background tasks getting a joke now

[gcairns84]

since upgrading to 2.2 i noticed the amount of background running apps is doubled on my phone, i have advanced task killer and it kills every 30 mins but still it runs everything all the time and its rediculas that muct be killing the battery some awful.

 

[Deleted User]

But on that other hand, the phone doesn't get any slower compared to 2.1, and apps open up faster.

Have you done a proper experiment to see if the battery actually runs down quicker?

 

[gcairns84]

not yet no but the android system itself is the one taking up ma battery life and theres apps running i dont even want running. ok so the phone can now use the full memory but now its bein taken up by pointless apps .

 

[Deleted User]

android system itself is the one taking up ma battery life

Doesn't that kind of say the apps running the in background are the least of your problems, if they are having minimal effect compared to the actual OS?

 

[Pedro7]

try taking the battery out and putting it back in? my phone running 2.1 had the battery usage down as the android system hogging 96%, no matter what the phone was doing. battery out and back in seemed to fix it, with the android system percentage being lower now.. battery seemed to not drop as quickly after aswell.. monitoring with batterylife.

 

[gie62001]

well said
and instead on relying on task killers go to settings-applications-running services to check what is running and you can kill it from there
another way to see if those apps are in any way affecting your battery is to dial:*#*#4636#*#* and check Battery history and go to Other usage and check what is running all the time and go through all other processes to see if anything else is being used like GPS, processor or anything else.
or even do adb logcat in order to see what and for how long anything is running while your phone is sleeping or awake. btw found out that music application is preloading albums art and mp3 scan quite often, still dont know if its an issue as had Froyo just for more than half a day
and then come and say what your findings are and how it affects battery
thanx

 

[gcairns84]

in the setting u can check the battery usage and android system seems to cover widgets, background running, and updates etc so it runs apps it doesnt need to all the time like the new news and weather app from android runs all the time and i cannot switch it to manual update so it just keeps popping up every 2 mintues in task manager

 

[Pedro7]

just be thankful you have froyo whilst some of us are stuck on eclair

 

[grainysand]

i have advanced task killer and it kills every 30 mins but still it runs everything all the time and its rediculas that muct be killing the battery some awful.

LOL LOL LOL.

You're the one killing your battery. Well done!

 

[lcgreen]

LOL LOL LOL.

You're the one killing your battery. Well done!

To expand on this, apps and functions take teh most power when they are first opened and used. That is why it opens once, and stays in the bg even when you close it.

By killing your background apps every 30mins, thats just making these apps restart every 30 minutes and thus kill your battery.

Android is more than capable of handling background apps, and I assure you removing task managers from your phone will do your battery good!

 

[Phenomenological]

The two posters above are correct. You don't need a task manager. Infact 99% of the time they make your phone slower and use up the battery faster.

 

[Deleted User]

I think gcairns84 may actually be right. My phone just ran out of battery overnight. ~10 hours. Videos for 1 hour. Internet for 1 hour. 8 hours idle.

Can anyone else comment on battery use/background tasks?

 

[Eris Ed]

I haven't used a task killer at all and I'm quite happy with my battery life.

I assume that apps will start running again (after being stopped manually from the Running Services menu) depending on how I set up the update frequency? Eg: Sky News app will stay runnng in the background after it refreshes at, say, 4 hour intervals, ragardless of whether I have previously forced it to close?

I added a Refresh All widget to a homescreen and I choose when to update everything manually (except email which is set at 2 hour intervals) instead of letting the phone refresh my apps at given intervals. This seems to have increased my battery life so I only need to charge at night while I sleep.

 

[Deleted User]

Are you on 2.2? (you're on orange)

I try to tweak the update settings and see if it affects anything.

 

[Eris Ed]

I'm running 2.1 until Orange get around to releasing the update.

During the first week with the phone the battery life was terrible, but from reading the forums it seems that this could be simply the system establishing the battery level baseline. Since then, the only things I changed are (1) avoided live wallpapers, (2) installed a screen brightness shortcut and set it to the minimum I can see during the day, and (3) set everything except email push to update manually or update at longer intervals.

 

[gcairns84]

right 9hrs since last charge on froyo. overnight sitting doing nothing, 13% on android system which seems to cover checking service, settings, network location, bluetooth services, accounts and sync, widget download manager etc.

not bad but force closing certains apps is not stopping the phone starting gthem back up like stocks, news and weather etc. (trying it without task manager)

still seems that all these background running apps are unneeded and should come with an option to not run them unless opened lol.

oh and battery dropped from 73% to 50% on the 9 hrs standby.

 

[partridge]

Android isn't Windows - you don't need to close something once you've finished using it

I deleted my appkiller ages ago, the biggest battery saver for me is turning off Mobile Data; I turn it on every now and again and run a full sync, then turn it off again.

 

[grainysand]

right 9hrs since last charge on froyo. overnight sitting doing nothing, 13% on android system which seems to cover checking service, settings, network location, bluetooth services, accounts and sync, widget download manager etc.

not bad but force closing certains apps is not stopping the phone starting gthem back up like stocks, news and weather etc. (trying it without task manager)

still seems that all these background running apps are unneeded and should come with an option to not run them unless opened lol.

oh and battery dropped from 73% to 50% on the 9 hrs standby.

Repeat after me: idle apps do not use battery, idle apps do not use battery, idle apps do not use battery.

Some people can learn intuitively. Others learn by repetition.

 

[ThreeDog]

Repeat after me: idle apps do not use battery, idle apps do not use battery, idle apps do not use battery.

Some people can learn intuitively. Others learn by repetition.

yes and some others just don't learn at all sadly

 

[chaz_uk]

FAQ: Why You Shouldn

 

[Eris Ed]

FAQ: Why You Shouldn

 

[chaz_uk]

That's why I don't use an app killer, seems pointless using battery to stop idle apps, net result is higher battery drain. Increasing the refresh times for apps or setting it to manual refresh seems to be a better solution.

I think one of the more ironic things using an auto task killer to kille background tasks is that.... It has to run in the background to do its thing (thus affecting battery life!)

 

[Pedro7]

Repeat after me: idle apps do not use battery, idle apps do not use battery, idle apps do not use battery.

Some people can learn intuitively. Others learn by repetition.

i was under the assumption that poorly coded apps could be using battery in the background?

 

[Deleted User]

As suggested by Eris Ed, it depends on your definition of idle.

 

[Phenomenological]

i was under the assumption that poorly coded apps could be using battery in the background?

And the correct solution to this is to uninstall those apps and find a replacement, not add another app that also uses battery in the background.