-
After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.
Advanced Task Manager vs. Running Services (under settings)
- Thread starter ninjakyle
- Start date
-
- Tags
- htc droid incredible
paimon.soror
Android Enthusiast
I believe that running services doesn't show protected system services, unlike advanced task manager which will show all unfiltered services. The reason that ATM sucks some battery is because you are closing cached apps, so in theory, the next time you go use the app, it uses more cpu cycles to fire the app up. Droid works like linux, when an app is no longer in use, it sits in memory and runs on little to no cpu cycles. Like linux, android works on the "no waste" policy.....you have 500+ mb of ram, so why not cache some apps for performance.
Highly debated topic, the above is just my $0.02
Highly debated topic, the above is just my $0.02
paimon.soror
Android Enthusiast
It would be using some ram, it really depends on how android caches some data. I know that windows for example will take an application that is "sleeping" and write it to a page file to free up ram (mainly because windows runs on a 'free as much as you can policy'), however, linux will leave it in ram until space is needed (this is why if you run a linux system with 4gb of ram, you will notice that at least 75% of ram is used up after a few hours). As far as battery life goes, as long as the page isn't rendering anything, it shouldn't be using anything, RAM chips in general are a very very very low power device that is used to retain memory. As far as if there is a reason, it really depends on the type of user you are. If you are a heavy user of the browser, then no there is no reason to close a program like that, and android will recognize that and keep it 'sleeping' in the background. If you use the browser once in a while, android will recognize that as well, and shut it down. This is why sometimes you will open the browser and it will go to your homepage, and sometimes it will take you to the page you were previously at. Because our device has so much memory to play with, you will notice that a lot of applications will just sleep in the background. If you get a chance, hook up your incredible to the debugger on the PC. You will see a bunch of processes running, but most of them are using 0.00 - 0.01% cpu power ... generally these are 'signals' or 'pings' to let the program know 'hey, the OS is still alive, dont worry'.
Ever notice how when you bring your phone back from 'idle' the widgets seem to 'refresh'. For example, if you use the clock widget and are using clock #1, the hands reset? Thats pretty much what android does ... when things arent being used, they go to sleep in ram.
Hope that helps
edit:
It has always been a huge debate (i am a computer engineer) in computer technology as to which method is better: Free always vs Free when needed. There is a whole cult that says the former is best, another that says the latter. There is no right or wrong way, but if history is any indication, both are still around because one method isn't dramatically better or dramatically worse than the other.
Ever notice how when you bring your phone back from 'idle' the widgets seem to 'refresh'. For example, if you use the clock widget and are using clock #1, the hands reset? Thats pretty much what android does ... when things arent being used, they go to sleep in ram.
Hope that helps
edit:
It has always been a huge debate (i am a computer engineer) in computer technology as to which method is better: Free always vs Free when needed. There is a whole cult that says the former is best, another that says the latter. There is no right or wrong way, but if history is any indication, both are still around because one method isn't dramatically better or dramatically worse than the other.
paimon.soror
Android Enthusiast
Yea i mean you will find a ton of people that will debate over why it is good and why it isn't.
Another way you can think about it is, in windows, imagine instead of minimizing your apps you just fired up process explorer and killed the process. What happens? you lose all of your work, if the app was doing something you may have corrupted some data, if a system process was talking to the app you could get a blue screen etc etc.
It really would be interesting to see the "close" mechanism of ATM. For example, in linux if you do a 'kill [pid]' generally it sends a graceful termination signal as if you pressed the 'X' at the top right of a windows application. This allows the program to do operations it normally does on closing (save data, tell other processes it is shutting down, etc). ATM could be doing a force close (like a 'kill -9 [pid]') that pretty much says "hey i dont care what you are doing, close NOW".
Maybe if we get a better understanding of what the mechanisms are in these task manager apps, we can make a better judgement on how much harm (if any) it is doing to the stability of Android
Another way you can think about it is, in windows, imagine instead of minimizing your apps you just fired up process explorer and killed the process. What happens? you lose all of your work, if the app was doing something you may have corrupted some data, if a system process was talking to the app you could get a blue screen etc etc.
It really would be interesting to see the "close" mechanism of ATM. For example, in linux if you do a 'kill [pid]' generally it sends a graceful termination signal as if you pressed the 'X' at the top right of a windows application. This allows the program to do operations it normally does on closing (save data, tell other processes it is shutting down, etc). ATM could be doing a force close (like a 'kill -9 [pid]') that pretty much says "hey i dont care what you are doing, close NOW".
Maybe if we get a better understanding of what the mechanisms are in these task manager apps, we can make a better judgement on how much harm (if any) it is doing to the stability of Android
paimon.soror
Android Enthusiast
Some applications do have an exit button in the menu, but most will just be sent to the background until android deems it necessary to shut it down (aka you havn't gone back to it in x amount of minutes)
The only apps using any power will be apps that are performing scheduled tasks like updating from the internet. These types of apps generally have user controlled settings to control how often they do.
This is the biggest hurdle most windows users need to get over here. An app that's just "sitting" there in the background isn't using up your battery. Sitting in memory doesn't take any battery...that memory is powered whether you have an application residing there or not.
The actual process of removing an application from memory uses your CPU and thus your battery. That's why the system doesn't do it by default. If you clear the memory every time you load an app (and then subsequently have to load it back into memory when you want to use it again), you just used a lot more battery than if you left it sitting there doing nothing in memory the whole time.
paimon.soror
Android Enthusiast
I appreciate the gesture woop
ThreeFingersDown
Member
Today was my first day without being totally anal about using Task Managers and closing down programs like I would with a windows device.
So far my battery life is WAY better.
Been using my phone for about 4 1/2 hours (pretty heavily) and I'm only down to 75%.
Just let the OS handle the processes.
If you want to download anything I suggest "OS Monitor." With this you can see what processes are running and how much CPU they are using. Usually the only thing chewing on CPU is the Android OS, HTC sense (very seldom), and the OS Monitor (because it is currently in use while viewing.)
This is a good program bc you can see if there are any apps using CPU cycles in the background. If this is happening you know the program isn't working properly and you can kill it. (I had to do this with a facebook app, downloaded a new one and now I'm fine.)
Also being a noob to Android OS and the ways of Linux, this app allowed me to see how things are handled on this type of OS.
Very very cool stuff.
So far my battery life is WAY better.
Been using my phone for about 4 1/2 hours (pretty heavily) and I'm only down to 75%.
Just let the OS handle the processes.
If you want to download anything I suggest "OS Monitor." With this you can see what processes are running and how much CPU they are using. Usually the only thing chewing on CPU is the Android OS, HTC sense (very seldom), and the OS Monitor (because it is currently in use while viewing.)
This is a good program bc you can see if there are any apps using CPU cycles in the background. If this is happening you know the program isn't working properly and you can kill it. (I had to do this with a facebook app, downloaded a new one and now I'm fine.)
Also being a noob to Android OS and the ways of Linux, this app allowed me to see how things are handled on this type of OS.
Very very cool stuff.
