Keeping apps and such in RAM - Android Software Development

Hey there,
I'm looking for a script or something to keep certain apps/processes in RAM, all the time. When using certain functions like contacts out the camera, it takes a few seconds to load them the first time (in like an hour or so, having been ' killed' by android). I find this annoying and would like to figure out something so that you can pick certain apps etc. that the user (me in this case ) would like to have available quickly.
Thanks in advance for any info on the subject!

Related

Development Idea

Hello, I've just been thinking about using our devices in the car and have an idea, that I'm not sure has been developed, but I think would be useful for a lot of people on here:
It's nothing fancy, but I would like an application that allows programs to be made active by pressing a button. What I'm thinking is that if I'm driving I would like too have ready access to a handfull of applications (TomTom, MP3 player, FM Radio, G-Meter, Google maps, phone)
How this would work is that when the program is running a button press would move to the next application in a pre-defined list, and a second button would move to the previous application in the list. The 'next' and 'previous' app buttons should be configurable to take into account peoples devices and their preferences and the applications on the list and their order should be fully configurable.
As I said, the idea is to make using the device in-car a bit more practical, so I would like a couple of additional features, the application could be setup with a number of startup options, for example I would like to run the application and have it load up any of the listed applications that aren't already running and have a specific application as the default start position. I'd also like wi-fi to turn off if the phone isn't on charge and bluetooth to turn on and connect to my headset. Other options people might want are to turn the phone off, turn 3g off or close all other programs, or anything else to improve performance or battery life., such as turning off g-sensors, light sensors etc. it would be good if the notification preferences could be changed, so that for example emails don't pop up over TomTom, or a separate screen that shows the new message enlarged to full screen perhaps, then goes back to TomTom. Closing the application could also return everything to the way it was before hand. I'm sure you all have loads of ideas for in-car options as well.
I'm basically thinking, one screen press and the device becomes optimised for use in-car, close the application and it goes back the way it was.
Anyway, I'm just thinking out loud, I don't have the skills required to take something like this beyond the ideas stage as my programming skills don't extend beyond modifying other people's html, but I'm hoping someone will see this and think its a good enough idea to be worth putting into practice.
Cheers
Paul.
No one think this would be useful?
I like the idea, but to develop it could be a bit too much...
for use in car especially with tomtom i believe that task managers like dynamo, taskfacade or mortbuttons are very useful:
one button and you switch from apps to apps without stylus...
having already used it while driving, i think its very comfortable to use...
another existing app that can be useful is voicecommand... clik and speak to run the app, it works great if your car is not too noisy (so not in my case lol )
Oh ok, I'll have a look at those programs, see if I can make those work. The only thing I'm thinking is that it might be quite important to have two different setups for in-car and normal use.
Don't suppose you know any apps that can be used to turn on bluetooth and attach to my headset through on press of the screen do you?
ht buttoon sllows you to use one button for multiple applications, but i dunno about the task manager stuff.... basically you want a program from different profiles, kind of like airplane mode
Might not be exactly what you are looking for but what about using a launcher like Throttlelauncher and setting up a custom tab with only the application buttons you need to use in the car? At the moment I use TomTom and Audio Manager together and find it very easy to switch between the two while driving using Throttlelauncher.
Not sure about notifications off though - maybe a script?
Just my thoughts out loud too.
its too hard to develop i hope u r thinking motivate someone
Thanks for the replies, I'm playing around with Mortbuttons to see if it'll do what I want and will have a look at a few other things.
A couple of people have said it is too difficult to develop, I know I don't know very much about whats involved, but I would have thought it would be much easier than most of the applications that are developed on here. What I'm looking for is basically a script that when run will load a list of applications, then use two of the hardware buttons to 'scroll' from one app to the next. I did list other things that would be good additions, but the basic premise seems pretty straightforward and wouldn't have any graphical element, other than the configuration menu.
Anyway, if someone wants to have a go, I'm sure it would prove very popular with the drivers on here!
Cheers.
Just create your own theme using something like WAD2.

Keyboard response time

Is there any way to speed up the response of the keyboard? Because when im txting, i'll be done way before it puts everything in that i typed.
Id like to know this one too or is it more the speed of the phone youre using, available storage etc?
This is one of those annoyingly simple questions that has no single easy answer.
At one level a WM phone is running a host of services that a regular phone doesn't and therefore it is unlikely to be as "crisp" as a basic phone.
However there are variables that can be looked at and some are more complex than others.
Can you reduce the number of background running programs?
Can you flash a different ROM that is lite on some greedy services and indeed do you want to if it means loss of functionality for other things?
Perhaps there are registry tweaks that are relevant
Is the phone really slow or is it you that is a very fast texter? (might sound daft but in order to decide if your phone is slower than other Hermes, then we'd need something to guage it by.
Perhaps a simple Hard Reset might clean things out?
Perhaps test with a soft reset before testing to see if it is faster. If it is then the system is getting clogged by a process or program?
Have you done much customising of the phone?
What ROM are you using?
Have you loaded customisation of the today screen and if so does it work faster without it?
Do you use push email or other polling services like weather apps?
Is the keyboard just as "laggy" when using Pocket Word or is it only laggy when texting?
Is the phone generally laggy when tapping icons for example? A very general guide to how well the device is running is how long it takes to orientate from portrait to landscape when opening the keyboard. Anything more than around 3 or 4 seconds means there are probably things that can be done to speed things up.
All things to consider and indeed speed is probably one of the most important factors behind folk choosing to flash new ROMs. However, I'd look at some of the more basic things above before flashing a new one.
It will always help people to make suggestions if you provide as much detail as possible. Lack of info. often results in few answers to questions.
Mike

the lag vs apps

Now when installed a lot of apps including juicedefender and advanced task killer (set to aggressive when screen off with lots of exclusions) the lag has become more of an issue.
Now tell me whats the logic behind having installed a lot of apps and a lag? Running several apps multitasked will offcource produce performance-dips but just having them installed?
What exactly is "aggressive" on the task killer anyway? Some people say its just bad to kill tasks.
I have the idea that its the widgets that causes trouble, since they actually needs to run in the background all the time. I noticed today that the fancy-widget got stuck on upboot for like 60 seconds, that caused the 4 buttons below to not load properly. Alto the rather useless "daily brefing" seems to slow down.
I dont want to root and hack with sd-hacks now when froyo is confirmed to be released officially soon.
Do you have experice with sertain apps/widgets causing lag. If so, it would be great to make a list of "bad" apps.
PS, I tested the 30-day navigon today in car and it worked with no problems at all. Fix in 2 seconds and right on track.
robnil said:
Now when installed a lot of apps including juicedefender and advanced task killer (set to aggressive when screen off with lots of exclusions) the lag has become more of an issue.
Now tell me whats the logic behind having installed a lot of apps and a lag? Running several apps multitasked will offcource produce performance-dips but just having them installed?
What exactly is "aggressive" on the task killer anyway? Some people say its just bad to kill tasks.
I have the idea that its the widgets that causes trouble, since they actually needs to run in the background all the time. I noticed today that the fancy-widget got stuck on upboot for like 60 seconds, that caused the 4 buttons below to not load properly. Alto the rather useless "daily brefing" seems to slow down.
I dont want to root and hack with sd-hacks now when froyo is confirmed to be released officially soon.
Do you have experice with sertain apps/widgets causing lag. If so, it would be great to make a list of "bad" apps.
PS, I tested the 30-day navigon today in car and it worked with no problems at all. Fix in 2 seconds and right on track.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I haven't used it in a while, but "spare parts" in the marketplace tells you which apps are consuming your processor IIRC. This will obviously give you a temporary hit to your ability to load and run processes but will let you know more details about your phone that you don't already have and the battery use section of settings obviously only talks about what is using your battery but that isn't going to tell you the whole picture.
I am also someone who says you shouldn't use ATK, at least the way you do, but I have it installed and use it a bit differently. What I try to do is kill all tasks after I've used the marketplace or before I do anything intensive (gaming, GPS tracking) and I kill all apps including ATK. ATK will consume processor, battery and will free up memory which then Android uses to open more tasks you don't need (using processor and battery in the process -> repeat cycle). If you need to free up memory 1-5 times a day I think my way will save maybe 15-30% of your battery over a 24 hour period while costing you less than a minute of hassle (too much for some, sure). Again, I only kill after marketplace (because everything opens to check for updates, AFAIK) and before something that will use heavy memory and processor.
robnil said:
Now when installed a lot of apps including juicedefender and advanced task killer (set to aggressive when screen off with lots of exclusions) the lag has become more of an issue.
Now tell me whats the logic behind having installed a lot of apps and a lag? Running several apps multitasked will offcource produce performance-dips but just having them installed?
What exactly is "aggressive" on the task killer anyway? Some people say its just bad to kill tasks.
I have the idea that its the widgets that causes trouble, since they actually needs to run in the background all the time. I noticed today that the fancy-widget got stuck on upboot for like 60 seconds, that caused the 4 buttons below to not load properly. Alto the rather useless "daily brefing" seems to slow down.
I dont want to root and hack with sd-hacks now when froyo is confirmed to be released officially soon.
Do you have experice with sertain apps/widgets causing lag. If so, it would be great to make a list of "bad" apps.
PS, I tested the 30-day navigon today in car and it worked with no problems at all. Fix in 2 seconds and right on track.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Forgot the first part of your question, forgive me. I believe, the reason for more apps causing more lag is at least 2 fold. There are more apps that can be opened when you have free memory (in the vicious cycle I described above). There is also something that might be a bit unique to our phone, and I've only recently read this, it's a bit of speculation so I'm not trying to pass it off as fact but I think it's likely to be knowledgeable on the issue, even if not completely correct. Samsung's internal storage method is an SD card, that allows extra apps to be written to the internal storage but comes with a trade off of lag due to a potential combination of:
slow random-access
bad partition
I think I'm missing an important reason, I'll try to look and edit.
When I initially got my SGS I loaded it with a heap of apps and suddenly noticed the lag and quick battery drain. Problem was I couldn't track down the culprit.
I recently reset my device and was a bit more organized with what I installed. One of the things I started doing was checking what services were being used in the process which you can find under the manage apps part of the system.
So while you can load apps and they may/may not be killed by android or a task killer, the services will always be running - taking up memory, sometimes cpu, network. Things like weather checking, news checking, even email sync are some examples. These services plus any apps you run are I think what starts the lag. You need to be aware of which apps are also run as services.
Yes, there are some bad apps (last Facebook version was found to be a heavy drain) but I think they tend to add up with all the other services running.
As for 'Aggressive' depends on the app killer but my understanding (with the one I use), is that there is a memory limit before the app is killed. Once the limit is reached on aggressive, it doesn't take much before memory is cleared.
One thing to install is SeePU as this gives an indication of CPU, memory and network on the top menu bar. This also helps when the system lags (usually CPU is high and memory is low) and helps to know when to clean (or what threshold to set).
Hope this helps.

[TIPS] Share tips/tricks to maximize battery and memory

So I searched and could not find a thread that compiled tips and tricks people use to increase their battery life and get the most ram or memory available.
This way we can put everything together so you don't have to search through a bunch of threads or posts to get information.
I'll start with mine first.
Battery and memory usually go hand in hand, but specifically for the battery I use Juice Defender (Ultimate). I got it to last 31 hours before with minor use. Even the free one said it increased my life 1.5x
I use Titanium Backup to freeze certain programs that run in the background, like the social networking ones since I dont use those along with wallpapers and non-essential system services like the Weather and date/time services. It would be nice to compile a list of all the services you can freeze without messing up the phone, I usually freeze a couple and then test my phone out.
Not having a lot of widgets or background programs running also helps.
I found programs that prevent start-up programs usually fail, the app starts anyways. Task killers also don't seem to work, the app just starts back up. The only one I have used with some success is "Free Memory", it seems to work.
I'm interested in other peoples methods, along with their normal battery life and how much free memory they have.
Somehow I went from having around 450MB free to only having 250MB, which really gets bad if I want to use the webtop and have a bunch of crap open. I might try to reflash it and start over, I went a little app crazy for a few days.
If people want, list the (system) apps you were able to safely remove along with ones you were able to freeze and I can make a list in this post. I would add mine but my phone is acting up right now.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...26699&_sacat=See-All-Categories&_fvi=1&_rdc=1
No, I'm not kidding either. I have three batteries for the Atrix. I go through about two a day. I run them all the way down, phone shuts off, I replace, and I have a 100% ready to go. Saved me in many instances. It sounds really convoluted, but it works.
I recommend installing widgetsoid and actively managing wifi.
Check out an app called Watchdog.
Basically what you should have instead of a task killer.
Instead of killing tasks wantonly, Watchdog simply monitors the CPU % each task/app/element running is consuming. You can custom set detection thresholds or leave the defaults, but whenever that threshold is crossed, you can get a little alert for it (customizable too). It tells you the app that's been acting up and give you the option of killing, ignoring, or "whitelisting" (permanent ingore, basically) it. The paid version also allows you to "blacklist" processes (permanent kill).
I would definitely recommend it.

reacurring processes and gps

hey there,
it started when i saw the gps-icon in the statusbar always on. i have gps
always turned on (for foto-location tags etc). but it was active (the icon was
in the statusbar) only when it was needed. but now, when i have gps on, it
seems to be in use all the time...
so i started to look for the paricular app/process. but closing apps via
taskmanager AND closing processes via settings/apps/running did not end
the usage of gps. i only closed processes when i was sure, it would not hurt.
like facebook or byTheWay.
then i found my real problem: why are those processes running anyway? and
why do they use so much memory? e.g facebook. why 40mb? just for
notifications? do i need a running process for notificaions at all? and why do
the processes come back when i kill them? especially wifi-sharing? i never use
that and never turned it on in the settings (maybe once for testing). why does
it need two processes.
maybe someone can help solving a little bit of this "mystery"...
thx,
kws
is it that nobody can help me because its too complicated.
or that nobody wants to help me, because it is discussed already in other places.
if the latter, plz point me in the right direction.
tyvm!
kws
Try startup manager it worked for me you can get it from android markets its free for a bit. let's you take complete control of start up processes. I'm running galaxy s2 on stock Rom

Categories

Resources