Android App - Why you no perma-close?!

[zeth006]

Consider this a semi-rant and a policy question. Just why on Earth do Android apps have to come online and run in the background even though I don't open them? Why hasn't Google designed a way to give us the option to close the app and leave it that way until we decide to open it again?


I'm sure some of the free apps need to run in the background to collect info and stream advertisements to be profitable, but why don't we still have this option for other apps that don't fall under this category?! :argh:

 

[T.M.M.L]

Greetings zeth,

It's just the way the Android system works. It loads programs into memory for fast access. The apps don't use up battery or cpu power, and the Android system shuts them down automatically if it requires the memory.

I was like you at the beginning, I didn't understand why the apps kept starting by themselves. After awhile, I was informed about how the system works.

Hope this helps.

 

[Stuntman]

Just why on Earth do Android apps have to come online and run in the background even though I don't open them?

Apps on Android aren't necessarily running in the background. If you are referring to the list of recently used apps, they are recently used apps and not necessarily running apps. Android manages the system resources and Android apps that should not be doing anything in the background should not be running even though the app appears in your list of recently used apps.

Why hasn't Google designed a way to give us the option to close the app and leave it that way until we decide to open it again?

I'm sure some of the free apps need to run in the background to collect info and stream advertisements to be profitable, but why don't we still have this option for other apps that don't fall under this category?! :argh:

ICS (Android 4.0) has a way to remove these apps from the list.

 

[Noah Arc-lover]

Task manager will tell you what's actually loaded in memory - though how loaded 'loaded' means, I don't know.
It's natural to want to kill anything that might be a battery drain, so Android should really bow to user instinct on this one and provide an in-app quitting method.
However irrelevant users' suspicions about power consumption on this may be, users will still default to closing them down.
Where Android fail in this respect, is in failing to address those user concerns.
To my mind, Android are still a bit Linuxy in this respect, ie - more developer than user-centred ... but I guess that's one of the downsides of open-sourciness.

 

[zeth006]

Apps on Android aren't necessarily running in the background. If you are referring to the list of recently used apps, they are recently used apps and not necessarily running apps. Android manages the system resources and Android apps that should not be doing anything in the background should not be running even though the app appears in your list of recently used apps.



ICS (Android 4.0) has a way to remove these apps from the list.

Doesn't change the fact that easy/advanced task show apps running in the background and eating ram.

 

[kevindroid]

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...UujFMYTBMwR61DFpA&sig2=h3-y6OM1fzRLMCzdwX3bdQ this thread will show the reason and benefit

 

[zeth006]

Task manager will tell you what's actually loaded in memory - though how loaded 'loaded' means, I don't know.
It's natural to want to kill anything that might be a battery drain, so Android should really bow to user instinct on this one and provide an in-app quitting method.
However irrelevant users' suspicions about power consumption on this may be, users will still default to closing them down.
Where Android fail in this respect, is in failing to address those user concerns.
To my mind, Android are still a bit Linuxy in this respect, ie - more developer than user-centred ... but I guess that's one of the downsides of open-sourciness.

Totally. If i want it OFF, it should stay off until i specify otherwise. My phone's processor is plenty fast enough for opening it up later if i need to start it later.

 

[chanchan05]

Actually, on an Android system, totally starting from scratch causes more battery drain than not. That's a reason why windows laptops also use up a lot of power. That's simply how Android works. Killing the apps will just cause them to autostart again later, because Android polls the most used apps and keeps them at RAM unless more memory is needed and they are unloaded automatically. Each kill causes the system to think you used it, so the more you kill it, the more it gets loaded, thereby using up more battery. Its a way of keeping things loading fast, but saving battery. And no, your phone's processor ain't plenty fast. Its slow. The dual core 1.5Ghz Exynos chip on a Samsung SII is about as fast as a single core 1.5Ghz Intel Atom.

I have 195 apps, several running in the background like social networking apps, dropbox and facebook on sugarsync, widgets, etc. Still as fast as when I bought it. Never used a task killer.

 

[Crashdamage]

Task manager will tell you what's actually loaded in memory - though how loaded 'loaded' means, I don't know.

Just means it's saved in memory, ready for use but inactive and not using any power.

It's natural to want to kill anything that might be a battery drain, so Android should really bow to user instinct on this one and provide an in-app quitting method.

No, Android should operate in the most efficient, easy to use way, which it does. What you call 'natural' is really just old Windows habits. There are better ways than Windows ways.

However irrelevant users' suspicions about power consumption on this may be, users will still default to closing them down.

They are irrelevant and closing apps is their mistake.

Where Android fail in this respect, is in failing to address those user concerns.

Android is not failing users, users are failing to learn how to use Android properly. Which basically means just relax and let Android take care if processes and memory management for them. It does an excellent job and needs NO help.

 

[Noah Arc-lover]

Just means it's saved in memory, ready for use but inactive and not using any power.


No, Android should operate in the most efficient, easy to use way, which it does. What you call 'natural' is really just old Windows habits. There are better ways than Windows ways.


They are irrelevant and closing apps is their mistake.


Android is not failing users, users are failing to learn how to use Android properly. Which basically means just relax.

... someone needs to take their own advice, don't they ?
Why all the indignation ?

 

[Stuntman]

Doesn't change the fact that easy/advanced task show apps running in the background and eating ram.

If you are not actively using very many apps, those apps don't need to use all of the RAM on your phone. When Android sees unused RAM, it makes use of it by anticipating what apps the user may possibly use at a later time and loads it into memory.

Even though the app may show as running, it may not actually be using any CPU cycles. Apps should be designed, so that if they have nothing to do, they should not use any CPU. A task manager may not show whether or not an app that is in memory is actually using CPU cycles and power.

Android tries to manage resources on the phone as efficiently as possible. If you try to actively manage apps yourself, you may end up doing more harm than good. If you start manually killing apps yourself, you end up confusing the Android resource manager into thinking you are using the app. Android will then try to load it into memory later on because it will think that app is often used. Often killed means often used to the Android resource manager.

I find that with Gingerbread, it seems to manage resources much better than Froyo and causes an increase in battery life. That is my personal observation when going from Froyo to GB. I'm not sure about ICS as it is not available on my phone and I have not actively tried to compare this aspect of ICS and Honeycomb on my tablet.