How To Know What Apps Are Running?

[abrogard]

I am new to smartphones and don't understand them very well.

Mine is an Aspera Jazz and seems to run very slowly.

Coming from a pc I'm puzzled by not being able to close things when I've used them and I read somewhere that they remain running in the background.

Perhaps that's why it's slow.

But I can't find how to see what apps are running.

All I found is running services and they don't seem to amount to much. They are, right now:

Bluetooth share
Google Services
Google Services
Google Play Services
Google
Messages
Smartcard Service
Gmail
Youtube
Gboard

Should I/ Could I close down any of those?

What's the best way to deal with this whole apps thing?

 

[ocnbrze]

most of those are system apps and are necessary to run your phone, save for gmail and youtube. those you can close down if you want.

just an fyi your phone only has 1 gig of ram running android 7.0 which is barely enough to run your basic apps. i can understand why your phone runs slow.

 

[abrogard]

Thanks for that.
How do I close them down?
And it sounds like you're saying this phone is what my son calls it: 'a brick', really, then, if it comes with that built-in limitation. Would you say?

 

[ocnbrze]

Thanks for that.
How do I close them down?
And it sounds like you're saying this phone is what my son calls it: 'a brick', really, then, if it comes with that built-in limitation. Would you say?

well no it is not a "brick". bricks are something you would call where it is pretty much useless. your phone is just an economical device. you can still make calls, text, read your email, use gps and such. it is just that these days with android 7.0 and higher to get a phone that runs smooth and be able to do more stuff you will need at least 3-4 gigs of ram.

i am not familiar with your phone, but there should be a button to pull up the apps that are running and you should be able to close them.

 

[svim]

Well your PC will have a lot of services running in the background whether you're aware of them or not, unless it's powered off. Assuming you're running a Windows PC the memory management with Android is a different set up. If you're going to obsess over killing processes all the time you're basically making your mobile device work harder than it should be because Android's memory management is more sophisticated at handling running and idle processes better than you can manually. With Android idle RAM is wasted RAM, and paging works differently than with Windows.
Looking up the specs on your phone, with only 1GB of RAM its always going to be starved for more memory.
https://asperamobile.com/phones/smart-phones/aspera-jazz/
That might have been a workable amount of RAM back Jelly Bean (ver. 3.x). At this point Jazz is always going to have low memory issues, either adjust your expectations to match the limited resources of your phone, or think about upgrading to something newer with adequate RAM and internal storage memory.
https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-budget-android-phone/

 

[mikedt]

Thanks for that.
How do I close them down?
And it sounds like you're saying this phone is what my son calls it: 'a brick', really, then, if it comes with that built-in limitation. Would you say?

As you're coming from a PC. Would you buy a new PC that only had 1GB of RAM? Probably not, and also it would be very slow to use. Just like this budget phone is.

 

[abrogard]

Ah, okay. No I don't want to 'obsess' - I just thought it obviously better to close an app. Perhaps not so with androids method.

so I won't worry about that.

the closing them problem was that I find only two choices: 'disable' and 'force stop' and the machine seems to give dire warnings about forcing a stop and I forget what it said about 'disable' but it was equally off-putting to me.

There was no simple 'shut down' like we get on a pc.

Thanks for the link for phones. So the Nokia 6.1 or 3.1 or the Motorola G6.

Unfortunately they're not widely available here in country australia.

What I have to choose from is mainly either at Australia Post or at BigW
https://shop.auspost.com.au/tech-office/phones
https://www.bigw.com.au/electronics/mobile-phones/c/6324/

I'm a bit uncertain what features to look for. Is '4G ' signifying a 4G Ram and what I need?
And when they say 1G Ram and xG ROM what's that mean? Good or bad?

If I could get something that'd work okay for about $150 that'd be good. Seeing I just wasted $100 on this Jazz thing.

My needs are simple. I'm not a hectic games player or media viewer. When on the road driving the truck I need to check my emails from time to time and use google maps to find an address and use it as a phone..

This one will do those things but just barely and it'd be an unacceptable hassle and inconvenience if it wouldn't load maps when I needed it or wouldn't function right when it was loaded..

In the truck it could be plugged into the lighter charger all the time. But freestanding look at this battery performance this morning:

08:30 51%
10:19 20%
10:27 14%
10:28 13%
10:38 6%
10:58 5%

It'll be dead directly. And all of that's with me virtually not using it. It has google maps onscreen but I'm doing nothing with it.

 

[ocnbrze]

I'm a bit uncertain what features to look for. Is '4G ' signifying a 4G Ram and what I need?
And when they say 1G Ram and xG ROM what's that mean? Good or bad?

4g is your cellular technology. 4g is faster then 3g. 4g stands for 4th generation cellular technology
you want at least 3gb to 4gb of ram or more especially if it is running anything heigher then android 7.0

In the truck it could be plugged into the lighter charger all the time. But freestanding look at this battery performance this morning:

08:30 51%
10:19 20%
10:27 14%
10:28 13%
10:38 6%
10:58 5%

It'll be dead directly. And all of that's with me virtually not using it. It has google maps onscreen but I'm doing nothing with it.

yeah that is not good. but that also depends on your carriers signal strength and how good your gps signal is as well. i would definitely run a car charger while you are in your truck.

 

[abrogard]

aahh so.. signal strength? It works harder when the signal is weak? I didn't know. It's weak here in my shed alright.

Thanks for the enlightening about the 4G.. So they don't put upfront the main issues, we have to drill down a bit. Okay, thanks.

Right now my quick lookaround has got me thinking the best rock bottom thing would just about be the Nokia 3.1 obtainable by mail for me at just under $200.

 

[ocnbrze]

aahh so.. signal strength? It works harder when the signal is weak? I didn't know. It's weak here in my shed alright.

Thanks for the enlightening about the 4G.. So they don't put upfront the main issues, we have to drill down a bit. Okay, thanks.

Right now my quick lookaround has got me thinking the best rock bottom thing would just about be the Nokia 3.1 obtainable by mail for me at just under $200.

yep weak signal=battery drain

never had a nokia, but cnet seems to like them:
Nokia 5.1, 3.1, 2.1 phones

if you ever want to do some research on phones and not sure which to get, i always go and see what cnet has to say or at least what features phones have.

 

[abrogard]

go to cnet, thanks for the clue I'll do it...

I've had a couple of nokia phones - old style mobiles, not 'smartphones' - and I thought they were great.



just looked it up - weak signal means it tries harder to transmit and it's transmitting all the time it seems, handshaking with the towers or something. I didn't know that.

wonder if it's conversing like that even when in stand-by mode or whatever it is called when we've got the screen switched off, you know, with that side button....

I always think of it as being inert when I do that....

Hah... this weak signal is having another effect - I'm still in the shed trying to recharge it here and it's recharging very, very slowly and I guess that's because the normal charging rate is maybe 1% per minute or something but the weak signal effect was draining the battery at about that rate, too.

So it's not just using the thing but even recharging the thing..

But maybe I'm wrong there. It won't switch on for me. So would it be communicating with the towers and draining it's strength when it is not switched on I wonder....