[Q] i5800 defective memory management ? - Galaxy 3 General

hello, I know there are some other threads on the xda forum related to potential memory leaks in Android phones, but if you check those threads you will see that they remain ignored, as some optimistic people said that the memory leak concept is irrelevent in Android because "Linux handles memory in different ways ... & blah blah blah ...". Don't know if those people actually got an Android phone in their hands more than a few days ...
If you own a Samsung i5800 Galaxy 3, you may have discovered that if your phone slows down or hangs when launching a new app, even after having killed all apps, that a quick and dirty way to get the phone healty again is to switch it off, then let it reboot !
Lets hope that lifts, cars, trucks, planes and boats are not relying on Android ! Saying to people "you may need to reboot your device" is a dangerous joke. Devices needing reboots while in use should be banned. Where are the regulating authorities ?
You may have noticed that the displayed amount of available RAM (Android Assistant) is not a good measure of the phone ability to quickly and safely launch a new app. There is a huge difference in the lauch time of a new app, say when 80MB remains free, between a phone that just got rebooted, and a phone that has been used for a few minutes, going from an app to another app, manually killing apps for getting the same 80MB (said so) RAM free, and trying to launch a new app.
My phone is :
GT-I5800
2.2
I5800XXJP4
2.6.32 root SE-S508 #1
FROYO.XWJPD
Just after booting my phone, Android Assistant is reporting a 02:10 minutes boot time (01:04 for the system) and 102MB RAM free.
Launching some newspaper read app on Internet reduces the available RAM to 98MB, then 94MB when using another newspaper reading app.
When launching GPS Status, and after closing it and closing all newspaper read apps, the available RAM drops to 90MB.
My phone is doing absolutely nothing.
When launching Android Assistant, the Froyo task manager becomes very slow and the icons of all the installed apps went replaced by the default android app icon, then gradually and very slowly getting replaced by the actual icons. This is an indication that the system is now cutting the corners for saving RAM, but why is it so as 90MB RAM are still free, and why is the reaction time becoming so slow ?
At this stage, when I try opening Navigon (my off-line navigation software), it takes ages to open, but it finally opens.
Then I close it. Android assistant is then reporting 85MB RAM free.
The phone gets less and less reactive. From this point, if I try opening one of my two newspaper reading apps, it always takes much more time, and sometimes never gets to run. The system sometimes waits indefinitely. The "return" (right key) is inoperative. I need to enter the Froyo task manager (long center key press) and manually kill the newspaper reading task. At this stage, Android assistant is reporting 81MB RAM free. And the "return" key is still inoperative, even in Android Assistant. I thus need to manually kill Android Assistant using the Froyo task manager (long center key press).
At this stage, if I again try opening Navigon, it takes much more time to open, so much time that I need to reboot my phone.
Actually, I learned to always reboot my phone before launching Navigon. And always reboot my phone after having used Navigon. That's completely ridiculous.
The system "thinks" there is enough memory, but obviously when comes the time to allocate memory to a new app, the allocation takes a huge time to complete (sometimes never completes), and while doing the allocation, and even when running the app, the "return" key gets inoperative. When entering the Froyo task manager (long center key press), the apps icons went replaced by default icons.
Please tell me what's going on. Is such misbehaviour particular to the Samsung i5800 hardware, or particular to the 2.6.32 kernel ? Are there other Android phones showing the same behaviour ?

This behaviour is quite normal in every froyo build samsung has rolled out...
It couldn't be the hardware or the kernel because the things you highlighted work perfectly on gingerbread I.e cm7 for g3...
Wrongly constructed froyo could be the root cause of it IMO..
Have you given a try to custom roms ? If not cm7 give a try to kyrillos' rom... Memory management works just fine, at least better than stock..
Also "hot reboot" app from market does the job for me when froyo task manager fails...

Related

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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
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?
Click to expand...
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?
Click to expand...
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.

Close apps properly?

I was messing trying to figure out which is the correct method to close apps, back and home do the same thing, holding HOME (i just found out) brings up a list of recently used apps, but i can't figure a way to properly close them. I have Advanced Task Manager to close them now and again but I don't want to keep it running all the time.
Is there any proper way if the app doesn't provide an exit function?
Because an app is on that list does not mean it is not closed. That list is just the history of the last 6 apps you used.
A lot of people say that you do not need to worry about whether or not an app is fully closed because the software manages that to ensure that it has enough free memory. I don't know enough to know whether that is correct or not.
peterc10 said:
Because an app is on that list does not mean it is not closed. That list is just the history of the last 6 apps you used.
A lot of people say that you do not need to worry about whether or not an app is fully closed because the software manages that to ensure that it has enough free memory. I don't know enough to know whether that is correct or not.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, sorry, the apps I'm referring to are shown by the Advanced Task Manager, I merely found the Recent list when trying to find a way to exit apps.
I sometimes have 15-20 apps in there filling up my RAM even on startup things like Shop Savy will be there twice and Photoshop.com.
They, amongst others don't seem to provide options to prevent them starting at boot so I simply uninstalled them, but all the running apps do severely affect the performance when it's filling up.
I have been experiencing the same problem.
Advanced Task Manager lists a whole load of apps that start on bootup and each one of those doesn't have an option to disable this.
After a while (about 3 hrs or so) of using my Hero I am down to about 40mb of RAM which if I don't use Advanced Task Manager to kill unused apps my Hero begins to lag big time.
On the Android it is better to leave them resident in memory than stop them, unless they are 'background' processes and there is something wrong with them (a bug) making them slow down your phone.
Don't judge your Android on amount of free memory left; if anything, the the less memory left over the better as it means the memory is being used effectively to make it nice and speedy.
Processes aren't allowed to consume CPU cycles/consume battery/slow your phone down when they are not focused; the exception is background processes which need to keep going, like the music player etc. What's more, if an app is not focused then its state is preserved allowing your phone to free up its memory when needed; its memory effectively becomes 'cache' allowing it to restart quicker if it happens to have stayed in memory.
So don't worry about wiping an app from memory; for many apps there is simply no distinction between closing it and switching away from it; as soon as you switch away from it it's as good as closed; it's not slowing your phone down or taking up any memory that couldn't be freed instantly if needed, but if it is lucky enough to stay in memory it will re-open quicker.
On my experience, if you press the back button to exit an app, then the app is closed properly, running the code in the app that will release the memory and objects. This is the best way.
The only app it will not work on is the browser as the back button will send you back through the history.
Try it...
MercuryStar said:
On the Android it is better to leave them resident in memory than stop them, unless they are 'background' processes and there is something wrong with them (a bug) making them slow down your phone.
Don't judge your Android on amount of free memory left; if anything, the the less memory left over the better as it means the memory is being used effectively to make it nice and speedy.
Processes aren't allowed to consume CPU cycles/consume battery/slow your phone down when they are not focused; the exception is background processes which need to keep going, like the music player etc. What's more, if an app is not focused then its state is preserved allowing your phone to free up its memory when needed; its memory effectively becomes 'cache' allowing it to restart quicker if it happens to have stayed in memory.
So don't worry about wiping an app from memory; for many apps there is simply no distinction between closing it and switching away from it; as soon as you switch away from it it's as good as closed; it's not slowing your phone down or taking up any memory that couldn't be freed instantly if needed, but if it is lucky enough to stay in memory it will re-open quicker.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I understand how and why this should be true, but for me it doesn't seem to be, if my memory falls to less than 40 the phone becomes increadibly unresponsive, I get crashes and have to wait forever for it to do things like open the phone. Immediately after killing all with advanced task manager it goes back to normal.
barryallott said:
On my experience, if you press the back button to exit an app, then the app is closed properly, running the code in the app that will release the memory and objects. This is the best way.
The only app it will not work on is the browser as the back button will send you back through the history.
Try it...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have tried both methods, more often than not though, back doesn't seem to do much either, I have experimented with free RAM and using back or Home, it seems the Home certainly isn't the correct way to do it, but back doesn't work very often either, maybe people aren't coding their apps properly to respond to the back button as an exit method?
this is the never ending discussion whether task manager make sense for android or not.
i'm one of those who say: definetly YES! USE TASKMANGER.
I understand that Android works in a way that taskmanager shouldnt be needed because it handles the tasks on its own, but sadly the concept just doesn't seem to work.
When my ram fills up i can cleary see that the device is getting slower, even just opening apps takes more than 5 seconds. After closing some apps the hero is fast again.
now i don't care whether ANDROID is the reason or some POORLY programmed background apps, because the outcome for me as a user is the same. I#m using advanced task manager and im very happy with it, whenever Android starts to slow down i close the open and unneeded apps, and everything is fast again...don't know how people can claim that Android does handle task management perfectly on its own.
Shahpur.Azizpour said:
this is the never ending discussion whether task manager make sense for android or not.
i'm one of those who say: definetly YES! USE TASKMANGER.
I understand that Android works in a way that taskmanager shouldnt be needed because it handles the tasks on its own, but sadly the concept just doesn't seem to work.
When my ram fills up i can cleary see that the device is getting slower, even just opening apps takes more than 5 seconds. After closing some apps the hero is fast again.
now i don't care whether ANDROID is the reason or some POORLY programmed background apps, because the outcome for me as a user is the same. I#m using advanced task manager and im very happy with it, whenever Android starts to slow down i close the open and unneeded apps, and everything is fast again...don't know how people can claim that Android does handle task management perfectly on its own.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The point is, Task manager of any kind is another 3rd party app taking up more memory, and quite frankly on such a high end phone i shouldn't have to worry about this problem. I noticed another thread about changing the values at which the internal task manager kills apps etc, if it becomes more of a problem i'll look into this method of fixing it.
alias_neo said:
The point is, Task manager of any kind is another 3rd party app taking up more memory, and quite frankly on such a high end phone i shouldn't have to worry about this problem. I noticed another thread about changing the values at which the internal task manager kills apps etc, if it becomes more of a problem i'll look into this method of fixing it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes, in theory we shouldn't worry about tasks in the background, but in reality as you said, the device WILL slow down. so there is no other way around than closing apps manually and defining apps to be kept alive by the 3rd party task manager.
changing values for the internal task manager sounds like something which would only work on a rooted device, but im not sure...

Users average RAM available

Hi all,
I've had this phone for a few days now and love it. However I find I have very little RAM available.
I have on average around 30-40mb of ram available and the phone sometimes slows down quite a bit. I've ad a look at the running apps and the main culprit was SPB Shell launcher which was using around 50mb. I have since stopped using this but I am still only getting around 40-50mb remaining (with timescape disabled) and again a sluggish phone at times.
How is everyone else's?
I am thinking of doing a factory reset and start afresh to see what app may be causing the problem.
Any other suggestions or is this normal with this phone?
Thanks for your replies.
I have the same. I thought it was down to having over a thousand contacts all duplicated in exchange and google.
I have 130m of internal space available. Is there any way of re assigning it as you can in windows mobile?
Sent from my LT15i using XDA App
My Average Free ram @150 MB
135 - 140ΜΒ here.
Have been checking with Advanced Task Killer (ofcourse NOT automatically set to kill everything, but fully manually every now and then), and noticed that there were times when the phone just left plenty of unnecessary apps wondering around in the background. Apps that are not the "always-on" by android system. So I kill EVERYTHING else except from:
1) Clock
2) TrackID
3) LiveWare
4) Media Sharing
5) Maps
6) Hanashi (WTF is that?!? it ALWAYS comes back by system.)
7) Setup wizard
(What remains always active by system also depends on the widgets you have, e.g. I have TrackID widget, you might not have it, so you wont need it.)
and have even noticed better battery performance...
EG, during nightime, I left the phone untouched (not used ATK), and when I woke up, I had a 12-13% battery drop, while the other day, after a fresh cleaning before sleeping, got around 4-5% drop. Both times with same conditions...
I have about 140 free and nerver under 100
Sent from my LT15i using Tapatalk
What to you recommend to stop the unused processes from re starting again?
Sent from my LT15i using XDA App
Try Advanced Task Killer
Yeah I have about 150mb free.
And can I say coming from the x10, this phone is rediculously smooth. I love it!
Can we expect more free RAM once it's rooted/a custom fw is available?
This obsession about RAM needs to stop!!!!! 2.3 manages memory very well and you shouldn't be having any issues with the phone, unless you start messing with it (task killing the wrong things for example).. My phone is running really smoothly.
im_iceman said:
This obsession about RAM needs to stop!!!!! 2.3 manages memory very well and you shouldn't be having any issues with the phone, unless you start messing with it (task killing the wrong things for example).. My phone is running really smoothly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The reason I asked is that my phone does not run smoothly at times but very laggy and some items (contacts, emails etc) can take an age to load (well not an age but seconds but it feels like an age )
I was just wondering if this was the norm or not.
im_iceman said:
This obsession about RAM needs to stop!!!!! 2.3 manages memory very well and you shouldn't be having any issues with the phone, unless you start messing with it (task killing the wrong things for example).. My phone is running really smoothly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeap, 2.3 handles RAM almos perfectly. EG, if you open as many apps as you want and just leave them in the background, when you try to launch a HUGE game (eg Asphalt 6), the system will free as much RAM as required for the game to run smoothly.
BUT, I have noticed that some apps are left idle without me usng them (and without being system triggered apps, which when closed, are not resprang), and are not automatically closed by system. I tested leaving overnight the phone without killing anything after a days usage (with more than 15 apps in the background), and while being at 15% when left at night (around 01:00 am), it was off in the morning (7:30 am).
Then I did a fresh reset to the device, noticed what apps are automatically opened by system, and protected them (unchecked them) from Advanced Task Killer (which was set to manual), so that it will not shut them down when I click the "kill all" button. Next night, I killed all non-system apps (that do not restart if you do no action), and left the phone overnight again to see if there is any difference. Battery dropped around 5%.
I did this twice under same conditions (same time gap, BT open etc.), and results were almost the same +/- 2%.
So IMHO, if you use a task killer app wisely, you could manage to get better battery performance when the phone is idle, but you will NOT get better performance (smoother UI etc.)
Again, all these IMHO.
@dragunov - completely agree with everything you're saying.. it's the difference between knowing what you're doing and blindly killing tasks because someone said it helps!!!
for the OP - would suggest figuring out what it is you've got running that's causing the lag cos it's not the phone hardware/ OS that's at fault - This is the only drawback of Android vs iPhone -the QA of the apps on the market doesn't pick up this sort of problem.
im_iceman said:
for the OP - would suggest figuring out what it is you've got running that's causing the lag cos it's not the phone hardware/ OS that's at fault - This is the only drawback of Android vs iPhone -the QA of the apps on the market doesn't pick up this sort of problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, thats what I intend to do. A factory reset and the re-install gradually my apps to see which ones are the problems.
When I first got the phone I loaded it up with apps so it will now be difficult to retrace so a fresh start is what I will do.
A quick update. I have done a factory reset and although the phone is smoother I still only have 40-50mb free (only app I installed was swype).
Can I just ask what free ram other users have?
Thanks
Right now.. 60Mb.
I had about 150 out of the box while taskkiller always said about 5 apps running background (not installed by me).
Now yesterday my arc froze while browsing the web and rebootet itself (screen was scary, single pixles loosing light while some were still on till everything was off).
Now that was the only time the arc did that and afterwards task killer now (after killing apps) only shows 2 or 3 apps running background and up to 195MB free RAM which is cool but scary at the same time ...
Still can recieve phone calls though and everything works ... well Im happy for more RAM
Oh yeah, got swype on my whitelist.
Honestly I don't understand the need for more ram?
having 60mb is similar to having 200mb, it's all about applications reserving their spots, once they needed they'll kick in, otherwise they stay idle ( talking about system apps and well developed applications )
even if you have 60mb you still can run games that require 100mb... smoothly
the lag some face is due to background application using the processor
I usese autokiller memory optimizer. See unlike the other appear that kill everything, autokiller mo just optimizes the Android system so you wont have to go hunting for those apps.
Sent from my CM 7 Monster Evol.
MJ_QaT said:
Honestly I don't understand the need for more ram?
having 60mb is similar to having 200mb, it's all about applications reserving their spots, once they needed they'll kick in, otherwise they stay idle ( talking about system apps and well developed applications )
even if you have 60mb you still can run games that require 100mb... smoothly
the lag some face is due to background application using the processor
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Doesn't matter how many times we say it people just won't get it!!..
Spare memory is WASTED memory.. this is ANDROID/ Linux.. this is NOT MS Windows... it's DIFFERENT!!

Atrix's (or Android's?) memory handling behavior -- auto shutdown of apps etc.

Hi fellas,
Something's been peeving me lately with the Atrix, and it's got to do with its memory handling & auto-killing functionality.
This particular situation has been driving me nuts:
I like to use both the native browser & and the Opera browser. Primarily I use the native browser, which is set as the default, and Opera when I want to check something and I want the full (non mobile) webpage layout and its superior (in my opinion) rendering quality and speed.
So, say I've got Opera open on Engadget or XDA, one or two tabs open. I hit the Home button and open Youtube to look something up. Finish the video, hit the Home button again, and launch Opera, and it has exited already and has to reload my tabs again. This of course can cause issues like losing my place in the page or a flash video I had paused, or a message I was typing and wasn't done with.
In this simple example, all I did was launch a browser, open 2 tabs (40-60 or maybe even 80 MBs of RAM usage, depending on page complexity), hit the Home button, launch the YouTube player (30 to 50 MBs RAM usage), hit the Home button again and Opera's already been killed.
OS Monitor shows there's about 470 MBs of RAM free.
What gives? Checking the autokill settings it shows that the OS will kill empty processes when free RAM hits 82 MBs of free RAM (default settings, haven't messed with them)
This behavior doesn't happen only right after a fresh reboot. Once I've opened a few apps, google readers, twitter, facebook, camera/gallery, browser etc., it happens every time. I say this because, while I'm not a programmer (beyond high school level C++ and general computer curiosity), from what I understand by watching the app life cycle videos on Google's Android programmer site, if Opera and YouTube were the last apps to be launched, they should have the highest priority in being kept in memory and not being killed, and previously open apps should be killed off to reclaim memory before them.
I found that using Gemini app manager I can set an app to not be killed automatically, and while I understand that it's not recommended that this is done by end users, it does work, and I use the Exit button in Opera to exit it once I'm done using it.
It just seems ridiculous that I always have between 350-450 of free RAM available to the system, while apps that I use often end up being killed in the background.
Before someone jumps on me, I understand that Android apps are designed to be shut down and reopened seamlessly. My annoyance stems from the behavior of a phone that has 836 MBs of RAM to work with, and about 570 available on startup (I've frozen several motorola processes I don't use, such as the social network integration and home launcher).
I just tried what you did (open opera, loaded bbc and endgadget, watch a youtube video than returned to opera) and opera retained everything including webpage, where I have scrolled to etc. I would suggest you to unfreeze the moto apps and try again, maybe that is what is causing the problem. Sorry I could not be of greater help =(
I'm not disagreeing with you -- like I said, it's not the case after a fresh reboot, or perhaps when not using the phone heavily. It had been a couple of days since rebooting the phone for me, and kept happening all evening long every time I switched apps.
Still, even when I force keep Opera open through the Gemini third party app manager, and while opening other apps, the RAM usage never goes below 300. The OS is overly aggresively in keeping RAM free, and considering it never falls below 100 MBs free of RAM, it shouldn't be shutting down apps EVER -- at least according to the autokill levels. Is there something else I should be looking at in determining when Android kills apps open in the background?
Was it just a fluke due to memory leaks, etc?
Edit:
Further research shows that Gemini app manager doesn't stop it from being killed, but rather removes it from its own auto task kill list (which I don't use). Seeing Opera stay open for a while after a fresh reboot shows that after two or three days of being used, the phone's memory management gets bogged down & that's what caused the very short app lifespan.
I wouldn't mind rebooting more frequently if it wasn't for that damned battery jumping issue.

RAM and Multitasking

You are using app 'A' , you press home key, you are back on home screen, app 'A' stays in RAM as is then you open another app or do something else and again open the same app, there it loads quickly (blazing fast as everybody claims) no micro lag even, with same status, where you pressed home key. If I check the CPU uses for good apps it's always 0 %, means app is in suspended state, if app is in background and consumes CPU, task manager suspends it(my observation).
This is how iOS does it, no back key. You keep on opening apps and when needed, multitasking makes room, there you notice a micro lag ALSO in iOS.
Now on Android, you get same behavior as above if you don't use back key, you can really compare smoothness with iOS and only micro lag when RAM should be freed.
Try it with 'whatsapp' for example, you will see it.
Of course back key is needed but not for all the apps and that's where it differs with iOS and creates confusion of lags. Well many people don't care micro or mini lag but the point is why not to have a mechanism on apps, that either app should go in suspended state when back key pressed (same as home key) or app must quit(resource hog apps or games).
It doesn't require user attention to press home key or back key but checks if in what status app should be put in.
I hope I am correct and not missing something major here. Now I am getting used to pressing home key on some apps with my own conscious and think about lag questions everywhere.
Your opinion please. I just want to clear my concept about it.
and yes about battery life, please keep that aside for a moment.
Thanks
I will give it a try for a few days.... will see..
Thanks dude,try it. may be there is an chance of improvement.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
With the current state of apps, it shouldn't be necessary to exit apps at all. The home button should suffice. I really don't know how memory efficient Android was back in 1.5-2.0, but currently it works pretty well.
I believe the back button should only be used to navigate within apps, but not to exit apps. It is "in theory" not necessary if the app is properly developed.
A lot of apps stay in ram even if you exit them with the back button.
Interesting post. I have a habit of killing all apps lol, for fear that some will drain my battery life (some definitely do, ie. words with friends!)
Download the App "System Panel" from the Android Market.
It's free and it lets you know how much ram and CPU your apps are currently eating up...
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Only thing I have noticed is that not all aplications stay in memory after I press Home.
For example when I open dialer (phone.apk) and then press Home button, next time I start it it starts extremely fast.
But if I leave the phone for a while (not starting anything, about 100mb of free ram) and then start the dialer again it starts slower again (it does not stay in cached proccesses).
voodoofox said:
Only thing I have noticed is that not all aplications stay in memory after I press Home.
For example when I open dialer (phone.apk) and then press Home button, next time I start it it starts extremely fast.
But if I leave the phone for a while (not starting anything, about 100mb of free ram) and then start the dialer again it starts slower again (it does not stay in cached proccesses).
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That's because some RAM used by the Dialer process is being claimed by the OS to do something else. Even if the phone is sleeping, it could be claimed.
The Android system tries to maintain an application process for as long as possible, but eventually needs to remove old processes to reclaim memory for new or more important processes. To determine which processes to keep and which to kill, the system places each process into an "importance hierarchy" based on the components running in the process and the state of those components. Processes with the lowest importance are eliminated first, then those with the next lowest importance, and so on, as necessary to recover system resources.
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Click to collapse
Yeah I know but I am not sure why is the system killing processes even when there is at least 80mb of free memory (and I mean free, everything that's left after you deduct services and other cached processes).
Unless when the phone is sleeping the OS takes up absolutely all free memory to do something...however that sounds like a lot of memory to be taken whatever the system is doing especially while the phone is not awake...
There is also a rule from Android intelligence,remove the process which has not been used for long time,so that OS can do prevent on demand swapping.
These are features for solid RAM management and multitasking but comes at cost of app start/reload smootness.
iOS multitasking in concept looks junky by app suspend machnism but at user expr. it serves good.
I would say, RAM is filled up anyways but keep core apps always there and backkey used only for navigation.
I keep on reading app developers remarks on site like stackoverflow,just to see where from os point of view SGS can't overcome mini lag at core apps.
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I also tried to reproduce the scenario where phone or dialer lagged (or removed from cached process) after pressing home key while in dialer and kept phone idle for long time.
Yes it happens, but I tell you when, I had ~100 MB free, started dialer, pressed home key, left phone idle for more than an hour or so, then I checked phone was removed from cached process and starting it was bit slow (although backkey not used) but at the same time I checked my RAM was filled up upto ~278 so only had 50 MB available.
It seems like Android fills the RAM (I think not sure: with frequent used apps, depends user to user what he uses more) upto 90% and 10% always left empty.When I try to fill it I never crossed 285 mark, it came back to same ~278 level automatically(yes I was using smaller apps to fill it).
All,
If you get time, please share your expr. I am trying to learn something here and may be I am getting things wrong.
I am believing that back key power is not utilized in favor of user experience and there is a room for improvement.
Have you had a chance to check out that "System Panel" App I recommended?...
Sent from my MB860 using xda premium
for me home button = minimise & multitask, back button = close
bundi22 said:
for me home button = minimise & multitask, back button = close
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I know it has been a while but any updates on the issue.
I wonder, would it be possible to force close all processes not necessary to run fundamental services (call, sms receiving) when using resource hog apps like heavy games?
Something like: "if app requires more than 80% of CPU for 5 seconds non-stop and occupies more than [put value here] of RAM, THEN close all unnecessary processes (even system ones) and keep them closed till app shut down"
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