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Menu>Settings>Applications>Running Services

jamor

Android Expert
Apr 13, 2010
3,688
761
Planet Earth
I'm trying to understand what each process is and if any are vital to the phone that should NOT be turned off?

I'd like to kill useless processes.

Does anyone recognize what these do?


HTC Message Uploader/Upload Message Service - ??

Messages - TransactionService - ???

Sync Service - I have the Power Control widget and I have the sync unactivated??

Touch Input - ???

Calendar - Obex Service - Is this just my calendar widget - I don't have any events scheduled?

Thankss
 
Honestly, I'd let the OS run the tasks on it's own. You can use a task manager but Android will just reload what it needs later.

I wouldn't consider any of the "processes" you listed useless at all considering many of them are needed to be on so the phone can perform the most basic of functions.
 
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I recommend that you not use a taskkiller.

HTC / Google know far better than you on how to manage their operating system and UI enhancements. Open but unused apps will auto-freeze. If memory is low, older apps are killed.

Read this.

Giz Explains: How Multitasking Works on a Phone - iPhone - Gizmodo


my droid incredible, even with a dozen apps running, is stunningly fast.

I have TRIED to slow it down and can't.
 
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Managing these services will not do anything to the functionality of the phone other than screw it up, in my opinion. They interact with other apps not just those shown on that particular list. This phone has enough horsepower to allow for Android to execute its processes seamlessly. Where the manage services option may come in handy is with some third party apps that may not be playing well with the OS and gives a wonderful native alternative to a task killer, which, by the way is completely unnecessary. Hope this helps.
 
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Managing these services will not do anything to the functionality of the phone other than screw it up, in my opinion. They interact with other apps not just those shown on that particular list. This phone has enough horsepower to allow for Android to execute its processes seamlessly. Where the manage services option may come in handy is with some third party apps that may not be playing well with the OS and gives a wonderful native alternative to a task killer, which, by the way is completely unnecessary. Hope this helps.


Thanks that was informative - I'm just taking all the necessary steps to optimize battery life but there comes a point where you are just over doing it so I should just let them work..

I just wish I KNEW what it was.. Ill check the manual maybe it will tell me what this stuff is.
 
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Hi, I am very new to android phone, but here is my experience.

I downloaded Advanced Task Killer from Market. I really like it. It has different security settings under setup.

I noticed that if I kill every little task on the phone with LOW security setting, the phone slows way down when I press Home button right after killing tasks.

So that tells me that the phone needs to be running some tasks to function right at all times.

Advanced Task Killer also has high security level which only lets you delete widgets and programs like CityID (no use for it) Internet, Market and so on.

I only use high security level to kill simple programs and widgets that are running and I no longer need.

ATK has a very nice option where you can IGNORE certain apps to be turned off.

Try this program and play with it. Maybe I like it because this is my first smartphone and I see these little gadgets, but it is very nice so far.

Lastly, as someone mentioned, I do not think running several apps in the background puts any burden on this INCREDIBLE phone. Love it.

Your phone slowed way down because you just killed everything you phone needs to function properly. As far as deleting widgets, i would doubt that they are gone as really only rooting your phone gives you the option to remove most if not all preloaded apps. The fatal flaw in Android being so open it gives any knucklehed wannabe programmer the ability to submit something which can alter or potentially damage the phones OS in one way or another, or it allows the end user instant access to parts of the OS that the casual user has no business being, ie, killing every process and wondering why it went laggy when they pushef home. I recommend no task killer, but if you do, be very judicious using them. For starters, anything that starts with "com.___.whatever, don't kill it!
 
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So, that media player I opened and quit using 8 hours ago and is still shown as running, is basically just sitting there, barely using any power and memory?

Once Android starts to run low on power/memory, it will shut the program down as needed?

Yes, basically yes. It is sitting there, not eating battery, more like on standby. It isnt using any more battery than the stocks or peep app you have and probably aren't using because the process is not being executed, you know. It's not working. Just sitting there, having a coffee, waiting for you to fire it up again.
 
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So, that media player I opened and quit using 8 hours ago and is still shown as running, is basically just sitting there, barely using any power and memory?

Once Android starts to run low on power/memory, it will shut the program down as needed?

Bingo.

Its saving the app in a "hibernation" state that takes up a teeny tiny smidge of memory and no CPU.

The second you pull the media app up, it "wakes up" the app and starts feeding it CPU power.

Unless your media player is actively playing video/pic/music, it is drawing no CPU once it is "hibernated" by the OS. It does however take up a tiny bit of memory.

The reason task-killers suck is because if you KILL an app, it wipes the memory clean. So when you open that app later, it has to do a lot more work(thus eat more battery) to retreive the data from ROM or SD card rather than active memory.

People complained about Windows for the same reasons and they're just as wrong. Windows Vista / 7's memory management utilizes as much memory as it can so that apps load faster! If you use say, photoshop, a lot, Vista/7 will pre-load all of that data from disk to ram. So when you launch photoshop, it will launch fast because its already in memory!

For some reason people think that using up memory is bad and that having gigs of free memory is good.

No. On a modern OS, be it Android, WebOS, OSX or Vista/7, free memory is wasted memory.

My personal desktop has 6gb of memory. When i boot the machine, i have 1-2 gb free. The other 4gb is being used to preload apps. Now, if i open a file that requires say, 5 gb of memory, windows UNLOADS the idle programs!

Repeat after me, free memory is wasted memory. :D

Ram is faster than movinand flash which is faster than microsd :)

So, it always pays to have as much as possible preloaded into memory.
 
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