1st time android user questions

[medic77]

So I switched from an iphone to a S3. WOW! I feel so free to choose everything! My iphone was good at what it did just not me in anyway shape or form. Love it so far, but do have questions.

Battery:
Obviously I'm still setting it up so lots of heavy usage. I've installed go launcher and like that, different widgets, keyboard, icons etc. After looking through all the various ones I think I've settled on what I like. Should I delete the other widgets not being used? Do they still run in the background? Icon apps etc?

Example, I'm not using go weather, does it still update all the time or should I not be worried?

I'm half tempted to wipe clean and start over with only the widgets I like and use, is that worth all the work?

I really don't watch videos other than a quick clip from youtube. I do listen to music while working out only 1hr a day or so. Check FB couple times a day, rent a movie from redbox once in a while, text heavy some days others not so much. Don't read on it, few games just to kill time, check cnn in morning while having coffee. I would say a moderate user 70% heavy 30% of the week.

I have Gsam battery app and don't really understand what the readings are telling me. Time left I get that, but what happens when you hit the X, reset? nothing really changes. I assume over the period of time these applications used x% of the battery? Is that true?

Thanks in advance.

 

[JunBringer]

IMO you should remove any widgets and homescreens that you're not using, then there's no chance of it updating and wasting battery and data. Any icons on the screen won't do anything though, but you might as well remove them if you don't use them. Welcome to Android dude, I came from iOS as well and love it here!

 

[Krunk83]

Check all your sync stuff like twitter and Facebook and set them to what you want. I usually turn them off. Turn off motion if you aren't using it in settings.

 

[hbryder]

So I switched from an iphone to a S3. WOW! I feel so free to choose everything! My iphone was good at what it did just not me in anyway shape or form. Love it so far, but do have questions.

Battery:
Obviously I'm still setting it up so lots of heavy usage. I've installed go launcher and like that, different widgets, keyboard, icons etc. After looking through all the various ones I think I've settled on what I like. Should I delete the other widgets not being used? Do they still run in the background? Icon apps etc?

Example, I'm not using go weather, does it still update all the time or should I not be worried?

I'm half tempted to wipe clean and start over with only the widgets I like and use, is that worth all the work?

I really don't watch videos other than a quick clip from youtube. I do listen to music while working out only 1hr a day or so. Check FB couple times a day, rent a movie from redbox once in a while, text heavy some days others not so much. Don't read on it, few games just to kill time, check cnn in morning while having coffee. I would say a moderate user 70% heavy 30% of the week.

I have Gsam battery app and don't really understand what the readings are telling me. Time left I get that, but what happens when you hit the X, reset? nothing really changes. I assume over the period of time these applications used x% of the battery? Is that true?

Thanks in advance.

I use a lot of go apps. Go weather can use a ton of battery unless you turn off auto update. I only update mine when I feel the need. If you don't have widgets on your screens they shouldn't be doing anything. The more widgets you have the more battery depending on what they are/do. good rule of thumb if you don't use it everyday you don't need it on your homescreens. To close any apps, long press your home button it will pull up any non-system running apps and you will be able to close them.

Set up your accounts to sync only when you want, otherwise they will sync all the time. some you may not want to sync unless you open the app. (this will save battery)

I've found that using wifi at home instead of data helps with my battery (poor signal at home)

Just go through all your settings have fun playing with some of the options you have on this phone, voice commands, motions..check out the setting in your apps to see what else they can do that you haven't discovered. These boards are a great place to get help and advice. Welcome to Android!

 

[BS3]

Is there a default setting that will close down any app,browsers etc when you click out of them? Seems a bit pointless to keep them running once you leave them. Would make sense battery wise that you have the option to chose a complete closure of anything your doing once you quit it.

 

[Heisenberg123]

Is there a default setting that will close down any app,browsers etc when you click out of them? Seems a bit pointless to keep them running once you leave them. Would make sense battery wise that you have the option to chose a complete closure of anything your doing once you quit it.

not sure if any app does it automatically but if your hold the home button all your running apps will be displayed just swipe them to quit them

 

[hbryder]

Is there a default setting that will close down any app,browsers etc when you click out of them? Seems a bit pointless to keep them running once you leave them. Would make sense battery wise that you have the option to chose a complete closure of anything your doing once you quit it.

Most apps have an exit/quit button in settings, sometimes they also close using back. I think sometimes we start doing something else and completely forget that we've left an app open, that's when the long press comes in handy, it's also good for multitasking in case you want to switch back and forth from apps without restarting them.

 

[BS3]

I think sometimes we start doing something else and completely forget that we've left an app open,

I always do that, thats why i think unless multi tasking,that once you close an app,unless configured to stay open,that all open apps should shut down once you navigate away from them.Easy enough to open them back up,harder to remember to shut all things down twice.

 

[_Aardvark]

Android is supposed to work this way. There is no need to manually close an application. The OS will close them when it needs to. With 2gb of ram on the (north american) S3 that's a lot of open apps.

A non-broken app will not take up any CPU time or battery when it is "running" in the background. Well, that's true unless it's designed to do things in the background - and in those cases it may not have mattered if you've opened it or not.

The long-press home recent applications is not necessarily the currently running apps, it is just the recent ones (so the list can be longer then the actual list of running apps). Swiping them away will close them if they were actually open, swiping away a closed app just removes it from the list. However, you shouldn't really worry about it.

 

[medic77]

Thanks for all the replies. So far today I used it a fair amount. Some calls, some home screen editing, web, etc. and still have power to spare. I did install the app fast reboot pro. I got some good reviews and the theory sounded good. we'll see. What I'm looking for now is a rock solid screen protector that can be put on after the otterbox commuter case is on. Any other newbie tricks or must have apps?