Exit Applications

[sumgi]

Why is it that you have to keep hitting the back button to completely exit an application? Android needs the equivalent of the little X at the top right corner of the application to completely close/kill it.

I just came from webOS and you can just swipe an application up off the screen to close it. I know one of the webOS UI architects has joined the Android team so I'm hoping for some nice changes with Ice Cream Sandwich.

 

[daveybaby]

Android needs the equivalent of the little X at the top right corner of the application to completely close/kill it.

No, it doesnt. That's not how android is designed to work. You dont need to close apps, the OS will unload it automatically if it needs the memory.

 

[dan330]

the problem (which all noobs make) is thinking that it is similar to the OS they just came from.


android wants to keep as much useful apps running in memory. it can multi-task and keep non-active apps in the background.

if you start a new app.. and if it needs more memory for that app to run... android will close un-used apps in the background as needed.

you as the user... need to forget about the old ways about worring to close apps and free up memory. just use the phone.. hit the "home" button when you want out.

let android do its thing
you do yours.

life is good.



PS.. welcome to android and this forum.

 

[sumgi]

android wants to keep as much useful apps running in memory. it can multi-task and keep non-active apps in the background.

if you start a new app.. and if it needs more memory for that app to run... android will close un-used apps in the background as needed.

you as the user... need to forget about the old ways about worring to close apps and free up memory. just use the phone.. hit the "home" button when you want out.

let android do its thing
you do yours.

life is good.

If you have not used another OS then you probably should not knock it...Android has terrible battery life compared to my experience on webOS and I have had to reboot every day in order to keep the phone usable. Comparing Sense to TouchWiz is useless when you have been using webOS for two years(No comparison for ease of use). However what you lose in the user experience you gain in options out of the box which is Androids strength. If a user wants to explore increasing options or asks how to customize their device I would hope you will help them reach their goal rather than berating them as a "Noob".

I admit I'm not an expert but my guess is some of the poor performance I'm getting has something to do with the fact android is not ending processes that don't need to be running. Even if you personally would like to keep everything running all the time on your phone and max the memory use, users should have the option to be OCD and control what runs a little bit easier than task killer etc..which gives you the option to end your UI..not helpful.

 

[dan330]

i see...

you try to help a noob.... they spit in your face....

and i am guessing you are using a task killer to help with your OCD... and you are having issues with the phone with battery and needing to reboot??? hhhhmmm ....

your OCD need to free memory on android.. has caused you to use task killer... and that has caused all the other issues you are having....


but... i am wrong.. please .. . keep up the good work.. and educate us android users ......i stand ready to learn. which task killer should I use?

 

[sumgi]

I do not use task killer..did not install it. If I want to end a program I just do so manually out of the manager app.

These are my running services:

Settings (1 process; 0 services)
Google Music (1 process; 2 services)
Google Voice (1 process; 2 services)
Google+ (1 process; 2 services)
JuiceDefender (1 process; 1 service)
Battery Status (1 process; 1 service)
*Voicemail (1 process; 1 service)
vDM Client (1 process; 1 service)
Calendar (1 process; 2 service)
?Calendar (1 process; 1 service)
*Watch (1 process; 1 service)
Google Services (1 process; 2 service)
*Google Maps (1 process; 1 service)
HTC Hub Sync Provider (1 process; 1 service)
CSPeopleSyncService (1 process; 1 service)
Touch Input (1 process; 1 service)

*Do I really need this to be running?
? Why are there two of these?

I understand JuiceDefender is not supposed to do anything but I thought I would give it a try..I just downloaded it yesterday. Apparently it does not even work with my ROM though, at least it is unable to turn the 3G radio on and off. But anyhow even before I installed JuiceDefender I was getting less than 36 hours worth of battery life. It was barely making it back home by the end of the day.

I'm sure I have something to learn from anyone that has used Android longer than a few weeks..however it seems that I can teach you something about how to deal with people...you have the same overly defensive manner that most people in IT carry around. The fact is if you are an expert then you have no need to defend it or to attack/squash others opinions in order to defend your own. Simply state the facts and let the record show you were right. In time "Newbs" will either become "Noobs" or they will discover good solutions. If I as a novice choose not to take your advice/suggestion or do not agree with your point of view then that is ok, that is my right. If I feel for instance that webOS currently does some things better than Android then there is no reason to become defensive about it...I also feel webOS is likely dead and Android is worth investing in. Some hardcore webOS people would be pretty upset about that statement.

 

[dan330]

then you should reread my first post... there was no "defensiveness" .. other than the word "noob".. which means a newbie.

i did not attack you or webOS.... only stated that you should not bring your need to free memory to android.

if your phone needs to be rebooted everyday.. then you might have other issues.
you killing stuff... might also be causing lockups.

if you are getting 36hrs.. but still cant make it home... get a charger for your car or for work or for where ever you are for more than 36 hrs!

 

[Crashdamage]

If people would just use Android as intended (basically as dan330 described) and let it handle things, they would save a lot of grief.

The phone I'm typing this on hasn't had any apps killed. services stopped, rebooted, etc. in over 3 months of heavy use and is as fast and stable as ever.

Left alone, Android just works.

 

[sumgi]

then you should reread my first post... there was no "defensiveness" .. other than the word "noob".. which means a newbie.

i did not attack you or webOS.... only stated that you should not bring your need to free memory to android.

if your phone needs to be rebooted everyday.. then you might have other issues.
you killing stuff... might also be causing lockups.

if you are getting 36hrs.. but still cant make it home... get a charger for your car or for work or for where ever you are for more than 36 hrs!

Well it wasn't really the first post but the second where the defensiveness came in..though I admit I was rather defensive myself. I think I'm still in mourning over the death of WebOS.

Chances are the bad performance is related to the initial getting to know your phone period. That point when the user is downloading new apps and playing with them, configuring them etc.. I think use is generally heavier those first couple weeks than you see for the average user. It will probably be fine once my use stabilized and I'm not unlocking my phone every ten minutes to play with one app or another. This will probably not end my OCD issues though.

EDIT: My interpretation of Newb vs Noob is that a Newb is a user that fails to use software or a device correctly because of lack of experience, a Noob is a user that has been using said software or device for a while but still has not learned anything.

 

[Stuntman]

I just want to chime in about my battery life experience recently. A few weeks ago, I noticed that my battery life on my phone just started to decrease noticeably. I'm not sure exactly why. It coincided with my installing some apps.

Anyway, just a couple of days ago, I was customising my phone. I have a third party task manager install which was included with my file manager. I was playing around with widgets and decided to see what this task manager widget was like, so I put it on my home screen. It was just an icon. I tapped it and it ended up killing a bunch of apps. I then removed the widget since it wasn't what I wanted.

The next day, I noticed that my battery life seemed to improved to the level of a few weeks ago. I did a few other things like install and updated a few other apps. I'm thinking I had some rogue process running and the task killer was able to clear it out. It was only yesterday that my battery life seemed to have gone back to the level it was a few weeks ago. I'll have to see if it continues the next few days.

For the most part, I don't reboot my phone often. I turn it off when I go to work but use the quick boot. Over weekends and holidays, I don't have any issues with leaving my phone on for days or weeks at a time without rebooting.

I know this is generally not the advice to give to Android users, but perhaps you should try a task killer. Just run it once and see if it improves the battery life of your phone. There could be some process chewing up your battery that you don't know about. My task killer seemed to just kill everything. Android then reloads a bunch of stuff anyway. I guess it did not reload that rogue process.

 

[sumgi]

Actually today my battery life has been much better...it may be in part due to JuiceDefender or maybe I just haven't been using my phone as much. Normally it's around 40-50% battery by this point and right now it's at 70% from a full charge this morning. I set my custom JD configuration to remember my preferred Wifi hotspots and to switch over when I am nearby. Additionally it turns off my radios while the phone is locked except for a short period every fifteen minutes to check email etc..

But my inner control freak still wants an easy way to close apps.

 

[daveybaby]

Apps that arent running arent actually doing anything you know, theyre just sitting there in memory, idle. They dont sit in a loop furiously doing nothing - it's not MS-DOS we're talking about here, it's a modern, event driven OS - so theyre just... doing nothing. Idle. Waiting for input. Not using any battery at all.

Exceptions are, obviously, apps that *do* keep running in the background e.g. music players, GPS trackers, Satnavs etc. These apps will have (or should have if theyre coded right) the ability to stop/pause whatever it is theyre doing.

Prematurely closing an app (i.e. unloading from memory) is just wasted effort. If you then want the app again, you have to reload it, wasting more effort (i.e. draining battery).

Just let android do its stuff. It knows what it's doing.

 

[Slug]

Actually today my battery life has been much better...it may be in part due to JuiceDefender or maybe I just haven't been using my phone as much.

How long have you had the handset? Most users find that the battery stamina improves noticeably over the course of the first week or two as it goes through a few charge/use cycles.

it turns off my radios while the phone is locked except for a short period every fifteen minutes to check email etc..

Disabling wifi if it's not going to be used is a good move, as constantly scanning for APs consumes more power than connecting to a single one.

But my inner control freak still wants an easy way to close apps.

It's already there.... Android has sophisticated task scheduling and memory management built into its kernel. I know it's a leap of faith - I went through the same myself almost two years ago - but try trusting the OS for a while and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

 

[takeshi]

My interpretation of Newb vs Noob is that a Newb is a user that fails to use software or a device correctly because of lack of experience, a Noob is a user that has been using said software or device for a while but still has not learned anything.

Be careful assuming that your interpretation is everyone else's.

 

[JohnXP]

I am a new android mobile user and let me know what will happen in below case, If a am connected to wifi or 3g and watching a movie in browser, Its obvious it will start streaming it, If i dont close/kill the browser and just hit the home button will it stop streaming or will keep streaming?

And second thing is if I dont want the applications to be exited automatically the same example as above, I want to watch movie but I need to buffer it in browser first, do my rest of the things and get back, and now as stated above, it will exit it automatically if unused or more memory required, then it will exit the browser which is not expected

Next Its good that android takes care of closing things automatically, But it does not justify that "there is no need of manual close/exit buttons."

 

[!on]

Some roms let you kill the app by long press of back key.

moto_defy (swype)

 

[dan330]

I am a new android mobile user and let me know what will happen in below case, If a am connected to wifi or 3g and watching a movie in browser, Its obvious it will start streaming it, If i dont close/kill the browser and just hit the home button will it stop streaming or will keep streaming?

And second thing is if I dont want the applications to be exited automatically the same example as above, I want to watch movie but I need to buffer it in browser first, do my rest of the things and get back, and now as stated above, it will exit it automatically if unused or more memory required, then it will exit the browser which is not expected

Next Its good that android takes care of closing things automatically, But it does not justify that "there is no need of manual close/exit buttons."

if you hit the home button... it will not close it.. it will still buffer a small amount then stop steaming and become inactive in the background. if you use other apps and require more memory, then it might exit the movie app. once the movie is exited, you will need to rebuffer the data steam again (more data usage).