Life without an Appkiller

[charlies99]

After reading on here that task killers were a MUST have I was running advanced task killer. However my phone has been lagging recently and after reading a bit more people were suggesting Task Killers were the cause of this.

I uninstalled Advanced Task Killer and installed Android System Info.

Since unistalling the Task Killer the phone is much faster in general, by my perception.

Using Android System Info I can see that available memory is at times about the same as after performing a kill, suggesting that Android handles resources well left to itself by auto killing apps or processes when ram is low. It shows info on when the system considers ram low and starts killing apps as well as loads of other system info and logs.

Looking at the Tasks tab shows how many apps are running and the memory used, but crucially also shows the CPU usage of thoe apps. Generally the Apps in memory are using ZERO cpu usage !!

My quadrant benchmark with Appkiller was 538, without it is 567. Not massive, but still BETTER.

I would like anyone to comment on the following:-

1. Does Killing and restarting apps decrease battery life due to increased CPU Usage ?

2 Does memory itself use Battery life if the items in memory are not using CPU ?

3 Does having low available ram matter when the CPU actually does the work and can Android kill fast enough when Ram is required to meet an applications requirements?

4 What... is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?


Thanks in advance

 

[nemo1966]

Yeah Ive been marvelling over the Anfroids tasks e.g I have the market place running as a task - I mean why? The apps should be run when needed or at least an option to do either.

MS, Google, Apple etc strive for the best speed from their units only to fill them up with non-necessary cr*p that cannot be turned of or disabled/made run when needed.

Mind boggling really

 

[charlies99]

I know what you mean, I wanted app killer cos Google Maps kept reporting home...but all it did was kill it then let it restart so it can kill it again....seemed pointless..

Why does google want to know my location constantly ? Now that IS scary ! To quote Eminem, "I can even shit without someone looking at it !!"

 

[LECTER]

Why does google want to know my location constantly?

Because big brother (CIA) is watching you!

 

[mrgsmith77]

African or European?

 

[charlies99]

They can watch me all they like.....the question is why????? I always think that about people who snoop....why??? I had a gf who used to look at my text messages and phone messages, then accuse me of deleting any i did not want her to see....lol

I just got to the point where i said...the problem is yours ! Bye ! How do you do that against the state though??

 

[charlies99]

Getting back to the original....to kill or not to kill.....that is the question

 

[Loud]

African or European?

lol

I also just got rid of ATK and after my second day without it my battery is at 70%, charged to full and then turned on at around 8am. When I had ATK on the phone at this time of night I'd be at around 35% and less. Obviously there are variants each day but for comparisons sake nothing out of the ordinary in terms of usage and applications. I'll be leaving it off

 

[lekky]

1. Does Killing and restarting apps decrease battery life due to increased CPU Usage ?

2 Does memory itself use Battery life if the items in memory are not using CPU ?

3 Does having low available ram matter when the CPU actually does the work and can Android kill fast enough when Ram is required to meet an applications requirements?

4 What... is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?


Thanks in advance

1: probably, i'd imagine starting up apps would be cpu intensive

2: i doubt it. it depends the state, most go into background mode where the service is there ready if needed, but not actualyl doing anything. Thats why you can see the app in a task killer, but its not actually doing anything at all in reality.

3: yep, if rooted you can actually change the points at which android frees up memory, thats pretty cool.

 

[psyxologos]

I had the advanced app killer and after unistalling it my battery usage is much better...

 

[eteyen1]

So would it be much better to uninstall advanced task killer then? I only got it to try extend my battery life

 

[Griff_LI]

So would it be much better to uninstall advanced task killer then? I only got it to try extend my battery life

Yes, I downloaded ATK first of all apps because I'd read in various places it was a must-have. Then I wondered why Maps was constantly using the battery unless I killed it (I assumed it was a problem with the Maps app). Someone on here suggested it was ATK so I uninstalled it and the problem stopped - plus my battery life is about 15-20% better.

My fist tip to a new owner would be "No matter what anyone says YOU DO NOT NEED AN APP KILLER".

 

[Phenomenological]

1. Does Killing and restarting apps decrease battery life due to increased CPU Usage ?

2 Does memory itself use Battery life if the items in memory are not using CPU ?

3 Does having low available ram matter when the CPU actually does the work and can Android kill fast enough when Ram is required to meet an applications requirements?

4 What... is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?

1. Yep. If the app is sitting there idly doing nothing, it won't be using the CPU, and will be using very little if any power. If it has to keep starting up, the CPU has to keep pulling the information off the SD card and processing it. Bye bye battery.

2. RAM requires a constant inflow of energy or it loses its information, which is why when you shut a device down the RAM is wiped clean. So it does use a small amount of energy, but it isn't anything to be concerned about. And there's certainly nothing you can do about it!

3. Can't comment on this.

4. A European swallow is about 11 metres per second. I cannot comment on the African variety!

 

[JsT]

I also found battery life at least 10% better without a Task Killer.

 

[Reines]

1. Yes

2. RAM uses battery, but I don't think its wattage is related to its use. In other words a RAM chip with 1MB in use will use the same battery as a RAM chip with 500MB in use. I could be wrong about this, but even if I am it isn't something I'd worry about. The CPU/screen/etc dominate the battery usage, the amount the RAM uses is minimal.

3. No having a low amount of free RAM doesn't matter. Android will automatically kill idle apps if it requires memory and doesn't have enough. I guess it may take a few clock cycles to kill the app, but it's so little it's un-noticable.

In other words, using a task killer is a waste of time. I have system panel installed because it can show some nice stats, and it is handy to be able to force close an app if you specifically need to. Any kind of automated killing of apps does more harm than good though. Google doesn't chose to leave apps in memory just because they are lazy, they know what they are doing.

 

[gibbs1984]

I don't really give a monkeys whether a Task Killer saves battery or not, the only reason I use a Task Killer is for when a program malfunctions, and it does happen, especially with the browser and sometimes the only way to get rid of it is to start the app again i.e. kill the task.

 

[charlies99]

I don't really give a monkeys whether a Task Killer saves battery or not, the only reason I use a Task Killer is for when a program malfunctions, and it does happen, especially with the browser and sometimes the only way to get rid of it is to start the app again i.e. kill the task.

Well I should imagine thats fine, as it is not killing other tasks and you are only using it to kill a roguue task.

The problem is when they are set to autokill....from what I can gather and other people are saying.

Certainly mine is running faster and battery time is improved since I unistalled ATK. I came home from work today (8.30 to 5.30) and still had 75% power, used it a bit for messaging, interenet and email.

Before I was lucky to have 40% power. Things just run faster as well. I still get slight lag when opening photos (I have 0.5gb of them) but I had that before.

 

[rickvan67]

I uninstalled ATK a couple of weeks ago and have been task killer free since then. I've noticed no significant performance drop on my Droid Eris, in fact I think it may actually be running better. The best part...I'm not neurotically killing apps all the time. I felt like I had OCD!

 

[Tunga]

Was my post deleted from this thread for some reason? I answered these questions earlier (before anyone else I think, not that it's a competition, just saying when my post was) and saw replies after my post. Where did it go?

 

[Willbot]

Was my post deleted from this thread for some reason? I answered these questions earlier (before anyone else I think, not that it's a competition, just saying when my post was) and saw replies after my post. Where did it go?

You mean post number 5 of this thread?

It certainly can do, if Android is constantly reloading apps that you are killing.

No, memory is always on and doesn't use more power jsut because there is something "live" in it. This is somewhat of an simplification but when RAM is emptied it is not really physically emptied, the OS just notes that those bits can be overwritten whenever they are needed for something else. Even if the system was designed to set all bits to zero, that wouldn't actually make them use less power in real terms.

The Android task manager is very well designed and you shouldn't ever need a task killer app. If you do need one, it generally means you have a poorly designed app and you should blame the dev for that. Having low RAM will cause swap to be used more often which can then slow the system down a bit, but Android does its best to sort itself out when that happens.

An excellent question, and one that is not covered in this well-written article where an Android dev discusses the subject of memory and task management in some detail. However, I recommend you read it regardless .

 

[Griff_LI]

I don't really give a monkeys whether a Task Killer saves battery or not, the only reason I use a Task Killer is for when a program malfunctions, and it does happen, especially with the browser and sometimes the only way to get rid of it is to start the app again i.e. kill the task.

You're right, apps do go wrong. What is it that prevents you doing a Force Stop from the settings though ? (Settings->Applications->Manage Applications, select the app and Force Stop)

 

[riki1kenobi]

How are you guys running task killer? Are you setting it as a widget or running it from the Apps menu?

I had it setup as a widget when I first got my phone (a few months back) and found my battery was being eaten with NO reason behind it. SO I did some testing and found that IF the app killer is running as a widget the battery drains quicker. IF it runs as an app it reduces the battery drain!

However, I agree that IF you simply stop all the battery draining apps from running in the background you should see a noticable increase in battery life. There is only a need for a task killer IF you use loads of apps all the time.....

What we really need is a side by side comparison to nail this one on the head. Two (or more) reasonably similar desires, running the same apps etc with one using Task Killer and one without. Some of these claims are unfounded as usage habits have the most drastic effect on the battery

 

[adam_hilluk]

because of this thread i deleted my ATK in hope of extending my battery life.

However i want to be able to see easily at a glance what CPU usage i have so tht i can go force close stuff if i need to. Can anyone recommend a widget please?

 

[Griff_LI]

I don't have a widget but you can look at Settings->About Phone->Battery->Battery Usage which will show you which tasks are using the most battery - if you have a rogue app using battery up then it'll show in there.

Apart from that just relax and let the phone do its thing - you really don't need to monitor the CPU, that's what the OS is for.

 

[adam_hilluk]

okay then cheers for that. I also use the *#*#4636#*#* method sometimes. looking at battery history on partial wake usage. I found that the Sky news app i had was killing my battery. i know its not exactly the same topic but the two kinda coinside i think.