Poll: Advanced Task Killer, Does It Save Battery, Yes or No?

[SamsungVibrant]

Okay, so I officially want to know from real life experience, have any of you noticed an improvement in battery life by utilizing the program Advanced Task Killer (ATK). Yes or No.

I've heard arguments for and against using ATK which people have claimed could save battery life by killing off background aps and processes that hinder battery life by using the CPU in the background.

Some people say it works, others say "dude you are an idiot, you must not know anything about Android or linux, Aps don't run in the background with Android, its the beauty of Android" or something to that effect.

Maybe I'm an Idiot, but here is my experience. I have used my phone for periods of time, with and without ATK. I can deffinately say from my own real life experience, that running ATK improves my battery life. Maybe its a mental placebo effect I dont know. For those who say it doesn't work, I just have one common sense question, so here it goes. If Android is so smart, and it doesn't run background aps on it's own, which would use up energy, then why the heck does AmazonMP3 load up by it's self every 2 mins in the background. I never even use the stupid program, so common sense says if Android doesn't run background Aps like AmazonMP3, then how does it mysteriously show up on the list as being used in the background? Also I've read on xda people who root their phone, and manually remove programs like this, and they saw an improvement in battery life, isn't that more proof that indeed these programs use some energy in the background, thus ATK does help?

 

[tylerdurdin]

I totally see where your coming from, But It is my opinion the the placebo is EXACTLY what it is. A taskiller is actually RUNNING in the background all the time killing of apps that may only stay open for an hour. i used ATK and found my phone dead after five hours of idle, the worst part is, I know better. Your amazon app may stay open for an hour maybe 3, comparing to a taskiller thats running all day long. Remember a background app is not actually running.

Here is a link to some GREAT info on this scroll down to "Processes and Lifecycles" , if nothing else you will gain some great insight to the OS we all LOVE =)
Android - Application Fundamentals

 

[djquick]

OK............just to clear the air.

Task managers are basically meant for Windows, whether it be a Windows operating system or Windows mobile....plain and simple.

As we all know, the Samsung Vibrant and all other Android phones are NOT running a Windows platform, they are running a Linux platform. If anyone knows anything about the Linux platform, they know that processes run at a minimum, meaning that only the necessary processes that are needed to run will be running, period.

So in conclusion.....all these task managers that people talk about and compare about saving battery life, having your phone/OS run faster, etc.. IS JUST A GIMMICK.

The beauty of Linux is that even though there will always be room for improvement, the need for improvement is minimal. Look at operating systems for example....there's ALWAYS constant security updates, service packs, critical updates, etc... for ANY Windows O/S (XP, Vista, 7, etc..); how many updates do you see for Linux, OSX, etc...?

 

[SamsungVibrant]

OK............just to clear the air.

Task managers are basically meant for Windows, whether it be a Windows operating system or Windows mobile....plain and simple.

As we all know, the Samsung Vibrant and all other Android phones are NOT running a Windows platform, they are running a Linux platform. If anyone knows anything about the Linux platform, they know that processes run at a minimum, meaning that only the necessary processes that are needed to run will be running, period.

What is so necessary about AmazonMP3 constantly popping up in the background?

 

[dan0zone]

What is so necessary about AmazonMP3 constantly popping up in the background?

If you have the sdk installed, run ddms in the tools folder, there you can see why or "what is so necessary about amazon mp3 popping up"
With all the info out there on android and memory management, I don't understand why task/app killers are still being suggested to new users of android..Google in 2.2 + will finally stop this madness ..
BTW, how do you know that Amazon mp3 ( which if you can't or don't use should be removed if its that much of a concern) is running in the background? Is the android system showing it as a background process ? or are you going by what the ATK app is calling a ' background process ' ?

 

[djquick]

What is so necessary about AmazonMP3 constantly popping up in the background?

I couldn't tell you, I removed AmazonMP3 as soon as I rooted my phone, along with a sh*tload of other bloatware.

 

[howetechnical]

The beauty of Linux is that even though there will always be room for improvement, the need for improvement is minimal. Look at operating systems for example....there's ALWAYS constant security updates, service packs, critical updates, etc... for ANY Windows O/S (XP, Vista, 7, etc..); how many updates do you see for Linux, OSX, etc...?

<offTopic>

That's the burden of being the creator of the most popular/widely used OS on the planet. Microsoft has to continually combat newly discovered threats and security holes, as well as try to make their OS's run as efficiently as possible with new technology trends and hardware. There is a lot that can be overlooked in the 20 million lines of code for WindowsXP, and 50+ million lines in Vista/7. Linux does put out updates, but since they have the -entire world- modifying the kernel and other code, not just Microsoft, there is less that can go wrong. And since OSX is a pseudo-UNIX OS, it carries the same security benefits that UNIX/Linux have, however you'll notice in recent discoveries that some HUGE vulnerabilities and viruses have affected OSX.

I always considered updates as a good thing, for the most part. It means the company is actively trying to improve their product.

<offTopic />

 

[duc916]

I've noticed that with 15-20 apps showing active in the background it sometimes takes 3-4 seconds just for a menu click to respond. After killing them with ATK, problem is gone. Battery life hasn't shown much if any improvement, but going from 3-4 seconds to 2 milliseconds is a tangible enough improvement for me to keep ATK at least until 2.2 comes out.

 

[mdtolic]

I know that after I got rid of ATK my battery improved because I wasn't fiddling with ATK every 30 minutes!

 

[floepie]

Don't kill tasks. It does more harm than good. This has been repeated so often by the experts. Get Watchdog (Lite) if you want to know what's going on. It breaks apps down by their CPU usage and you can set alerts when an app's CPU usage goes beyond a certain %. If you really want, you can kill the odd app with it.

 

[dan0zone]

The point is, if an app, after being closed , is still using CPU & memory.. then it is faulty.. if the dev followed the chosen android api, then the app should not cause a "memory leak " after closing.. So if you find an app doing this then uninstall it. This way you don't need a 3rd party app to to be a watch dog....

 

[duc916]

The point is, if an app, after being closed , is still using CPU & memory.. then it is faulty.. if the dev followed the chosen android api, then the app should not cause a "memory leak " after closing.. So if you find an app doing this then uninstall it. This way you don't need a 3rd party app to to be a watch dog....

Or use ATK to kill them all if you have more important things to do than figure out which app has a memory leak.

 

[dan0zone]

Or use ATK to kill them all if you have more important things to do than figure out which app has a memory leak.

It is so hard to convince you guys to let common sense prevail....
If " after you close an app and it still uses CPU & memory " And you have to use ATK to kill it " then it is faulty and should be uninstalled "..... " then you won't need a 3rd party app to be a watch dog"

 

[SamsungVibrant]

So I have a challenge, for everyone who says advanced task killer is not needed on Android/Linux. Provide some proof in terms of solid trust worthy references showing Android/Linux does not require a task killer. The main argument I hear is is that Android/Linux is smart enough to stop processes once you close the window. Prove it, show me the literature that states this.

I'm tired of people just responding "you know nothing about android." Chances are people making these statements don't know anything either, I bet none of you who make these comments are even developers, know a lick about programming, or have even used linux prior to your phone.

I also have a hard time believing that programs stop all processes once you exit the screen. Case in point mp3 players run in the background, pandora runs in the background, google navigation runs in the background. Tons of aps run in the background, so I'm tired of people acting like just because the app window isn't open, the app stops all cpu processing.

I see an increase in battery life using ATK, thats my own personal real world experience. I'm sticking to it, until I can read literature that proves otherwise. So show me the literature.

 

[dan0zone]

you buddy are a real attention freak...
My only reason for even replying is this.. I myself have given many references to prove that the OS does its job well... the easiest one I can think of is this, how come all the devs that work on custom roms for our phone, do NOT endorse or encourage the use of task killers...
Another one is this ( cause you seem like the type that needs a visual aid to get the point across ) , if you are rooted and have a terminal app installed, then type
su
logcat
and there you can see the android system at work...
look for lines ( and you will see them very often) that say * gc has freed xxxxxxxb in xxx secs * gc =garbage collector..... part of the dalvik virtual system...
every time you see this line it means the OS has reclaimed unused memory....
if you have the the sdk installed you can run ddms in the tools folder , which shows the same thing....
Now to your case and point.. media players are ment to run in the background, and hence the reason they DON'T close when you hit the back button... The only way to do this is to hit pause then back... this is part of the media api... the navigation app will do the same so u can do other tasks while navigating.. and still hear it tell you to turn left... unlike the media apps , this app has an exit button....
Android does not " kill off " apps, it puts then into a kind of sleep mode , and what ever CPU resources it was using is released....
Think of it this way... you have six apps that was opened at some time.. in a 1-6 order... you open a new app, if the system needs more memory to run this new app, then, it will " kill off " apps starting with app 6 .... 6 being the first app you opened, which would make it the oldest process and the first to go....
this is the best I can explain it.. look for a thread in this forum " how to save power " a link was posted with more info.. also research the dalvik virtual system....
hope this helps... Sorry if it sounded like I was bashing you... but I needed to get the point across...

 

[SamsungVibrant]

you buddy are a real attention freak...
..

You could have provided all that information without the rude comment.

 

[dan0zone]

You could have provided all that information without the rude comment.

You could have provided all that information without the rude comment.

I did apologise....
If you don't use the amazon app.. remove it... it seems to be a real concern to you.... whatever task killer you are using is giving you wrong information... its like all the security apps in the market, they all trying to create a need for you to buy their app, even though it has been proven the the only way to get a malicious app to run on android OS is to ( weather its you or the malicious person) manually install it.... just read the comments of some of these apps saying how great they work, protecting their phone... protecting it from what?????????? WTF..
remember this.. go to a website on your computer, you get a pop up saying " we have detected a virus on your computer, click here to scan and fix... " , most of you should know what happens next..
A lil off topic I know....

 

[nemesys06]

i don't use atk... it made my battery life drop. to me, it don't make sense to have it. you are leaving an app open all day, just to close all other apps? simple solution, go into your menu, select applications, go to running apps, and close whichever apps you don't want running. now you can kill the apps you don't want running, and you won't have to leave atk running in the background all day. atk is useless,

 

[floepie]

SV,

Go get yourself a copy of WatchDog and see for yourself. It is sort of like a task killer, and you can even kill tasks using long clicks, but that's not the point of this app. It will show you exactly how much CPU time some apps are using since monitoring and sorts them according to their usage. Most of the apps you might be worried about use such little CPU time that they register as 0.0%, which is obviously rounded down. In other words, that's less than 0.05%, or 1/2000th of your CPU time. There's no need to fight with the OS here. Android allows the developers to choose what happens when the user hits the home key, and fortunately, most have opted to kill the process when that happens.

 

[PlowRox]

I couldn't tell you, I removed AmazonMP3 as soon as I rooted my phone, along with a sh*tload of other bloatware.

I was told to get ATK from g1/mt3g/cliq users... so like a sheep I installed it!

Horrible app for the vibrant! I kept getting kernal user faults reboots lock ups. finally after the first month of hate and discontent I removed the pods off my phone!....

Month 2 has been freak of all the above free! nothing going nuts locking up etc etc etc.

I installed "app swipe" to kill off stuff "non system" that I was done with and have been quite happy with the results.

As far as amazon and kindle and all the other crap that loads whether or not you asked for it too... Installed "startup auditor" and you can totally stop most of the stuff from running unless you ask for it too! And unlike ATK it wont let you "kill" something that is needed by the system....

Between the 2, app swipe and startup auditor the phone is running like a top and hasnt given me a lick of trouble...unlike ATK... now maybe it works great on those peoples phones that told me to grab it...but not for me or my vibrant.

Hope that helps!

Enjoy

 

[galaxyS]

i voted neutral.. it seemed neutral in terms of battery life when i had it on my phone.. but i had to get rid of it, i didnt think it was doing anything essential anyway.. my phone last just as long without the said app.. it made the phone a little quicker but also made my phone lag as well, weird..

uninstalled

 

[dan0zone]

Amazon mp3 app was just updated... and fixed, they explained the reason it was re_opening,. Apparently the app kept re_opening to check for unfinished downloads, so SamsungVibrant you now have your explanation...
So like I've been trying to say all this time, it's the app and their developers... not the OS....

 

[SamsungVibrant]

Amazon mp3 app was just updated... and fixed, they explained the reason it was re_opening,. Apparently the app kept re_opening to check for unfinished downloads, so SamsungVibrant you now have your explanation...
So like I've been trying to say all this time, it's the app and their developers... not the OS....

thank you


Update:
Darn it, false hope, I updated but it still auto re-starts. Damn program.

 

[lrboylin]

Hi, i am new to using android system, i have a wildfire, brilliant little phone. From what i have read on here and on other forums, there is suggestions for and against task killers.
From my experience (which i have plenty of in IT), i have tried ATK, TasKiller, Task Manager and a few others, these were good in some aspects but i did find that they drained the battery, so i tried without a task killer and the phone was even worse, it would only just last the day!
So i found Free Advanced Task Manager, this is a really good task manager, so far my phone has lasted 1 and half days, and it is still on 69% (at the time of going to press ) I use it for cheking emails, facebook etc, so it is light to medium use, so i am hoping that now i can get 2 days out of it
If the update to 2.2 solves all this then brilliant but until then i shall carry on using it, i am still awaiting the update to 2.2 as i am T-mobile UK (anyone know when that is going to happen??)

 

[dan0zone]

thank you


Update:
Darn it, false hope, I updated but it still auto re-starts. Damn program.

what app are you using that is telling you that it is reopen and running?
Also are you rooted?
If so please install an app called auto killer( not a task killer) ... it will show you what is running and what's idle....
compare what the task killer is telling you is running to the info that auto killer is showing..
Keeping in mind that auto killer is just a extension of the internal memory manager.... so unless the system is off , the info this app shows is 100% accurate...
Also visit the dev's website for tons of info and how to's...