Help Turning off applications

[The Captain]

I am very new to "Smartphones" and have just gotten a Samsung Galaxy S. Wondering if someone can advise me how do I turn off an application when I start it. For example if I start ThinkFree Office there is no option that I can find to turn it off.

Many thanks.

 

[t sport 1978]

You need to find yourself an app kill application, find this on the Android Market.

Personally i use a combo of Big Kill and Android System Info.

 

[an_dre_as]

Short answer: Don't.

Longer answer:
The encouraged Android way of doing things is for an app to, when you switch to another task, save its state so that it can be restored later, and then go idle. The app stays in memory so it can be resumed quickly when you return to it.

If you run out of memory the Android OS will close old tasks to make room for new ones. You can in most cases resume the closed task anyway (since its state would have been saved to internal memory) but the process will have to be restarted.

By closing a task manually you usually do not save batteries or improve performance, since the task would have been closed automatically when need be anyway. Instead it will actually take more time and drain more batteries when you return to ThinkFree later (as the process will have to be restarted from scratch).

Now in reality things become a little bit more complicated, since some apps are poorly coded and and do not leave their processes in a safe to close idle state when you navigate away from them. Additionally it seems there may be a bug in the Galaxy S firmware which causes the device to stall briefly when the OS (a system called the garbage collector) reclaims memory from closed processes.

These factors in combination may lead to people experiencing a performance improvement when closing processes, either manually or automatically using a downloaded "process killer".

However, I still advise against this approach as doing so you abandon one of the benefits of Android (letting the OS manage processes for you), and as more and more people use task killers there is less of an incentive for developers to "do things right" (if they did task killers wouldn't be needed). Additionally, bugtesting becomes more difficult and frustrating for us as developers as processes being closed willy-nilly (manually or by task killers) without regard to what state an app is in can result in highly unpredictable behavior and reports of strange "bugs" that are difficult to reproduce and fix.

 

[grunge666]

Brilliant reply an_dre_as

Being new to Android the 'logical' way of thinking is if it's not running its not causing any problems.

But, the way you've explained it, it all makes sense!

Could I ask - how many times would you use app killer per day?

 

[an_dre_as]

Could I ask - how many times would you use app killer per day?

How often? Never. I don't even have an app killer installed. I did use one occasionally on my old HTC Hero when it started to behave weird, but with the Galaxy being so much faster I simply turn it off and restart it (took ages on the Hero) now and then - maybe once or twice a week.

 

[snapper.fishes]

I use mine all the time. I don't see why you shouldn't. Like you said, the Galaxy S is so fast, there's not much difference between launching an app after killing it or not.

 

[grunge666]

Thanks for the info an_dre_as - interesting how people use/view things differently.

I'm like you snapper - in fact it's becoming a bit OCD closing apps all the time - Until now I didn't realise what a different OS Android was! doh!
I was just determined not to go to iphone. No regrets so far.

I'm gonna give it a go and uninstall ATK.

Thanks for the info all, much appreciated.

 

[androidfan49]

Your opinion that you should just let the OS control things is rediculous. If somebody wants to do that they should join the cult of mindless sheep drones who buy the iPhone sso they don't have to think 4 themselves and can happily go through life being the mindless little automotons they want to be. I don't want the OS to think 4 me. that is why I dumped the iPhone and that's the biggest flaw that Android has. The OS des not control progrfams at all. Programs run rampant in the background whether U want them to or not. They start up whether U use them or U don"t. The only thing that should ever run in the background or at all is the programs the user is allowed to choose and OS required functions. You are right that we shouldn"t need an app killer. But not because the OS will do it 4 us. We shouldn't need an app killer bec,ause we should be able to completely control all apps permissions and when and if they open at all. Frankly the lame excuse that it makes it faster when U want to go back to a program is a load of crap created by the spin doctors to justify this huge design flaw. If Android is going to become what it was meant to be which is the smart phone that people use as an everyday part of life 4ever rather than just the former iPhone user"s rebound phone to use until someone else actually gets it right they wil fix this and give us access to permisions!