There's no reason you want it running, but Android does!

Be assured they aren't doing anything like using data or doing something nefarious. Closing then just makes them have to reopen from scratch. Android will close them if it needs to for RAM purposes, they don't need closing.

 

You're wrong about Play Music just being there "for show."

I have the Play Apps disabled because my battery life decreases noticeably with them running in the background.

Unless you subscribe to All Access, that app should be disabled on a Note 3. It's too cheap to get a 32GB SD Card to load your music on, IMO.

Facebook is the same, but most people deal with it because they actually need the app more than they need an expensive streaming service.

 

No it is not there for show, I didn't say that. It is sat there lurking. It is not however doing anything, except as AnonGuy has pointed out, if it is badly coded it is slurping battery.

I would imagine, and here is where I'm not sure, but can hazard a guess. They sit there "listening" for a notification from FB or a change of the media files and are programmed not to let the phone fully go to "deep sleep", this I further conjecture is because on activating, as in the case to read FB say, they spring to life, display already just about ready in cache with less delay and work for phone. That is why I said Android wants it running.

 

Dont know about FB app, but Google Play Music is always loaded in background if you activate air gestures..

 

You mean cached, which is for show. It is visibly there, but practically dormant. That's what I meant.

But yea, they actually do stuff. And after disabling them I gained about 45 minutes of screen on time (how I measure battery life) on my Note 3. Over the course of a day, that's a non trivial amount of decreased battery drain.

 

Yes 3/4 of an hour is alot of screen time. It does make you wonder what they are actually up to.

 

Not sure. I notice it caches a metric ton of stuff even if I set it to not cache during playback and only stream and download over WiFi.

Google Apps tend to ignore those settings. Google Drive and others ignore the setting to limit cache size as well, I've noticed, often forcing you to clear data to clear the cache.

It's like the settings are just there for show.

I just disabled them all and use services that work as well or better across platforms/form factors. Haven't had any issues since.

 

I've have this happening too, since about the latest update I believe. I stop it and check at random times and it's running again. Annoying to say the least

 

I uninstalled the latest Google Play update and it will stay "off" now.