to the default launcher, and it already crashed earlier than usual. Any other ideas? I'll try some other launchers over the next few days.
Sounds like you are running out of system resources. You say you have a couple hundred apps installed and I bet some of those are becoming active and hogging precious ram and cpu resources in the background until the system crashes. I have a 2 year old Samsung Captivate and I only have minimal amount of apps because it will often big down and become unresponsive and crash. So before you head out to a repair shop, remove some of your many apps and see if that helps.
So, if I understand, even if an app runs in the background for a short period of time, it still consumes resources, even after it's stopped running?
trainman261 said:
So, if I understand, even if an app runs in the background for a short period of time, it still consumes resources, even after it's stopped running?
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If you have a titanium backup freeze apps that run in backround and see what happens ..when you open programs they will stay in memory so use some memory kill widget to clean memory from time to time.I have a stock rom witch is not very good with memory menagment so sometimes when memory is full it just stop and only help is restarting ..so i use app "quick system info" which give you memory ajd cpy usage displayed in status bar and when memory is close 2 full i just click on that and it kill all other aps except what a use in that moment.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA
So, basically, the ROM is to blame? As to Titanium backup, I think that needs root, and I'm not quite ready to root yet (I've done enough hacking on my iPod). I do plan on upgrading to android 4.0 eventually (once all the issues get fixed, this is my main device, after all), and I think I'm going to have to root it at that point, but I'll be able to test it on a different ROM then, as well as try freezing apps. For now, I've tried LauncherPro, which seems a lot more lightweight, and it seems to be making it through the day until I reboot, and seems to be very stable... it also loads my widgets lightnight fast, which is great.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the way I understand it is:
obviously there are memory leaks, every OS has that
Android will not kill services, but only programs
If there are places where memory can be freed, Android will do that when necessary
If no memory can be freed, and there is barely any memory left, than a minor FC or a frozen app is all it will need to push Android off the cliff
Is this the way it works? And, then, when I upgrade to 4.0 (CM9), most of those problems should be gone (because of better memory management)?
Planning on buying the 4G model, but I'm a bit worried because it's got only 1GB RAM.
Is it enough? How much RAM is free on boot? Will it slow down/ clear apps if I use FB messenger, reddit, soundcloud and chrome? Not looking at running 5+ apps in the background, so will it do?
For me it is enougth, the only apps with usually the phone closes itself are games, everyone else didnt
JuanAG said:
For me it is enougth, the only apps with usually the phone closes itself are games, everyone else didnt
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Do you multitask? How's the performance with 3-4 apps open?
I'm not a big multitasker, but I do cycle through apps a lot. Like I'll browse Facebook, then G+, then Twitter, then some websites, then maybe play a game or two. Even with heavy apps like Facebook and Clash of Clans recently open when I check the RAM I usually have around 34% free, and the phone is not sluggish. The only thing I do a lot is after I'm done with what I did I clear all apps from the recent apps menu. I don't like how 5.x stores so many snapshots of all the things I did. I like the old 4.x way where it only showed what apps you used, and not the exact place. I think if the phone slows down it's because of too many snapshots in the recent apps since it's holding all those in memory. Clear those, and the phone should get snappy again.
With the sotck rom i usually do because it doesnt have the clear all button like CM and it is very responsive and works fine, the unique apps who are disposed of the ram are games basically, firefox for example doesnt and it is a heavy app
I am happy, it is enough fast for me and i played so far everything i want
I am not happy. Usually my phone always have 200MB free ram but it closes simple applications as music players.
I was discussing that in this topic http://forum.xda-developers.com/moto-e-2015/help/bug-music-players-suddenly-close-t3114383
This ROM/Kernel combo is a great one, I must say. I want to share my experiences running it, and maybe somebody has more tips on how to improve even further. Feel free to ask questions as well.
-- some basic info --
The phone is rooted, obviously.
I have a fast 32 GB card and Mounts2SD app, so storage of apps is not an issue in any way.
I use Nova Launcher, Xperia Keyboard (with gestures and two languages), MyAndroidTools for managing apps and services, and Greenify to hibernate some stuff.
I limit background processes to 4 under developer options. Sometimes I kill apps with a long-press of the back button to make room in RAM for the next activity.
-- what to disable --
I'm pretty into Gmail Inbox, but in the end it was too slow to run on the phone. And besides a stupid parking app Inbox was the only app that needed Play Services, so in the end it had to go. You see, Play Services is the main thing that will choke the phone on random occasions. It's got 325 services(!) and counting, so no wonder that it runs amok every now and then. Just cut them away by disabling them in MyAndroidTools.
Play Store is also something that is not a very nice background thing on a low-end phone, so I disable that, too. It's relatively easy to enable temporarily if/when I need to install something.
I have location services disabled. Navigation is therefore a no-go which is kind of a bummer - Google Maps is also Play Services based and won't run on 400 MB RAM anyway, so don't bother. Maybe there are other navigation alternatives around for low-end phones, IDK?
** A note: Play Services and Play Store irritate me as they turn on themselves spontaneously every now and then. Every few days the phone will turn to quicksand and when I diagnose there's always Play Services running again, even though it's disabled in MyAndroidTools. I would really like to have those two be well-behaving citizens **
-- apps --
Shuttle is a nice music player for this phone, I have about 25 GB of music on the card and it manages well.
Mailbox by Dropbox is lean and fast and a fine alternative if it wasn't for the fact that I'm not able to type in more than one word when replying to a mail - bit of limiting for a mail app wouldn't you say?
Twitter, Trello, Slack, Dropbox run fine although I won't run widgets due to RAM limitations.
Business Calendar is my longtime favorite and it works well. I tried upgrading to BC2 but that's not for this phone as far as I could judge (and with no new need-to-have features).
Opera Mini works for me, seems to be pretty conservative on RAM if a limited number of tabs are kept open. Of course, not everything renders optimally, but on the other hand the data savings are great so you can even surf decently on Edge connections, which come in handy sometimes.
The SJB camera works great, as does the FM Radio - and no problems ever with Wifi which I had with the phone on other ROMs previously!
No games. Not my thing. Not on a 3.5" display anyhow.
-- final words --
With the setup described here, this phone is still very much usable. Sure it's not the fastest but hey Zen right? And you won't be able to run any app comfortably, but the abovementioned make my workday more than manageable. Kudos to the ROM and Kernel developers, and to SonyEricsson for a still-great phone in a really pocketable package!