A question about Android's battery management

[JuicyJones]

I have guy INSISTING that task managers further damages your battery life. So I caved in, and said I'll go with no task manager for a week. And give it a run.

He was sending me links explaining Google's "battery management" where your apps will be put into an "idle" mode and after some time in the idle stage (or until you need system resources.

So I ran Last FM for a little bit during the day on Thursday and hadn't opened the app up again. Friday night, just out of curiosity I went into Advanced Task Manager to see what apps were running, and I noticed there were apps that I hadn't touched since Wednesday & Thursday. (phone hadn't been rebooted or turned off) So I'm wondering, how long do these apps actually have to be running before they're automatically closed?

Or are these apps coded incorrectly?

 

[JuicyJones]

I have guy INSISTING that task managers further damages your battery life. So I caved in, and said I'll go with no task manager for a week. And give it a run.

He was sending me links explaining Google's "battery management" where your apps will be put into an "idle" mode and after some time in the idle stage (or until you need system resources.

So I ran Last FM for a little bit during the day on Thursday and hadn't opened the app up again. Friday night, just out of curiosity I went into Advanced Task Manager to see what apps were running, and I noticed there were apps that I hadn't touched since Wednesday & Thursday. (phone hadn't been rebooted or turned off) So I'm wondering, how long do these apps actually have to be running before they're automatically closed?

Or are these apps coded incorrectly?

I feel like the only way to stop this Is w/ a task manager. Google's battery management doesn't seem to be working.

 

[sakmaster]

I feel like the only way to stop this Is w/ a task manager. Google's battery management doesn't seem to be working.

Is it "not working" because the battery life is noticeably shorter, or just because applications from days ago are still running? Applications won't be killed until there is a need for more memory. But applications not in focus use close to zero cpu cycles, unless they are running some sort of service (like music streaming or downloading) so they should not use any power.

I found that without killing applications Battery life was largely the same. I still have a task killer tho for force closing applications if they misbehave.

 

[kejlyCZ]

It's called memory management, not battery management. Applications can close itself on exit, Android system close them when more memory is requested. So if no memory is needed and application doesn't close itself during exit, they can stay in memory for a long time, but this is normal.

 

[JuicyJones]

It's called memory management, not battery management. Applications can close itself on exit, Android system close them when more memory is requested. So if no memory is needed and application doesn't close itself during exit, they can stay in memory for a long time, but this is normal.

Then why does google say noy to use task managers because Its bad on the BATTERY LIFE?

 

[Anthony1]

Then why does google say noy to use task managers because Its bad on the BATTERY LIFE?

Because most people use task managers as a constantly running service that monitors other tasks. If you use it this way then the task manager will use up battery power, because it's constantly running.

It's still memory management, but it's using battery power to do so.

 

[kejlyCZ]

Then why does google say noy to use task managers because Its bad on the BATTERY LIFE?

Anthony1 is right, that taskmanager can increase load and therefore exhaust battery, but most taskmanagers are not so bad (I use TaskPanel and the impact is not big). The main issue is that user (mostly users with rooted phone) can kill some system services, which are needed and halt system, stop some applications or cause FC. Last, but not least, Android memory management is well working (I don't know iPhone, but memory management on Windows Mobile and Symbian was not working at all) and normal user don't to manage running task by hand, if everything is controlled well by system.