Help Task Manager

[keatingschick]

Does this phone not have its own task manager? I've got a Samsung Galaxy S and when I have been on the internet or played any games I just press and hold the screen and task manager comes up and I can shut down any running applications. My husband has just got this phone and it seems to be that things are just left running - like internet. Does the phone have a task manager or is it something that has to be downloaded?

 

[Colinr1234]

Yes it does. Go to "settings" then "manage applications". Hope this helps. I got my Wildfire S on Wednesday. Be careful of messages app as it can send texts on its own without you knowing about it.

Colin

 

[keatingschick]

Thanks I'll try to have a look, I sort of tried that last night but as it's not like my phone I didn't like messing. Mine I literally press and hold and it comes up with any apps I have used which are still active and I just shut them down, when I looked in the settings last night it showed me a few things and I was a little wary of what NEEDED to be running and what didn't so I didn't like to shut them down.
He is useless with stuff like that but as he had finished using internet it was just like he literally went back to the phones home page and I thought that that wasnt right as it leaves it running and does that not run down the battery and make the phone run slower if there are still apps running?
I'll check the message thing, like I said he is useless with stuff like this, he barely knows how to switch the thing on!!
Cheers

 

[keatingschick]

Yes it does. Go to "settings" then "manage applications". Hope this helps. I got my Wildfire S on Wednesday. Be careful of messages app as it can send texts on its own without you knowing about it.

Colin

Have done this but it pulls up loads of things and I havent a clue what I can and can't shut down, and also I dont know HOW to shut them down. Mine is so simple I just press and hold, task manager appears, it shows most recent apps - facebook, internet, messages etc...and then just "close all active applications" and thats it. This seems to show up EVERYTHING on the phone - settings,market,skin picker,calender, sound set, google services,my downloads provider, htc sense, maps, touch input.
So no idea what to do, also the messages seems odd too - no inbox/outbox or anything, so can't check if its sending texts on its own.
Don't like this phone AT ALL. Mine is far better.

 

[Jethro10]

Have done this but it pulls up loads of things and I havent a clue what I can and can't shut down, and also I dont know HOW to shut them down. Mine is so simple I just press and hold, task manager appears, it shows most recent apps - facebook, internet, messages etc...and then just "close all active applications" and thats it.

My wife's phone is like this also, a Motorolla on 2.2 android. To be honest, like you I was closing all stuff down at first - MS Windows still on my mind ;-)
Then I read up on Android, there is no need to close stuff, it's very clever and manages it all very well by itself if necessary.
Well since then, I stopped worrying about what was running and why and how etc. I've just ignored it all and let it do it's own thing. And guess what, I've never noticed any difference.
I'd stop worrying if I was you, there is no need to do this type of housekeeping on android, just let it get on with it.

Don't like this phone AT ALL. Mine is far better.

Oh dear.
this is my 5th android phone I've had a lot of exposure to. For me, it's the best of them all...

J

 

[keatingschick]

I suppose I am just used to doing it with my own phone, so that when I have been on FB or been playing games, I just use the task manager and shut everything down, but his just seems like you have to go back to the home page and leave everything just running. I suppose I am just thinking of like a pc with stuff running in the background and slowing things down.

To be honest when I picked my phone it was between the HTC desire and Samsung Galaxy, and the guy in the shop (yes it has since been suggested to me that he was on some kind of commission flogging the samsung), said he had both the Iphone and the Samsung Galaxy and in his opinion the Galaxy was better, and his take on that was obviously working in a phone shop he has access to all the best phones yet he would choose the Galaxy, so I opted for that, but my friend said her HTC desire was pretty much identical, so thats why I opted for the HTC when my hubby needed a new phone and didn't like my Galaxy cos its quite big. But to be honest I'll admit when he got it I was a bit green at him having a new phone and it obviously having certain more modern aspects to it than mine, but to be honest since playing around with it, I actually prefer my own. I just have to learn to stop dropping mine

 

[alexsweden1989]

I suppose I am just used to doing it with my own phone, so that when I have been on FB or been playing games, I just use the task manager and shut everything down, but his just seems like you have to go back to the home page and leave everything just running. I suppose I am just thinking of like a pc with stuff running in the background and slowing things down.

To be honest when I picked my phone it was between the HTC desire and Samsung Galaxy, and the guy in the shop (yes it has since been suggested to me that he was on some kind of commission flogging the samsung), said he had both the Iphone and the Samsung Galaxy and in his opinion the Galaxy was better, and his take on that was obviously working in a phone shop he has access to all the best phones yet he would choose the Galaxy, so I opted for that, but my friend said her HTC desire was pretty much identical, so thats why I opted for the HTC when my hubby needed a new phone and didn't like my Galaxy cos its quite big. But to be honest I'll admit when he got it I was a bit green at him having a new phone and it obviously having certain more modern aspects to it than mine, but to be honest since playing around with it, I actually prefer my own. I just have to learn to stop dropping mine

Download advanced task killer from android market, and configure the settings of the application. It should kill all apps when your screen is on stand-by.

 

[Harish Harris]

Download apps killer from android market, and configure the settings of the application. It should kill all apps when your screen is on stand-by.

Do not use any task killers. They are not good for your phone. Refer to threads related to task killers in this forum. Android is smart enough to manage itself. So you dont need to kill any task.

 

[alexsweden1989]

Do not use any task killers. They are not good for your phone. Refer to threads related to task killers in this forum. Android is smart enough to manage itself. So you dont need to kill any task.

i disagree. advanced task killer is one of the top rated applications for android. it kills the applications that run by themselves, and also it saves battery power and you get more phone operating memory.

 

[dvhttn]

i disagree. advanced task killer is one of the top rated applications for android. it kills the applications that run by themselves, and also it saves battery power and you get more phone operating memory.

NO NO NO! Do NOT use a task killer. Please read up about how Android actually works and you will agree that you do NOT need it!

Dave

 

[ardchoille]

You don't want to kill tasks, here's why:

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 don't do anything other than waste system resources.

 

[alexsweden1989]

You don't want to kill tasks, here's why:

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

 

[Hexx]

Just because something is top rated doesn't mean you need it. Task killers have their place but I would only use one to kill an app that was badly miss-behaving or had completely hung - and even in that instance I would use the built in task manager to kill it off rather than any third party app.

I think task killers are popular because people are used to the way PCs work, in that, once you have finished with an app, you close it all down to save memory and CPU etc, but mobile platforms, devices with limited resources (and this is not just limited to Android) work differently and apps shouldn't need killing off. If they do - something is wrong with the app.

Ben.

 

[Droidbotic]

This explanation is very helpful because I am learning how the Droid works and behaves.

Thanks.

 

[ardchoille]

so what is the purpose of advanced task killer? why is it rated as one of the best applications for android devices?

In older versions of android ATK might have been necessary, that is no longer the case. You really cannot judge an app by the number of downloads or even the comments anymore because there are sites that a developer can visit to pay someone to download their app and give it a positive rating.

And, how many of those downloads are from users who didn't like the app and uninstalled it? There is no way of knowing.

 

[vlada035]

Great post! Thanks for this explanation!