Best Buy installed Advanced Task Killer before letting me leave

[Kelmar]

I generally lead out with the line

"Don't lecture me on what to install on my phone unless you want to be embarrassed in front of your co-workers and customers."

Too nice

Depending on the mood I was in I would certainly be "teaching" them why it is mostly (99% of time) completely unnecessary and also SHOWING them why it's pointless.


Suggesting it is fine IMO, but insisting it's installed before I leave... well that crosses the boundaries.

 

[XOS THW]

The Task Killer for me must not be working well. I everytime I go back to see whats running, a bunch of apps have began loading again, ie MP3 Store, even though i never opened it. I'll kill them and 10 minutes later, they are back running again. (yes task killer is still running)

Any suggestions?

 

[alamoe]

Let em run in the background. If you ever did need to open them it would use more battery power than just letting them run in the background. I used to be a proponent of task killers but after not using one for a while I noticed my phone runs much smoother. I do use SystemPanel just to keep an eye on things though.



Sent from my Nexus One using Tapatalk

 

[teky]

They obviously all get trained to do that. They did the exact same thing to my phone. Also demonstrates the use of the App Market. Either way, I uninstalled it.

 

[XOS THW]

Let em run in the background. If you ever did need to open them it would use more battery power than just letting them run in the background. I used to be a proponent of task killers but after not using one for a while I noticed my phone runs much smoother. I do use SystemPanel just to keep an eye on things though.



Sent from my Nexus One using Tapatalk

Interesting angle to that.

 

[Ashenor]

Ya my store i went to was full on bad info. They tried hard and were nice enough to drive to another store to get me a phone, but ya it was painful. I heard her say she could not figure out why the 4g hotspot would not work .... We have no 4g in Michigan yet, they had this corporate page they had to read over basically to eveyone about 15 points or so, they harped on how terrible the battery life was with Android phones.

 

[Piiman]

Just saying if I went to an Android Store and they tried to install a Best Buy Employee I would blow the place up... literally

Now that there's funny

 

[Moze]

Why are they touching your phones at all? They don't even need to open the box to activate it.

I left my BB store without them laying a hand on anything inside of the EVO's box.

 

[RiverOfIce]

Not even close to what I am experiencing here. With out auto task killer, I get less then 4 hours of battery life. After installing task killer, I get close to 12 hours of battery life. It seems that the evo uses things like friend stream, mp3 store, and other items that scan continuously sucking battery life. But I swear to god, if I do not have it install, you can hear the sucking sound. If I install it, battery life is great. I never get lag or have stalling issues either. Just i am just one of the rare ones.

 

[Dutch54]

how come so many people are letting themselves get punked by these stores? seems like you were bullied into letting them do whatever they wanted...

For one thing, there's people like me, completely new to smartphones and wasnt aware of all that goes on or what could go on when launch day comes. The BB staff were so busy just trying to log onto the activation network that I didnt see the guy serving me do anything to the phone much..except accept an update on the phone..I think the SD issue one.

Would I look under "All Apps" to find a task killer?...I really dont know.

 

[polkadots]

I generally lead out with the line

"Don't lecture me on what to install on my phone unless you want to be embarrassed in front of your co-workers and customers."

Glad to see you're just as charming in person, Dwight.

But seriously, that's almost exactly what I told the BB rep when she told me she was going to install it...she didn't like the sass, but I didn't like having her install stuff on my phone. Call it even.

 

[VGPOP]

I don't know why people think ATK is not good for your phone.

If you kill running programs, you WILL save battery. That's just logical thinking.

I did a test with my girlfriend's HTC Incredible, and I told her not to kill programs when she went to work and battery was significantly different when she left phone on idle that when she killed running app.

In 4 hours time, without killing all running apps, she had about 89% battery left, same amount of time WITH killing running app and she had 95%.

So, I don't know about this discussion that leaving running apps will not kill battery on your phone.

Do it yourself.

Leave your phone for, let's say one hour without killing app and not use it, start from 100% battery life, and then see the difference.

And then again, one hour killing apps, start at 100%.

You'll see the difference.

 

[IOWA]

Glad to see you're just as charming in person, Dwight.

But seriously, that's almost exactly what I told the BB rep when she told me she was going to install it...she didn't like the sass, but I didn't like having her install stuff on my phone. Call it even.

Yep. Same person in person Alice!(Actually im a bit worse. Freedom of speech IRL and all that.)

I also hate when your at the mall and those damn cell phone kiosk guys get in your way.

Ironically, this happened to me the other day. And guess what he had in his hand trying to sell people? A samsung moment.

So I pulled mine out and showed him it. It's themed/rommed/rooted and I have wifi hotspot. He's like, " How did you get all that?"

I smiled and left.

 

[Kelmar]

I don't know why people think ATK is not good for your phone.

If you kill running programs, you WILL save battery. That's just logical thinking.

I did a test with my girlfriend's HTC Incredible, and I told her not to kill programs when she went to work and battery was significantly different when she left phone on idle that when she killed running app.

In 4 hours time, without killing all running apps, she had about 89% battery left, same amount of time WITH killing running app and she had 95%.

So, I don't know about this discussion that leaving running apps will not kill battery on your phone.

Do it yourself.

Leave your phone for, let's say one hour without killing app and not use it, start from 100% battery life, and then see the difference.

And then again, one hour killing apps, start at 100%.

You'll see the difference.

Way too many variables... signal strength, use, apps installed, etc, etc, etc.

But I agree that the decision should be a personal one.

Read this though: http://androidforums.com/tips-tricks-evo-4g/85554-task-killers-must-read-new-android-users.html

 

[Grizaje]

Purchased my phone at Wal Mart - girl didnt knew anything about the Evo other than it came in yesterday.
She mentioned the $10 fee and I asked her what that is, her reply was - IDK but I have to charge you for it unfortunately, I thought the everything plan covered that.
I smiled at her, she was innocent and I said, go ahead, I'll bitch out Sprint later.
She didnt push nothing on me nor bother to open the phone case, she instructed me to open it, install the battery, confirm the phone activated, make sure I am happy and charge my card.

 

[Aookay]

Why are they touching your phones at all? They don't even need to open the box to activate it.

I left my BB store without them laying a hand on anything inside of the EVO's box.

If you look at the tags for pricing (for the 199 price) it says with 2 year activation, so we do have to open the box and activate the phone. From what I have been told, this is to stop resellers and to make sure the phone is working properly. Nothing like getting home and realizing your brand new phone has a bug =/

 

[VGPOP]

I decided to do a test after I posted on this thread.

Just one hour without killing running apps.

I let the phone idle, and what do you know?

Battery life? 100%

lol.

Running apps according to ATK

Available memory: 174M

Apps:

- Sprint Navigation
- FM Radio
- Sprint Zone
- Music
- ShopSavvy
- Youtube
- Clock
- Calendar
- Footprints
- MP3 Store
- Voice Mail
- Gmail
- Voice Dialer
- Sprint Football live
- Messages
- News
- BatteryTime Lite
- Advanced Task Killer Free

I also have my live wallpaper ON

I don't understand, so when you turn on phone, all these apps are in the background running?

1h 4m 42s since unplugged

Cell Standby 38%
Phone Idle 36%
Android System 18%
Display 6%
Dialer 2%

 

[Roze]

If you kill running programs, you WILL save battery. That's just logical thinking.

In 4 hours time, without killing all running apps, she had about 89% battery left, same amount of time WITH killing running app and she had 95%.

So, I don't know about this discussion that leaving running apps will not kill battery on your phone.

Leave your phone for, let's say one hour without killing app and not use it, start from 100% battery life, and then see the difference.

And then again, one hour killing apps, start at 100%.

You'll see the difference.

Using a task killer is all based on the user's preference. If you find that it works for you, then by all mean use it.

I will correct you on one thing. Most apps are NOT all running in the background, but are in an idle state. Yes they use up MEMORY....but not actively PROCESSING or using your CPU. You can check for yourself, look at CPU%, most apps should have CPU% as 0%. As you've already know the reasoning behind why you don't need ATK for Android, I'm not going to regurgitate what you already know.

For me personally I notice a battery improvement when I stopped using ATK

Would I look under "All Apps" to find a task killer?...I really dont know.

Yes, you should see the app in Manage Applications under Application Settings

I don't understand, so when you turn on phone, all these apps are in the background running?

1h 4m 42s since unplugged

Cell Standby 38% - battery used by cell radio
Phone Idle 36% - battery used when phone is idle
Android System 18% - battery used by applications when running
Display 6% - battery used by display and back-light
Dialer 2%

Yes, those are system apps and most would be constantly running in the background.

I don't use kill a task unless I know I won't be using it again for the next couple of days. I see no point in having those apps idle or running in the background.

 

[SirSlayer]

I decided to do a test after I posted on this thread.

Just one hour without killing running apps.

I let the phone idle, and what do you know?

Battery life? 100%

lol.

Running apps according to ATK

Available memory: 174M

Apps:

- Sprint Navigation
- FM Radio
- Sprint Zone
- Music
- ShopSavvy
- Youtube
- Clock
- Calendar
- Footprints
- MP3 Store
- Voice Mail
- Gmail
- Voice Dialer
- Sprint Football live
- Messages
- News
- BatteryTime Lite
- Advanced Task Killer Free

I also have my live wallpaper ON

I don't understand, so when you turn on phone, all these apps are in the background running?

1h 4m 42s since unplugged

Cell Standby 38%
Phone Idle 36%
Android System 18%
Display 6%
Dialer 2%

You seriously need to go read the forum that is posted in the tips and tricks for why not to use a task killer, read the articles as well, this way we don't have to keep repeating ourselves about this. Like the last poster said. The Apps when in idle state is not using up resources. Its just waiting there in case you decide to access it and it will open without lag with it there. You can kill them...then your apps will open slower. They don't use up the battery. This isn't windows. God I have said that so many times now.

 

[Roze]

God I have said that so many times now.

I'm with you there man, but...as we both know, there'll always be threads that talk about ATK and the likes and people that supports it...and people that don't. Fact of AF life

 

[SirSlayer]

I'm with you there man, but...as we both know, there'll always be threads that talk about ATK and the likes and people that supports it...and people that don't. Fact of AF life

Yep thus the reason I started the thread for task killers to start with just before launch. I saw allot of new users posting that they will be getting task killers and it was hurting my eyes to read them. lol

 

[HopeofCarter]

Even though there are few here against task killers, how can you explain all the positive posts about them on here? I keep on reading how people's phones would die in hours without a task killer and so on. I just always see more people preaching for it than against it.

 

[Roze]

Yep thus the reason I started the thread for task killers to start with just before launch. I saw allot of new users posting that they will be getting task killers and it was hurting my eyes to read them. lol

Not everyone are Android addicts like a lot of users on AF...we are a minority breed. As the Android OS becomes more and more mainstream, it will go into hands of your average Joe and Jane (no insult intended).

From this thread, you can see that most sales people from the various stores (Best Buy, Sprint, Radio shack, etc) do not understand how Android OS works, but think they know from what other people tell them, 'you need ATK because having running apps in the background kills battery'. They will then pass this information to the new Android customers, most of whom don't know sites like AF exist (unless they run across a problem). These misinform people will believe now that they do need ATK on their phones.

I'm fine with people that use ATK after understanding the Android OS but find that ATK works for them. What pisses me off...are people that know shit about Android OS and preach ATK.

Even though there are few here against task killers, how can you explain all the positive posts about them on here? I keep on reading how people's phones would die in hours without a task killer and so on. I just always see more people preaching for it than against it.

HopefoCarter, what I'll say to you, is see for yourself. Try your phone for a week, I find a couple of hours tell you nothing. See how your battery is WITHOUT using a task killer. Now do the same thing for the next week with a task killer and see if your batter improves or not.

There will be people that say ATK works and extends their battery life, and others that say otherwise. You can make inform decision from what you read, but experiencing it for yourself is always better End of the day, if anyone questions, you know what works or doesn't for you from your own experience and not what someone said. My $0.02


Signing off,
-Roze-

 

[Vincent Law]

The real problem isn't ATK, its the apps that are making ATK a necessity for some. Most apps, as mentioned about 20 times now, are not /running/ in the background, they are in a suspended state. This is actually almost exactly how the iPhone works currently.

What makes Android different (and capable of multitasking), is that apps can create services (think handcent, waiting for SMS messages) or request to be unsuspended at intervals (think Mail, checking for email every 10 minutes).

Some apps do not use those behaviors correctly, and will sit in the background doing god knows what, devouring CPU and battery life while they're at it. A temporary solution of course is to use ATK to kill the app. A /better/ solution is to find an alternative to that poorly written app.

 

[Roze]

The real problem isn't ATK, its the apps that are making ATK a necessity for some. Most apps, as mentioned about 20 times now, are not /running/ in the background, they are in a suspended state. This is actually almost exactly how the iPhone works currently.

What makes Android different (and capable of multitasking), is that apps can create services (think handcent, waiting for SMS messages) or request to be unsuspended at intervals (think Mail, checking for email every 10 minutes).

Some apps do not use those behaviors correctly, and will sit in the background doing god knows what, devouring CPU and battery life while they're at it. A temporary solution of course is to use ATK to kill the app. A /better/ solution is to find an alternative to that poorly written app.

Those are what I call rogue apps! Only experienced one app that was constantly running in the background and horribly killed my Nexus' battery >_< Uninstalled it and black listed that app!

I 100% agree with you Vincent, I think that's really the only reason anyone would want a task killer.

I will still say ATK is an issue if it has a 'KILL ALL' option in the app. I just see that as causing havoc on the phone later down the road, especially for 'trigger happy' owners. When an app tries to kill everything, including system apps, I don't see how it won't mess the phone up eventually.