Anyone using a Task Killer?

[sean76]

Is anyone running a Task Killer with success on they're Bionic? My Battery life is just plain terrible so far...3/4 hours of med use and im looking for a charger. This is roughly the same sort of battery life I was seeing on the Thunderbolt.

Yes im in a 4G area, I have the Nav off, brightness at 50%, no Facebook notifications on, and hardly any loaded apps on here. So you would think id be getting 10/12 hrs, similar to Charge.

Please sound off, especially people in 4G areas.

Don't care to move to an extended battery either...shouldn't be needed with such a big stock battery and moto's good battery track record on previous devices.

 

[thatguy188]

Battery wasnt as bad as yours however LTE drains the livin crap out of the battery. When im home i use wifi with LTE off. Basically ill only turn on 4G when im out and downloading something or watching NFL Mobile.

Easily get 12 hours that way (4g off) with medium - heavy use. With 4g maybe 5-7 hours with same usage.

I do use advanced task killer every now and then.

 

[HotDawg]

Only the stock one, and that I use very infrequently.

 

[DaytonaZ33]

From the developer of Cyanogenmod and corroborated by Google.

The myth is:
Task Killers are a Good Idea

This is generally a false statement but actually lies in the gray area between true and false. What people don't seem to realize is that android is designed to have a large number of tasks stored in memory at all times. Why? Well basically we are talking about a mobile device. On a mobile device things tend to be slower. The hardware isn't as robust as say a desktop or a laptop, so in order to get that same

 

[thatguy188]

From the developer of Cyanogenmod and corroborated by Google.

The myth is:
Task Killers are a Good Idea

This is generally a false statement but actually lies in the gray area between true and false. What people don't seem to realize is that android is designed to have a large number of tasks stored in memory at all times. Why? Well basically we are talking about a mobile device. On a mobile device things tend to be slower. The hardware isn't as robust as say a desktop or a laptop, so in order to get that same

 

[sean76]

Short answer...lol! Is anyone using one and it's working? I get the whole myth thing. Never used a task killer on any of my Android phones, but just checking to see if anyone has had any luck.

 

[Vehtemas]

Battery wasnt as bad as yours however LTE drains the livin crap out of the battery. When im home i use wifi with LTE off. Basically ill only turn on 4G when im out and downloading something or watching NFL Mobile.

Easily get 12 hours that way (4g off) with medium - heavy use. With 4g maybe 5-7 hours with same usage.

I do use advanced task killer every now and then.

I do what this guy does.

I find 3G to be VERY fast for my needs and unless I am going to use netflix or I am out on the town using youtube or something then I am on 3G only.

 

[New Rising]

Where is this task manager located on the bionic you all speak of?

 

[DaytonaZ33]

Short answer...lol! Is anyone using one and it's working? I get the whole myth thing. Never used a task killer on any of my Android phones, but just checking to see if anyone has had any luck.

I thought the short answer from my post was clear. Both independent hackers/developers + Google's own developers agree that task killers are unnecessary. If you aren't going to believe them, who would you believe? Some random posters of indeterminate skill level on a message board?

 

[jbdan]

Where is this task manager located on the bionic you all speak of?

It's in your "All Apps" drawer. You can choose which apps you want to "auto-end" 2 minutes after the screen turns off.

 

[tehsusenoh]

A task manager? On Gingerbread?

But I sometimes use the stock one, for apps that just need a restart because of bugs.

 

[BlueIce5249]

Short answer...lol! Is anyone using one and it's working? I get the whole myth thing. Never used a task killer on any of my Android phones, but just checking to see if anyone has had any luck.

I'm in the same boat as you. The more I looked into my phone, situations, and my battery. I've realized it's the cell radio. Today my cell radio used 70% OF MY BATTERY!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have a feeling there are a number of phones with bad radios.

Oh yeah - And I dropped 5 calls today alone. Haven't dropped more than 1 in a day in about 2-3 years.

 

[sean76]

I'm in the same boat as you. The more I looked into my phone, situations, and my battery. I've realized it's the cell radio. Today my cell radio used 70% OF MY BATTERY!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have a feeling there are a number of phones with bad radios.

Oh yeah - And I dropped 5 calls today alone. Haven't dropped more than 1 in a day in about 2-3 years.

I haven't dropped any calls yet...but the cell radio burning up my battery life is pretty alarming...

 

[rushmore]

Short answer...lol! Is anyone using one and it's working? I get the whole myth thing. Never used a task killer on any of my Android phones, but just checking to see if anyone has had any luck.

The key point to me is it is a gray area of yes or no. Some apps do not follow the design convention and cause issues (news and social apps being the main perps).

It seems just as wrong to say they are good or bad, hence the grayness. Even the app for this site does not play nice and stays in memory and can hog up to 30mb.

If the app is only sitting in the memory and not sucking CPU or data bus time beyond the registers needed to keep it active, no problem and the Bionic has plenty of breathing room. The issues have to do with the apps that do not play nice and are hogging the resources of apps you are actually using ATM (lag, crashes or a hot phone result).

Nope, seems that if we were to approach the Cy article as a math problem, there are no absolutes or constants to derive a solution. Only variables. As a result, any absolute answer "yes" or "no" is inherently incorrect.

Added:

Some task killers and other assorted apps are placebos or can cause issues, so can lean towards the "no" side.

 

[johnmayfield]

I HAVE USED ADVANCED TASK KILLER ON DROID X PREVIOUSLY AND NOW ON MY NEW BIONIC. TO ENSURE IT IS WORKING, SET TASK KILLER TO DISPLAY ON NOTIFICATIONS BAR.
YOU MUST REMEMBER TO ADD THE TASK KILLER TO YOUR TASK KILLER "IGNORE LIST" SO IT WILL IGNORE ITSELF. IF YOU DON'T THEN YOU WILL FIND THAT EACH TIME YOUR TASK KILLER KILLS OFF UNNEEDED APPS IT WILL KILL ITSELF ALSO.

IF YOU NOTICE THAT IT KEEPS DISAPPEARING FROM THE NOTIFICATION BAR, CHECK THE IGNORE LIST. oNCE YOU ARE SATISFIED THAT IT IS WORKING PROPERLY, YOU CAN CHANGE THE SETTING FOR AND NOT SHOW ON NOTIFICATION BAR (IF YOU PREFER A CLEANER DESKTOP).

mIGHT ALSO CHECK OUT A COMPANION APP. I RUN IT IN CONJUCTION WITH TASK KILLER. IT SELECTIVELY KEEPS THE DISPLAY ACTIVE FOR THOSE APPS I PREFER TO NOT GO DARK ON ME TILL I DECIDE TO CLOSE THEM. GOOD FOR REFERENCE MATERIALS, READING PROGRAMS, FLASHLIGHT APPS, ETC. NAME IS "KEEPSCREEN" ON MARKETPLACE. USE WITH TASK KILLER AND SET DISPLAY TIME OUT TO 30 SEC OR LESS. THAT WAY SCREEN GOES DARK UNLESS YOU HAVE ID'D IT IN KEEP SCREEN. TASKKILLER KILLS ANYTHING CURRENTLY DARK (WHEN IT RUNS), THAT IS NOT SET FOR IGNORE.

 

[New Rising]

I HAVE USED ADVANCED TASK KILLER ON DROID X PREVIOUSLY AND NOW ON MY NEW BIONIC. TO ENSURE IT IS WORKING, SET TASK KILLER TO DISPLAY ON NOTIFICATIONS BAR.
YOU MUST REMEMBER TO ADD THE TASK KILLER TO YOUR TASK KILLER "IGNORE LIST" SO IT WILL IGNORE ITSELF. IF YOU DON'T THEN YOU WILL FIND THAT EACH TIME YOUR TASK KILLER KILLS OFF UNNEEDED APPS IT WILL KILL ITSELF ALSO.

IF YOU NOTICE THAT IT KEEPS DISAPPEARING FROM THE NOTIFICATION BAR, CHECK THE IGNORE LIST. oNCE YOU ARE SATISFIED THAT IT IS WORKING PROPERLY, YOU CAN CHANGE THE SETTING FOR AND NOT SHOW ON NOTIFICATION BAR (IF YOU PREFER A CLEANER DESKTOP).

mIGHT ALSO CHECK OUT A COMPANION APP. I RUN IT IN CONJUCTION WITH TASK KILLER. IT SELECTIVELY KEEPS THE DISPLAY ACTIVE FOR THOSE APPS I PREFER TO NOT GO DARK ON ME TILL I DECIDE TO CLOSE THEM. GOOD FOR REFERENCE MATERIALS, READING PROGRAMS, FLASHLIGHT APPS, ETC. NAME IS "KEEPSCREEN" ON MARKETPLACE. USE WITH TASK KILLER AND SET DISPLAY TIME OUT TO 30 SEC OR LESS. THAT WAY SCREEN GOES DARK UNLESS YOU HAVE ID'D IT IN KEEP SCREEN. TASKKILLER KILLS ANYTHING CURRENTLY DARK (WHEN IT RUNS), THAT IS NOT SET FOR IGNORE.

Why all the caps?

 

[ardchoille]

I develop Android apps so I though I'd explain why a task killer isn't needed on an Android system.

Activities
Android apps use activites to preform tasks. For example, if you use a file manager to send a picture via email, the file manager calls the send activity within an email app, passes the file name to it and the email app sends the picture.. not the file manager. This will result in seeing the email app as "running" even though the user didn't actually launch that email app.

Smaller apps
Using activites helps developers design smaller apps. A file manager app that contains every bit of code needed to do everything a file manager does would likely be so large that no one would want to install it. Developers know that an android phone more than likely has an email app so there is no need for the developer to include email code in his/her file manager to send a picture when he/she can call an activity in an existing email app to do the job. This results in a smaller file manager app since there is no need to include email code or any other code for an activity that can be done via an app that is already present on the phone. This also alleviates redundant code. When you install an app outside of the android market, also known as sideloading, the file manager app calls the package installer (already present in Android) to install the requested app.

Running apps vs. cached apps
The "Manage Applications" list included in many android devices lists running apps as well as cached apps. Cached apps don't use any CPU or battery, they're cached so they will load faster the next time you need them. Killing cached apps results in those apps requiring more time to load the next time they are launched.

System management
By default, every android application runs in its own Linux process. Android starts the process when any of the application’s code (activities) needs to be executed, and shuts down the process when it’s no longer needed and system resources are required by other applications.

* Android is hard coded to automatically kill a task when more memory is needed.
* Android is hard coded to automatically kill a task when it’s done doing what it needs to do.
* Android is hard coded to automatically kill a task when you haven’t returned to it in a long time.
* Most services (while possibly running in the background) use very little memory when not actively doing something.
* A content provider is only doing something when there is a notification for it to give. Otherwise it uses very little memory.
* Killing a process when it isn’t ready only causes it to have to reload itself and start from scratch when it’s needed again.
* Because a task is likely running in the background for a reason, killing it will only cause it to re-spawn as soon as the activity that was using it looks for it again. And it will just have to start over again.
* Killing certain processes can have undesirable side effects. Not receiving text messages, alarms not going off, and force closes just to name a few.
* The only true way to prevent something from running at all on your phone would be to uninstall the .apk.
* Most applications will exit themselves if you get out of it by hitting “back” until it closes rather than hitting the “home” button. But even with hitting home, Android will eventually kill it once it’s been in the background for a while.

If you see an app running that you didn't launch, it's most likely because an activity within that app was called by another app to perform a task. If you kill the app you didn't launch, the system has to relaunch that app in order to complete its task. This is why some people kill a task and then see it immediately running again. Constantly killing that app creates a situation where the user is battling the system resulting in wasted system resources.

Android is Linux
Android is not a Windows-based OS, it is based on Linux. Many of the apps you think are running aren't actually running, they're cached, this is typical with a Linux operating system and is much more efficient than other systems. Cached apps don't use any CPU or battery, they're cached and will load faster the next time they're needed.

Task killers are bad for android.

 

[Somniferum]

That explanation was even better than the CM one. People should start pasting it instead. ;-)

 

[CoreyOli]

I also noticed a few days ago that my cell standby is also always at the top of my battery usage and has unusually high usage....

 

[ardchoille]

I also noticed a few days ago that my cell standby is also always at the top of my battery usage and has unusually high usage....

That's because cell standby is the most used service.. unless you never allow the phone to go to sleep.

 

[damewolf13]

Is anyone running a Task Killer with success on they're Bionic? My Battery life is just plain terrible so far...3/4 hours of med use and im looking for a charger. This is roughly the same sort of battery life I was seeing on the Thunderbolt.

Yes im in a 4G area, I have the Nav off, brightness at 50%, no Facebook notifications on, and hardly any loaded apps on here. So you would think id be getting 10/12 hrs, similar to Charge.

Please sound off, especially people in 4G areas.

Don't care to move to an extended battery either...shouldn't be needed with such a big stock battery and moto's good battery track record on previous devices.

I have used a task killer since my very first android phone (Backflip) and it has always served me well. My battery life is much better with Advanced Task Killer than without it. When I first started using it, I didn't know that Android "didn't need it" but was soon educated by the Android Police.
At that point I removed it, and was very dissappointed at my battery life without it, so I reinstalled it, and it has always served me well.
I don't set it for crazy, so it doesn't run all the time, but every couple of hours it shuts down certain items in my list.
I am sure that there are others here who use a task killer, but are afraid to speak up because they will get preached to about how Android "doesn't need it". I say that whatever works for you, is what you should do. If you try a task killer and it works better for your battery life, then keep it.
If it does little or nothing, and just takes up memory, remove it.
To each his own.
Either way, Android is the best platform out there, in my very humble opinion!

PS... I live in a 4G area and battery life is pretty darned good!

 

[Frisco]

Task killers are known resource robbers on most devices, actually causing the system to start and restart certain services which the tk has decided should stop.

Loops begin, and the battery is part of the resource chain which suffers, but not always. Sometimes the battery will show better life than before the tk was invoked, but mostly quite the opposite.

Those with success using task killers probably have a combination of usage and loaded app/widget/service configuration that is just right for having that task killer there working, thus the market for the tk app.

There would be greater agreement among developers and other experts who do the math on these things if it were totally one way or the other, but the consensus among them is that they're not needed because the Android OS and kernel to that job just fine.

 

[kingnut]

i use advanced task killer with the blue X. sometimes apps just lag the phone out. and instead of restarting it you can kill the app.