Database Users

Back button does NOT end applications!!!

So, after installing Task Manager and opening it I had 31 applications running in the background! Yup, you read that right, 31!!! I ended them all and started playing around. I would launch and app, hit the back button and then go into Task Manager and there it was, still running. I launched several applications hitting back aftewards and they were all still running. I even tried hitting home aftwards and still running. Oh, and I had some apps running twice!!! WTF!?!? Looks like I found a major flaw in the new 2.1 OS.

This is normal android behaviour.
Apps are only shut down when the phone runs out of memory, however if the app is not doing anyting it will be paused and not use any battery / cpu.
And since the nexus has 512MB RAM it can have a LOT of open applications
If it is a background app (like im) it usually has an exit button in the menu.

Apps always run on android if you don't end them with a task manager.

Ya, normal behavior. The app actually has to intentionally end itself when you press the back button for that to really end it. I wouldn't worry about it, though. Apps in the background tend to use very little RAM and CPU.

Not sure why people are freaking out about apps running in the background... This is normal and Android does an amazing job of freeing up memory by killing apps as NEEDED.

Hmmmm, guess I never looked at it that way. I do notice it gets a little sluggish when all of that is running in the background. I'm just used to my MT3G. I've NEVER seen that many apps running at once.

setzer715 said:
Hmmmm, guess I never looked at it that way. I do notice it gets a little sluggish when all of that is running in the background. I'm just used to my MT3G. I've NEVER seen that many apps running at once.
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try two and two-thirds the amount of RAM and that would explain how you get so many apps running lol.

david1171 said:
try two and two-thirds the amount of RAM and that would explain how you get so many apps running lol.
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Click to collapse
Ha-ha, good point!!!

From my experience the apps never close it is set to idle and is stored in the phone memory therefore decreasing startup time and allowing for a better multitasking experience but on all other previous android devices there wasn't as much memory so only a few apps could run at a time before the memory would be needed so something would get closed.

You're used to having 37.5% of the ram the Nexus One has
Now here's the question: does having 31 apps open affect battery life?

Paul22000 said:
You're used to having 37.5% of the ram the Nexus One has
Now here's the question: does having 31 apps open affect battery life?
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Click to collapse
It depends on the applications. If they just sit quietly when suspended (in the background) and don't do anything, they will have no impact on battery life (because their threads will never schedule/run). If they continue to do work while in the background, that will have some impact, however, unless they hold a wakelock (something they need the "keep phone from sleeping" permission to do), they will have no contribution to battery consumption while the screen is off and no other apps/services hold wakelocks.
In short, "it depends."
The menu / settings / about phone / battery use panel tries to give you as much information as possible about what apps/services are consuming your battery.

martijnve said:
This is normal android behaviour.
Apps are only shut down when the phone runs out of memory, however if the app is not doing anyting it will be paused and not use any battery / cpu.
And since the nexus has 512MB RAM it can have a LOT of open applications
If it is a background app (like im) it usually has an exit button in the menu.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes. Traditional multitasking (WinMo, BlackBerry) phone OSes will not close an application (or program, on WinMo) until you tell it to close, or it decides to close itself. This is a resource hog, and results in the freezing up or running painfully slowly that we have come to expect from those devices. The iPhone always runs fast because it ALWAYS closes an app--no multitasking whatsoever--so it never runs out of resources and slows down. It "pauses" the app, then closes it, so when you open it, it resumes right where it left off, as if it were open the whole time. The downside is nothing gets done in the background--which is why awesome apps like Locale or Screebl won't run on iPhone. Android is the best of both worlds. It leaves apps running until it NEEDS to close them. When resources run tight, it pauses apps just like the iPhone, so it stays running fast, but as long as you don't overload the system, you can run background apps. And background services will stay running.
Paul22000 said:
Now here's the question: does having 31 apps open affect battery life?
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Click to collapse
I'm sure it does some, but with that monster of a CPU, and as little power as apps use when they're sitting in the background not doing anything, I'm guessing it is a negligible difference. But that's why I love Advanced Task Manager's auto-end feature.

i lol'd -----------__________----------------

When you have 31 applications running, is there a hardware key that you can press (perhaps with a third party software) to show those which are running, and to switch to anyone of them instantly without resorting back to the application menu? Also, does this same tool let you shut down an active tasks in order to conserver memory and battery life? I understand that a long press of the home key only shows the last 6(?) application launched but not necessarily the currently active tasks.
On my jailbroken iPhone, I'm used to be able to double click the home button to show all active tasks, and there I can switch to or terminate anyone of them. While running an application, I also have the option of long pressing the home button to end it directly so that it does not continue running in the background. If I do a normal home press, the application will continue running in the background, and I'm presented with a screen which lets me jumps to any of the desktop in order to launch new applications.
I hope I can have the same level of convenience here.

All of the applications in the backround are essentially in hibernation - it is part of the way Android manages the RAM. I think it's great.

Task killers...Is it REALLY needed?

Hello guys;
just received my phone yesterday and i have a question regarding open programs
does the back button until home screen close the program or it still run in memory?
some people advise the use of task killers to kill unwanted tasks to save battery
while others say that Linux is handling this automatically and using task killers is no use
some people claims that after they stopped using task killers their battery life was better
i am new the Android as i am an ex WinMo user so please enlighten me
Thanks for huge efforts guys

Yes, they are. Android does a poor job of managing tasks, even to the point it auto starts like everything in your phone and very few of them turn themselves off.
You can manually manage them in applications, running processes, but task killers are so much easier.
I have owned 3, and the one that is easiest to use, that I have never found a bug with is Advanced Task killer (Little green droid icon). The purchased version is expensive, but worth it as it gives you one click widget to kill tasks.
Advanced Taskiller is known for crashing the home screen and stopping vital system services requiring a reboot. I own the full, and I have no use for it.

Okay, let's see how many questions I can answer here....
First of all, using the back button does not close the program. Neither does the home button. Android does handle this natively, but it does so automatically. It doesn't matter how you exit a program, it stays running until it needs to close. Whenever too many apps are running, slowing the system down, it will close the older ones as needed. All automatically. Nice, huh?
Task killers let you do this more aggressively, or manually. You may want to do this if you want your system to be "extra" fast, or to save battery. Most of them have extra features, too, like switching to running apps, or uninstalling them, etc. Beyond that, you don't need it. Some people say that task killers actually drain battery, but in my experience, they help slightly. And they do improve performance slightly too--as long as you are smart about not killing the wrong apps. (HINT--if it's a widget or a background service, never kill it)
So really, it's up to you. Get a free one, or a trial, and try it out, see if it makes things better or worse. Just take into account the learning curve before you give up on it--you have to exclude widgets, background processes, and maybe a couple other apps, too... takes a bit of trial and error to figure out which apps get bugs when you kill them.

It's not necessary but highly recommended. I use Taskiller the paid version. I mainly use it to kill apps that start to have problems and to kill a lot of the apps that boot with the phone.

on G1: i use it every time i reboot, because on boot/startup, some apps open automatically that are not needed (e.g. maps, Documents To Go, alarm, etc.)
clears up a lot of memory
on Nexus One: not sure yet whether that's really necessary considering more RAM available

I use Advanced Task Manager purely because I bought it on my G1 and so thought I might as well. It has a kill-all widget (you can set exclusions of course) but I don't use that. I normally only use it to kill apps that I want to restart or just to monitor what apps are doing what.
I have tried running the phone without using it at all and using its automation feature to kill everything except widgets and background processes every 30 mins. I honestly didn't notice any battery life difference or performance except that abviously apps were slower to open if they'd been killed rather than when they were in the background.
In my opinion and based on anecdotal experiments, task killers are not necessary on the N1 and certainly nothing like as vital as they were on G1

system6 said:
Yes, they are. Android does a poor job of managing tasks, even to the point it auto starts like everything in your phone and very few of them turn themselves off.
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Bull****. Prove your statement. This isn't Windows we're talking about. Android manages tasks and memory very well, if only people let it... but for some reason people can't understand that Android WILL automatically free memory AS NEEDED. Instead they open a task killer and **GASP** see open programs!! Autostarting certain apps is actually a good thing, since often those are the apps that people tend to use often, so they load very quickly. There is always some free memory with Android, and it never lets it get to a point where that drops to 0.

uansari1 said:
Bull****. Prove your statement. This isn't Windows we're talking about. Android manages tasks and memory very well, if only people let it... but for some reason people can't understand that Android WILL automatically free memory AS NEEDED. Instead they open a task killer and **GASP** see open programs!! Autostarting certain apps is actually a good thing, since often those are the apps that people tend to use often, so they load very quickly. There is always some free memory with Android, and it never lets it get to a point where that drops to 0.
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Click to collapse
+1. I dont use any task killers and have had no problems with speed or battery life.

uansari1 said:
Bull****. Prove your statement. This isn't Windows we're talking about. Android manages tasks and memory very well, if only people let it... but for some reason people can't understand that Android WILL automatically free memory AS NEEDED. Instead they open a task killer and **GASP** see open programs!! Autostarting certain apps is actually a good thing, since often those are the apps that people tend to use often, so they load very quickly. There is always some free memory with Android, and it never lets it get to a point where that drops to 0.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This.
I thought a task killer was necessary and went out and spent the dollar something on Advanced Task Killer. It made me feel "good" to know what I control what apps are open. But you know what? Ever since a factory reset, I have not put the Task Killer back on my phone and it's been about a week and a half if not more of letting android control my memory... And like uansari said... Android does a very good job of it.
I have not had to close any apps because of short memory. Android does a great job. Save your money.

Android (and Windows for that matter) has great memory management, but it's mostly a problem of rogue apps that don't sleep properly. I have Advanced Task Manager, and I've noticed with the Nexus One I see more "applications" running (like Launcher) that didn't show up on my G1 (running Enom's 1.6 before I got my N1). I found that I had to block a bunch of apps to keep them from being closed, and I got a couple of weird bugs that seemed to stem from closing apps. One of them was this problem with the audio not be routed properly to my BT or wired headset when connected. I use the task manager much more sparingly now, and only kill apps when they act up.

I really wish we had "Cards" like the Pre, so we could always know exactly what was open. Plus, the ability to "alt-tab" (swipe back and forth) is a million times better than this "hold home button" crap. Sigh. Need better alt tabbing.

while i do not disagree that Android does a ok (yes, ok! just that...) job to manage tasks & processes, I disagree that it opens or keeps open apps that are necessary or frequently used. That's not Android that does it, it's the apps that tell it to do it.
for instance (as i mentioned a few posts up), everytime i boot, it opens "Documents To Go"... an app i most infrequently use, almost never, but like to have in case i have to review a doc or excel sheet on the go.
It doesn't have to open on startup, it is not frequently used, but it still opens on start up.
so yes, i do use task killer, on startup. but i use it sparingly thereafter

shmigao said:
while i do not disagree that Android does a ok (yes, ok! just that...) job to manage tasks & processes, I disagree that it opens or keeps open apps that are necessary or frequently used. That's not Android that does it, it's the apps that tell it to do it.
for instance (as i mentioned a few posts up), everytime i boot, it opens "Documents To Go"... an app i most infrequently use, almost never, but like to have in case i have to review a doc or excel sheet on the go.
It doesn't have to open on startup, it is not frequently used, but it still opens on start up.
so yes, i do use task killer, on startup. but i use it sparingly thereafter
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Click to collapse
That's fine... so Document to Go opens at boot, along with other apps. My point is that as you start opening other apps, and Documents to Go stays latent, it will get closed automatically as other apps demand memory. I'm not directing this specifically at you, shmigao... just responding to a concern a lot of people seem to have. Apps automatically opening at startup is common and don't cause a performance decrease.
I have yet to experience any slowdowns on my N1, and I never use the task killer that's built into Astro.

i use "automatic task killer" free from the market and my phone runs fine. I dont even have to think about it, because it clears memory when phone goes to sleep. I think it was more needed on htc magic than nexus.

uansari1 said:
Bull****. Prove your statement. This isn't Windows we're talking about. Android manages tasks and memory very well, if only people let it... but for some reason people can't understand that Android WILL automatically free memory AS NEEDED. Instead they open a task killer and **GASP** see open programs!! Autostarting certain apps is actually a good thing, since often those are the apps that people tend to use often, so they load very quickly. There is always some free memory with Android, and it never lets it get to a point where that drops to 0.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exactly.
I stopped using task killers on my N1 because it cause more problems and hosed my battery faster. I haven't used it in almost two weeks, and the phone is smooth and the battery lasts a lot longer.
No need for task killers on the N1, IMO.

uansari1 said:
Bull****. Prove your statement. This isn't Windows we're talking about. Android manages tasks and memory very well, if only people let it... but for some reason people can't understand that Android WILL automatically free memory AS NEEDED. Instead they open a task killer and **GASP** see open programs!! Autostarting certain apps is actually a good thing, since often those are the apps that people tend to use often, so they load very quickly. There is always some free memory with Android, and it never lets it get to a point where that drops to 0.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
HA! Tell me how you really feel....LOL. I have tested my wifes G1 and my old MyTouch and found it gave me about 30% more battery time.
Yes it will auto close programs when it needs the resources, just like a Palm pre, but running processes are just that.....RUNNING.

uansari1 said:
Bull****. Prove your statement. This isn't Windows we're talking about. Android manages tasks and memory very well, if only people let it... but for some reason people can't understand that Android WILL automatically free memory AS NEEDED. Instead they open a task killer and **GASP** see open programs!! Autostarting certain apps is actually a good thing, since often those are the apps that people tend to use often, so they load very quickly. There is always some free memory with Android, and it never lets it get to a point where that drops to 0.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am perfectly happy with android managing my open applications and I have no concerns about RAM. My primary problem is that I am given *no* way to actually close an application if I really want to. An open application could still be polling, syncing, or updating and if I don't want that anymore how can I close it without the application developer explicitly coding an option for me to do so?
(an) Automatic task killer gives me the peace of mind that I can close applications that I use only once in a while and start with a clean slate every time I unlock the device.
I am not one of those users who places every single program there and requires a minimum amount of free ram, but I do have it cleaning up programs that have no business staying resident.

Wouldnt it by wise to use the "ignore" list many of these apps have.
That way you can have your frequenly used apps always able to quick load and the ones that you never use killed off.
I understand that Android has good memory management but I dont see the point of having some apps sitting there when I have no intention of opening them up on a regular basis.

Wow! Such heated debate over something so simple!
This isn't Android 1.0 or 1.5 or even 1.6(pretty darn good at auto closing)... this is Android 2.1 on 1ghz w/512mb RAM! The auto scaling of the CPU and the auto task closing is very, very, very good! There is no need for a task manager unless you want to use it to close something very specific because you want it closed NOW!
But there is no NEED for it, especially on the Nexus One. All it will do, if used regularly, is decrease battery life (yes, decrease, because it takes a lot more CPU power to open up an app than it takes to hold that program in the RAM's cache). As well, it will slow down your Android experience... Hero users found this one out, at least smart ones did, that the best way to keep it zipping along was to not use a task killer, except for media rich apps like youtube, music player, video player.
On a G1 running a Hero ROM, slightly different story in terms of speed, it was beneficial for several reasons; 1. Android 1.5 doesn't have nearly as good auto task management as 2.1. 2. A G1 used almost all of it's RAM to boot up the Hero ROM, and thus the auto settings were no where nearly as agressive as they would need to be.
But we are not talking about a G1 running a Hero ROM... we are talking about a Nexus One running stock Android 2.1...
If the OP, or anyone, wants a task killer, get Astro file manager, and use that. Kill the select few apps that you really want to when you get done, but don't bother getting an auto killer that messes with the already amazing job Android 2.1 and the Nexus One do!

it can be useful... i use it to close certain app that autostart or keep running in the background and use the GPS franticly trying to get a location

kill tasks n battery saving

hi all,
i m new user for Nexus one, i wonder what is the best task apps to auto kill when the phone in sleep mode in order to save battery. My phone havent ROOT yet, shall i do it? After i have update the Android 2.1 i found it very good compare with iphone.
thank you very much

Killing tasks won't help to save battery... don't buy the hype. Android will manage your apps for you.

No killing tasks can help your battery. There are many apps on the market that are poorly written and drain battery.

McFroger3 said:
No killing tasks can help your battery. There are many apps on the market that are poorly written and drain battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well that makes sense... but I don't run any poorly written apps. And neither should you.
If you absolutely have to have a task killer, just download Astro File Manager. You'll need a file manager on this phone anyway, and Astro has a built in configurable task killer and can also back up apps to SD.

uansari1 said:
Well that makes sense... but I don't run any poorly written apps. And neither should you.
If you absolutely have to have a task killer, just download Astro File Manager. You'll need a file manager on this phone anyway, and Astro has a built in configurable task killer and can also back up apps to SD.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I try not to. But sometimes I get curious and download some random apps haha.
I use Advance Task Manager since I bought it when I had a Cliq.
It works good when I need to kill something to restart it or if I need to do a batch uninstall.
Astro is amazing and no one should have an android phone without it.

Thks all,
If so, i shall just leave as it is and not install any of those task killer or auto task etc......
But anyway to min the battery drain since there are so much apps running on RAM when the phone is in sleep mode. My battery can only last for 8 hrs from 9am till 5pm (i am so distracted, i do turn on my BT and talk on phone for at least 100mins-150mins a day.)
Thank you

chocodip said:
Thks all,
If so, i shall just leave as it is and not install any of those task killer or auto task etc......
But anyway to min the battery drain since there are so much apps running on RAM when the phone is in sleep mode. My battery can only last for 8 hrs from 9am till 5pm (i am so distracted, i do turn on my BT and talk on phone for at least 100mins-150mins a day.)
Thank you
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Keep the screen brightness as low as you can. Also having a lot of widgets can contribute to battery drain.

uansari1 said:
Killing tasks won't help to save battery... don't buy the hype. Android will manage your apps for you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
while this is true, I notice that android's threshold for closing programs is lower than I prefer. It seems to start closing programs at around 25 mb free (on stock kernel and rom) as reported by ES strong's task manager. At this level there is a noticeable amount of sluggishness on my N1. Of course this only lasts for perhaps 10 seconds or so as I am switching apps or whatever until android closes the processes to free up some ram.
I've read comments like yours many times, and I go back to not using one for a while thinking I must just be paranoid. Each time I return to the task manager because I get ticked about sluggishness.
If you manage your ignore list carefully to avoid closing stuff you actually want running in the background you lose nothing. The phone is fast enough that it loads apps quickly even if they're not sitting in the ram, so I prefer to hit the autokill widget once in a while or after using something like the youtube app or other resource hogging apps that I don't use on a regular basis.
I haven't noticed a difference in battery life, but the task manager improves my experience with the phone. It seems that as long as the free memory stays around 40+ I don't see the sluggishness.

Which task killer you use?
rossiscatch said:
while this is true, I notice that android's threshold for closing programs is lower than I prefer. It seems to start closing programs at around 25 mb free (on stock kernel and rom) as reported by ES strong's task manager. At this level there is a noticeable amount of sluggishness on my N1. Of course this only lasts for perhaps 10 seconds or so as I am switching apps or whatever until android closes the processes to free up some ram.
I've read comments like yours many times, and I go back to not using one for a while thinking I must just be paranoid. Each time I return to the task manager because I get ticked about sluggishness.
If you manage your ignore list carefully to avoid closing stuff you actually want running in the background you lose nothing. The phone is fast enough that it loads apps quickly even if they're not sitting in the ram, so I prefer to hit the autokill widget once in a while or after using something like the youtube app or other resource hogging apps that I don't use on a regular basis.
I haven't noticed a difference in battery life, but the task manager improves my experience with the phone. It seems that as long as the free memory stays around 40+ I don't see the sluggishness.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

My screen always in lowest light mode......i will try to install the advance task....hope it deos help abit.
McFroger3 said:
Keep the screen brightness as low as you can. Also having a lot of widgets can contribute to battery drain.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

chocodip said:
My screen always in lowest light mode......i will try to install the advance task....hope it deos help abit.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Advance task manager also lets you set a timer for auto closing all open apps except for the ones you have on your exception list.

chocodip said:
hi all,
i m new user for Nexus one, i wonder what is the best task apps to auto kill when the phone in sleep mode in order to save battery. My phone havent ROOT yet, shall i do it? After i have update the Android 2.1 i found it very good compare with iphone.
thank you very much
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try Juice Defender,is free on the market and everytime you turn the screen to sleep it kills the background data to save battery and @ wake-up its normal again.Read the reviews.

rossiscatch said:
while this is true, I notice that android's threshold for closing programs is lower than I prefer. It seems to start closing programs at around 25 mb free (on stock kernel and rom) as reported by ES strong's task manager. At this level there is a noticeable amount of sluggishness on my N1. Of course this only lasts for perhaps 10 seconds or so as I am switching apps or whatever until android closes the processes to free up some ram.
I've read comments like yours many times, and I go back to not using one for a while thinking I must just be paranoid. Each time I return to the task manager because I get ticked about sluggishness.
If you manage your ignore list carefully to avoid closing stuff you actually want running in the background you lose nothing. The phone is fast enough that it loads apps quickly even if they're not sitting in the ram, so I prefer to hit the autokill widget once in a while or after using something like the youtube app or other resource hogging apps that I don't use on a regular basis.
I haven't noticed a difference in battery life, but the task manager improves my experience with the phone. It seems that as long as the free memory stays around 40+ I don't see the sluggishness.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've got over 400 hours of uptime without closing ANY apps with a task killer, and haven't had ANY sluggishness. So if you're really noticing your phone slowing down (and be honest), then I'd exchange it. Frankly, I think a lot of people just "think" their phone is slowing down...

Cyanogen says don't use a Task killer!

Paul22000 said:
Cyanogen says don't use a Task killer!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So if cyanogen says jump of a bridge you would? lol
Just messing with you.

I ve installed the Juicedefender and advance task manger......hope meanwhile there will be sthg better. Battery usage is killing me....

uansari1 said:
I've got over 400 hours of uptime without closing ANY apps with a task killer, and haven't had ANY sluggishness. So if you're really noticing your phone slowing down (and be honest), then I'd exchange it. Frankly, I think a lot of people just "think" their phone is slowing down...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I'm sure you're right.. it's all in my head.

Couple of things OP:
1. Bluetooth is a battery hog!
2. How frequent do you have email update, weather update, et al set to?
3. Did you properly calibrate your battery meter when you got your N1? (Two ways to do it, 1) follow the in box guide and charge the phone before using or 2) run down the battery until the phone shuts itself off, pull battery out, put it back in. Now, without turning it back on, put it on the charger and leave it on for a couple hours past the green light coming on, take off charge, finally turn back on)
4. Do you have WiFi running? GPS? Streaming anything?
Have you downloaded any apps from the market just on a quim? There are some pretty bad apps that will never close until you uninstall and do a soft reset, and sometimes uninstall again.
Killing apps is actually going to hurt your battery. It takes more juice to power up the CPU to open an app then it does to hold it in the RAM, unless it is a crap written app that keeps running, and running, and running... but you shouldn't be using those apps anyways.

rossiscatch said:
Yeah, I'm sure you're right.. it's all in my head.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It most likely is... even when apps sit idle in RAM, the CPU usage for them is 0% in almost every case. Like I said... I don't have those issues at all, so it's either in your head or you have a dud.

uansari1 said:
It most likely is... even when apps sit idle in RAM, the CPU usage for them is 0% in almost every case. Like I said... I don't have those issues at all, so it's either in your head or you have a dud.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't think it's a problem with my phone. If you don't notice then good for you. I notice it and it bothers me. Your finger pointing is neither helpful or needed.

Advanced Task Killer Questions please

Hi
Ive just got this app (really to save myself some battery time)
On launching for the first time it presents me with a whole bunch of stuff including my clocks
Now i'm sure this maybe a pretty dumb question but if i kill the htc clock App will that stop the time and weather updating correctly? (i have my weather set to update hourly) and also if i kill any app like K-9 or Peep (that i have an update schedule set for) will it stop that schedule till i manually launch the app again or will it auto launch when it reaches the sheduled update time?
Sorry for the (potentially) stupid questions
Cheers

The only thing you're going to achieve with using a task killer, is lowering performance and causing even worse battery drain. If that's what you want to do, fine, but otherwise, I wouldn't bother if I were you.
Here's why:
Android's memory management is nothing like Windows Mobile. Applications you've finished with are MEANT to stay in memory until they really are completely finished with, and just because YOU aren't using them, doesn't mean the phone has. If they've been inactive long enough, or some other program needs the RAM, Android will tidily close them down.
If you close them prematurely, then Android will have to load them back up again, so that whatever was using said program's services, can continue to function. This noticeably affects phone performance, and puts an extra load on your battery. Do you REALLY want to do that?
I'm not using any task killers, and my phone runs great, and battery is up to 2.5 days.

Hmm interesting, i might try that, im killing all instantly and repeately, thanks for the tip

FloatingFatMan said:
The only thing you're going to achieve with using a task killer, is lowering performance and causing even worse battery drain. If that's what you want to do, fine, but otherwise, I wouldn't bother if I were you.
Here's why:
Android's memory management is nothing like Windows Mobile. Applications you've finished with are MEANT to stay in memory until they really are completely finished with, and just because YOU aren't using them, doesn't mean the phone has. If they've been inactive long enough, or some other program needs the RAM, Android will tidily close them down.
If you close them prematurely, then Android will have to load them back up again, so that whatever was using said program's services, can continue to function. This noticeably affects phone performance, and puts an extra load on your battery. Do you REALLY want to do that?
I'm not using any task killers, and my phone runs great, and battery is up to 2.5 days.
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Thats correct.
I installed it on the phone, and the battery was empty the same night
Uninstalled it, and all works fine now.
Greetz.

would an app like task panel work?
you can add apps that are system apps etc to the ignore list and have apps such as games on the force to kill list or is it just best not to have any task killer apps installed at all?
its strange that there are so many task killer apps and its bad to run on your device. There must be some reason as to why there is an app for this purpose?

ragmanchu said:
would an app like task panel work?
you can add apps that are system apps etc to the ignore list and have apps such as games on the force to kill list or is it just best not to have any task killer apps installed at all?
its strange that there are so many task killer apps and its bad to run on your device. There must be some reason as to why there is an app for this purpose?
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They exist, because people think memory management on Android works like it does on Windows Mobile. It doesn't, and never has. Think if it like the so called "memory manager" tools you can get for XP that claim to be able to free all your RAM and speed up your system... Every single one of them is nothing but a placebo designed to part you from your cash, and often end up CAUSING problems, just like task killers on Android do.
Avoid them.

FloatingFatMan said:
They exist, because people think memory management on Android works like it does on Windows Mobile. It doesn't, and never has. Think if it like the so called "memory manager" tools you can get for XP that claim to be able to free all your RAM and speed up your system... Every single one of them is nothing but a placebo designed to part you from your cash, and often end up CAUSING problems, just like task killers on Android do.
Avoid them.
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Click to collapse
Guess thats a good enough reply lol

task killers can work fine, but you need to know what is running and what is using it.
for example, if you have the music widget on the homescreens, then the music player process will be opne in the background.
likewise friendstream will keep people, facebook and twitter open in the background.
if you kill those processes, they will just get opened again.
As long as you are careful, using task managers will not decrease battery life, you just need to know how to use them properly. randomly killing everything in the background is NOT the way to do it.
and you should never close clock if you want your alarm clock to actually go off!!

Might be worth making a list of what apps should be ignored and what apps can be forced killed?
When i had an app killer installed, i used to only force kill games and sat nav apps, the rest i asked it to ignore but after reading this thread, i decided to delete the app killer app =)

Ive put a bunch of stuff like clock, weather, Peep and facebook etc on the ignore list and have used the task killer to only kill off frivolous apps like Spark (for xbox friends) streamfurious, photos etc...Nothing Major!
I unhooked my phone from the power at 7:30 am on the 13th April, its now 16:36 on the 14th april and it still has 30% of the juice left, and i always have wifi and mobile data connection on too...phone is always left on with facebook connecting ever 4 hrs and peep once a day and mail set for every 2 hrs (besides which i do check and update them manually a couple of times a day)
I'll try all this without task killer installed and test how long the phone can run before charging
As you say, it could well be a combination of the battery coming up to speed and a placebo effect.
However, surely it cant do more harm than good to kill an app like Spark !
However, im no Phone Genius so im sure someone will soon tell me that im completely wrong
But so far so good....like i said, ill test things without task killer installed

I've stopped using the task killer now and my battery life has improved very noticably.

oursoul said:
I've stopped using the task killer now and my battery life has improved very noticably.
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im not so sure about this.
im using a task killer when i want to close the browser or something using internet, as we all know internet drains a lot of battery and even if the browser or market is in the background it still probably has some active connections = draining battery

cez10 said:
im using a task killer when i want to close the browser or something using internet, as we all know internet drains a lot of battery and even if the browser or market is in the background it still probably has some active connections = draining battery
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If you want to close fast the browser or any app, you should have a try at taskOS and launch it with the search key whenever you want...

Binned this app in favour of Juice defender, my new battery saving app of choice, seems to be working as it should too...nice

profete162 said:
If you want to close fast the browser or any app, you should have a try at taskOS and launch it with the search key whenever you want...
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but then that works pretty much like a task killer
can anyone correct me about the apps i.e. browser using internet while not active(in background) is this true or not? of course having the sync/updates turned off

Task killers can be handy for those times when apps seem to have crashed but aren't forcing close. for example, i've had times where ebuddy just doesn't want to even try to sign in. Task kill it. Try again. all is well. And last my internet browser wouldn't let me click any buttons. Again, killed it - restarted - all is ok.

I've had to use such an app countless of times due to unwanted/unneeded apps running, hanging FCs and black screens, checking/closing net related or sensor using apps, and numerous times when 300KB apps wouldn't install citing 'low memory' when I have more than 70MB free, but it was the RAM being near full causing FCs in apps like Market, and halting the installs. I only use Androids built-in TaskPanel widget for this though. Everything routine is set over to the ignore list so that I don't accidently hit and close that (single hit closes the app). Additionally I use this app to check and to switch to an opened application that is running (when it's not in the recent list).
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profete162 said:
If you want to close fast the browser or any app, you should have a try at taskOS and launch it with the search key whenever you want...
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Click to collapse
This is the route I've taken naturally. I'm using jkAppSwitch on my longpress search key, mainly used for switching but can be used to kill problem apps.
Full task killers are being proven to be useless on the Desire.

I would recommend using an app that monitors the cpu usage(watchdog etc.). This way your can see which apps put a drain on your phone.

Thank you for the information. But I do notice a considerable improvement in battery power with Advanced Task Killer.
I hope someone can provide me an answer.

Why did Samsung put in a task manager and a "kill all tasks" button?

So Samsung for whatever reason, decides it's a good idea to include an easy to access task manager with a giant "kill all tasks" button in TouchWiz. It seems like everyone I know, that has a Galaxy S II, has adopted a certain behavior due this. What they do is, every time they put their phone away, they will automatically go to this task manager and kill all tasks, before locking the phone. When I ask them why the hell they're doing that, the answer is usually something like "wasting battery blah blah blah" or "wasting CPU blah blah blah"... NO!
For starters:
http://geekfor.me/faq/you-shouldnt-be-using-a-task-killer-with-android/
http://lifehacker.com/5650894/andro...ed-what-they-do-and-why-you-shouldnt-use-them
http://www.infoworld.com/t/smartphones/myth-android-devices-need-task-killers-609
http://androinica.com/2010/05/googl...-imply-task-killermanager-apps-are-pointless/
People that are doing this, educate yourself. And Samsung, well done for encouraging this.
Just because a task is in memory, doesn't mean it's doing anything, and certainly doesn't mean it's using up battery. If it's staying in memory, it's because there's no need to release it just yet. If you start it up again, it will already be there, and load up faster. The alternative is, you keep killing it, and every time you run it again, it will have to reinitialize and reload everything. Which option do you think is actually going to cost more battery?
The whole thing with people saying "oh no it's using CPU, i must kill it"... what?! If it's using CPU, it's probably doing something. Why the hell are you killing a process while it's in the middle of doing something? Do you not care about data integrity at all? It could have been in the middle of syncing, or in the middle of a write operation who knows.
If you run other applications and your memory runs low, then Android will close it. And it will close it properly, as opposed to you force killing it, denying it of any chance to clean up.
Obviously there are rare exceptions with dodgy programs. But most of the time, the tasks being killed are system apps, or trustworthy apps, properly written by Google or Samsung.
If you're not a developer, you probably won't understand the whole Android application lifecycle.
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/Activity.html
By force closing an application, you're not allowing it to run its onStop() and onDestroy() functions. This is where apps do all the clean up, releasing resources, unregistering things, closing connections etc.
Do you do this on your PC. Open up Windows task manager, and just kill any task that's using CPU. Or hell, just kill all tasks every 2 minutes! Good luck with that.
This has probably been said hundreds of times, but a lot of people i know are getting GSII's and I see them doing this constantly. It's stupid. Do you really think they designed the operating system so that you have to kill everything each time you touch it?
TLDR: Stop "killing all tasks" (unless theres actually something wrong) and well done Samsung for encouraging this. Just stupid.

Damn your right, I never used a task killer on previous android phones, but for some reason I have got into the habit of doing it now. So I'm going to kill that habit. Well noticed

Well according to the user guide (the full one from Samsung's website)... though personally I don't bother killing anything
Use the task manager › ›​
Your device is a multitasking device. It can run more than one application at the same time. However, multitasking may cause hang-ups, freezing, memory problems, or additional power consumption. To avoid these problems, end unnecessary programs using the task manager.​
1 In Idle mode, open the application list and select Task manager → Active applications.
The list of all the applications currently running on your device appears.
2 To close an application, select Exit.​To close all active applications, select Exit all.

i like the placebo effect and stop telling me what i have to do or not to do!
your writing style is to aggressive, stop being aggressive!

For me, it is worth to have the clear memory option because I already faced the glitch or bugs program which cause my phone to run constantly at 1.2ghz and this will cause my phone become extremely hot. I can't see what application is running but for some reason, the cpu gone crazy. It drain battery in no time. With the simple one click button, I can closed the programs without need to restart the phone. Yes, generally I will let the android system to handle the application by itself but I still think it was a good moved by samsung to have task manager if we use it in proper way...
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Well it's not all that bad, with 2 cores one core can easily come into a deadlock and the device will continue to function albeit much slower and consuming a lot of power, when this happens in the taskmanager the processes are listed red

Thanks ever so for much for this post I have just got my first Android phone and thought by doing this it would increase the battery life a tad but did kinda think it was a bit daft having a system that required manually killing tasks. Coming from a Windows 6.1 XDA Zest I am still getting my head round an OS that's doesn't require hours on Internet to work out how to do things.

Sad, but true, I was getting onto Android from Symbian, and first thing after I realised that I do not have option of killing all apps, I have installed the task killer and kept using it for like a week, then I've read one of the articles about it, that its wrong, and that Android is not working as Symbian nor Windows, so I realised that I dont need to do that... unninstalled it and not using it at all since

You don't need Task manager / killer if only all android applications are developed by good programmers that implement Android application lifecycle properly.
The problem is not all applications are developed this way. Some application may buggy / in beta stage that still consuming processing time even they are in background.
Task manager is still useful to close nasty program manually. But I do agree, auto-kill is useless and can cause battery drain and system instability.

Yep .. it's mostly services what eats battery. And there is poor control over that. It would be interesting to see what service was active at what time, or even how much battery did it use. All battery discussions are about guessing what is running in the background and how often and how much. We should not guess such things.

As far as I'm concerned an in built task manager is just as important as an in built modem right now. There are far too many unstable applications out there that hang up and Android can never fully deal with them(despite what research may or may not have been done in the past).
I have a few games installed on my S2(namely Pool Break Pro & TNA iMPACT!) that crash quite often and require the use of the task manager to manually end those programs(they are in the task manager highlighted in red when they have stalled).
However, what I will say is that the button to clear memory in the RAM manager really shouldn't be there at all. The task manager alone is more than enough to manually exit necessary apps that crash and stay open for no reason.

I like to have the ability to close programs easily at hand. It gives me better control over "rogue" apps. I only use it for a few programs though, like the Engadget app. It seems to be poorly coded, often using 40-50% CPU when running in the background.
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I like it because it lets me close frozen apps quicker..

the_Calen said:
i like the placebo effect and stop telling me what i have to do or not to do!
your writing style is to aggressive, stop being aggressive!
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Lol yes. Not to be taken too seriously.
Force closing apps with the task manager when somethings wrong with the phone or closing broken apps makes sense. I'm just talking about people that instinctively press the close all apps button every time they use the phone for a second. It's just silly. Basically doing what those automatic task killing apps do.

I use to kill opera everytime i'm done with browsing because even in idle mode the phone gets very hot when opera runs in the backgtound. But after these explanstions i stop force killing every app
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If a program is badly written and won't stay idle, then kill it.
I am very selective about what I install, and never kill or need to kill anything.
You have 1 GB of ram on this phone. If you want best battery and speed, don't kill anything. loading a running app from ram uses less power than starting from scratch and booting it from nand, then starting it up.
So if apps are well written, don't kill them. If stuff stays around causing drain, kill it individually but find a better app

This thread is spot on... for the most part. Like Pulser said, there are apps when idling/cached, cause detrimental effects like the one I detailed here causing your phone to stay Awake constantly and draining battery:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1094666
ATK isn't the most elegant method, but it allows you to put everything else on ignore and have it actively kill the apps that love to stay cached and cause issues even after you've exited out of them.

Is there a way to "lock" some apps into a memory so they never quit by the android OS except if I would decide to?
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You have a valid point, but most of the time those apps don't do anything critical that it would hurt to interrupt. I usually prefer to exit them normally, but sometimes I just kill it, like when I forgot the Messages / Internet open. No need to paranoia though, leaving a few open won't kill your battery.

PINki92 said:
Is there a way to "lock" some apps into a memory so they never quit by the android OS except if I would decide to?
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That's exactly what I needed. There are some apps, like SetCPU, TB, Root Explorer, which can be added to SuperUser authorization and it won't get killed by anything unless someone manually kills it. I'd really really like to know how to add an app under SuperUser or anything which will do the job to add the app in to the OS and which can't be killed by any Task Killer or anything.
Besides I also hate those Task Killer apps, they are meaningless unless an user do nothing regularly with his/her phone.
I've no Task Killer installed but once I used the built in Memory Clear feature and next day my schedule app got closed. From then I never touched it. But one thing if RAM usage goes above 400 MB I think sometime its good to clear the memory as it will help to refresh it. But Samsung should had put the Memory Clear feature more precisely.
Regards.
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