Help ATK: Not as bad as you think.

[droidx_fan]

Mostly makes sense. Is there a way on the X to permanently turn off or "kill" apps you never want? Apps such as Skype, Social Networking, Amazon, etc.. The system won't let you uninstall them for some mysterious reason known only to Verizon I guess.

 

[lexluthor]

Ok. I kind of see now what you are talking about, but that's not really any valuable into.

The Incredible had a setting to tell you how much time the phone spent sleeping vs awake, that's what I was looking for.

This screen doesn't tell you what percent of the time the phone has been idle for, it tells you what percent of the battery has been used when the phone has been idle.

EDIT: Actually it does!

If you click the phone idle entry, then it tells you how long that entry has been running, which should be how much the phone has been sleeping/idle for.

Ok, sorry for the hijack. I'm done here.

 

[BLK MAJK]

Just wanted to throw my 2 cent experience in here. I noticed I was having sub-par battery life, so I started a quest to find the culprit. I would take it off the charger at 5am and it was dead by about 6pm with some moderate use. Not bad by any means, but I think it could be better. I installed ATK last night (I also uninstalled a few apps), and I also installed System Panel (the paid version). System panel allows you to track CPU usage history overall and by each program. This morning, about 12 hours after installing both of these apps (and removing others), my battery seemed to be a little better so I pulled up my cpu usage history to see if I could find if there was anything else that was sucking power....guess which app was #1 in cpu usage? ATK. It was using more than "system" and "system processes". From the time I installed ATK to the time I uninstalled it, it was using 4-5% cpu THE ENTIRE TIME. ATK had racked up the equivalent of 23 minutes of 100% cpu usage in the ~12 hours it was installed. Not a HUGE amount, but more than I would like, especially when people question it's necessity. So while it wasn't ATK that was killing my battery previously, it would have helped kill it today. Just my experience.

 

[007E]

I deleted an ESPN app (and a few others) and turned off Lookout (antivirus) protection off. My battery lasted well over 10 Hrs yesterday as opposed to probably half that before completely dying. Now I am tempted to uninstall the ATK for a day to see what happens.

 

[HalfFrozen]

Ok, I am sorry guys, honestly forgot about this thread with my wedding last weekend and all that, anyways.

When you go into the ATK app and press menu this is what I got...

Start Up

 

[jreed2560]

atks work well in the short run, I'm positive with long term use, you will notice that ur battery savings dwindle. they always do

 

[HalfFrozen]

So far it hasn't even thought about going down like it did with out ATK..

 

[jreed2560]

if you are having that serious of a problem with your battery life you really need to look at what you are having to kill off. I'm almost certain you have a few rogue apps. If I were having that much of a problem with battery life I would look more into what is causing it rather than a band aid app to fix it. Thats just my personal philosophy. If you choose not to follow it, then more power to you.

 

[HalfFrozen]

All I know is that now with my settings to kill almost everything when the screen goes off it makes my phone last for over 36 hours.

 

[schizrade]

i'll try to explain the whole task killer conundrum so hopefully people will understand it better.

Does anyone know what caching is? Did you guys know that windows 7 completely fills up your ram with applications even if you didn't open them? The idea is that an application that is already loaded will open and run much faster when you decide to actually use it and it works extremely well. If another program needs the resources then windows will close applications to make room automatically. This is all completely transparent to the user. Android does the exact same thing. The only difference is windows 7 does not tell you that it does this while android has a spot that says "running processes" and people see it and flip out because their old pc managing instincts kick in. These instincts were correct for older windows machines, but they do more harm than good when trying to apply them to android.

In android, applications have a sleep mode where they sit in memory and consume zero cpu and zero battery. If you decide to open one of these programs, they will open very fast. It takes more battery to manually close an application and then load it up later than it does to leave it alone in sleep mode.

If an application that is running needs more memory than is freely available, android will automatically close one or more of the least used applications in sleep mode to free up some space.

I'll repeat, manually closing an application that does not need to be closed wastes battery. Android will also try to put stuff in your ram to maximize caching. Empty ram is wasted ram. Android and your task killer may open and close apps continuously and this will drain some juice.

A quick refresher on how to close apps in android: If you press home, your app is still running full on. You only press home to leave an app if you intend to multitask and want to get back to it later. The first way you should try to exit an app is to see if the app has a built in exit or quit button. If it does, use that. If the app does not, exit the app using the back button. I'll repeat: If you try to exit an app using the home button, the app will continue to use resources since you merely told it to "minimize".

If a task killer appears to give you a benefit, it's because and only because you have a poorly coded app installed somewhere that is consuming resources when it is not supposed to(an app whose sleep mode does not actually sleep). There is no other scenario where a task killer will give you a boost in battery life.

Due to the openness of the android market, half baked applications have no difficulty getting onto the market. It's up to the end user to carefully look over their applications and decide if they are any good or not. Don't expect everything you install to be perfect. There are very minimal requirements for an app to get onto the market.

My advice is to figure out what the culprit is and get rid of it instead of using a task killer.

/thread.

 

[jreed2560]

I'll try to explain the whole task killer conundrum so hopefully people will understand it better.

Does anyone know what caching is? Did you guys know that Windows 7 completely fills up your ram with applications even if you didn't open them? The idea is that an application that is already loaded will open and run much faster when you decide to actually use it and it works extremely well. If another program needs the resources then Windows will close applications to make room automatically. This is all completely transparent to the user. Android does the exact same thing. The only difference is Windows 7 does not tell you that it does this while Android has a spot that says "running processes" and people see it and flip out because their old PC managing instincts kick in. These instincts were correct for older Windows machines, but they do more harm than good when trying to apply them to Android.

In Android, applications have a sleep mode where they sit in memory and consume zero CPU and zero battery. If you decide to open one of these programs, they will open very fast. It takes MORE battery to manually close an application and then load it up later than it does to leave it alone in sleep mode.

If an application that is running needs more memory than is freely available, Android will automatically close one or more of the least used applications in sleep mode to free up some space.

I'll repeat, manually closing an application that does not need to be closed wastes battery. Android will also try to put stuff in your ram to maximize caching. Empty ram is wasted ram. Android and your task killer may open and close apps continuously and this will drain some juice.

A quick refresher on how to close apps in Android: If you press Home, your app is still running full on. You only press Home to leave an app if you intend to multitask and want to get back to it later. The first way you should try to exit an app is to see if the app has a built in exit or quit button. If it does, use that. If the app does not, exit the app using the back button. I'll repeat: If you try to exit an app using the Home button, the app will continue to use resources since you merely told it to "minimize".

If a task killer appears to give you a benefit, it's because and ONLY because you have a poorly coded app installed somewhere that is consuming resources when it is not supposed to(An app whose sleep mode does not actually sleep). There is no other scenario where a task killer will give you a boost in battery life.

Due to the openness of the Android Market, half baked applications have no difficulty getting onto the Market. It's up to the end user to carefully look over their applications and decide if they are any good or not. Don't expect everything you install to be perfect. There are very minimal requirements for an app to get onto the Market.

My advice is to figure out what the culprit is and get rid of it instead of using a task killer.

^this

quoted again because its that good of an explanation

 

[CriticalMass]

I'm using Automatic Task Killer and I'm just not sure it's worth it. I find my battery levels vary a great deal. One day I get a full day, another day it's plugged in 3/4 through work shift. And I'm not doing anything differently from day to day.

Automatic Task Killer seems to affect the caching and make things a bit slower though. I went from strict to moderate settings and things run a lot smoother for me. Which tells me Automatic Task Killer is really only good for handling runaway apps from time to time and not much else.

The battery life issue, beyond the GPS and not sleeping issue, I can't attach any concrete reason as to why it is all over the place from one day to the next. Right now I tend to agree that something with activating and turning off the gps causes the O.S. to not sleep which increases battery drain.

 

[HalfFrozen]

Advanced Task Killer with certain profiles on my DX has made it last for ever it seems.

 

[dnax]

I'll try to explain the whole task killer conundrum so hopefully people will understand it better.

Does anyone know what caching is? Did you guys know that Windows 7 completely fills up your ram with applications even if you didn't open them? The idea is that an application that is already loaded will open and run much faster when you decide to actually use it and it works extremely well. If another program needs the resources then Windows will close applications to make room automatically. This is all completely transparent to the user. Android does the exact same thing. The only difference is Windows 7 does not tell you that it does this while Android has a spot that says "running processes" and people see it and flip out because their old PC managing instincts kick in. These instincts were correct for older Windows machines, but they do more harm than good when trying to apply them to Android.

In Android, applications have a sleep mode where they sit in memory and consume zero CPU and zero battery. If you decide to open one of these programs, they will open very fast. It takes MORE battery to manually close an application and then load it up later than it does to leave it alone in sleep mode.

If an application that is running needs more memory than is freely available, Android will automatically close one or more of the least used applications in sleep mode to free up some space.

I'll repeat, manually closing an application that does not need to be closed wastes battery. Android will also try to put stuff in your ram to maximize caching. Empty ram is wasted ram. Android and your task killer may open and close apps continuously and this will drain some juice.

A quick refresher on how to close apps in Android: If you press Home, your app is still running full on. You only press Home to leave an app if you intend to multitask and want to get back to it later. The first way you should try to exit an app is to see if the app has a built in exit or quit button. If it does, use that. If the app does not, exit the app using the back button. I'll repeat: If you try to exit an app using the Home button, the app will continue to use resources since you merely told it to "minimize".

If a task killer appears to give you a benefit, it's because and ONLY because you have a poorly coded app installed somewhere that is consuming resources when it is not supposed to(An app whose sleep mode does not actually sleep). There is no other scenario where a task killer will give you a boost in battery life.

Due to the openness of the Android Market, half baked applications have no difficulty getting onto the Market. It's up to the end user to carefully look over their applications and decide if they are any good or not. Don't expect everything you install to be perfect. There are very minimal requirements for an app to get onto the Market.

My advice is to figure out what the culprit is and get rid of it instead of using a task killer.

Thanks for clearing up all my questions with one concise post!

 

[sonofaresiii]

I'll try to explain the whole task killer conundrum so hopefully people will understand it better.

Does anyone know what caching is? Did you guys know that Windows 7 completely fills up your ram with applications even if you didn't open them? The idea is that an application that is already loaded will open and run much faster when you decide to actually use it and it works extremely well. If another program needs the resources then Windows will close applications to make room automatically. This is all completely transparent to the user. Android does the exact same thing. The only difference is Windows 7 does not tell you that it does this while Android has a spot that says "running processes" and people see it and flip out because their old PC managing instincts kick in. These instincts were correct for older Windows machines, but they do more harm than good when trying to apply them to Android.

In Android, applications have a sleep mode where they sit in memory and consume zero CPU and zero battery. If you decide to open one of these programs, they will open very fast. It takes MORE battery to manually close an application and then load it up later than it does to leave it alone in sleep mode.

If an application that is running needs more memory than is freely available, Android will automatically close one or more of the least used applications in sleep mode to free up some space.

I'll repeat, manually closing an application that does not need to be closed wastes battery. Android will also try to put stuff in your ram to maximize caching. Empty ram is wasted ram. Android and your task killer may open and close apps continuously and this will drain some juice.

A quick refresher on how to close apps in Android: If you press Home, your app is still running full on. You only press Home to leave an app if you intend to multitask and want to get back to it later. The first way you should try to exit an app is to see if the app has a built in exit or quit button. If it does, use that. If the app does not, exit the app using the back button. I'll repeat: If you try to exit an app using the Home button, the app will continue to use resources since you merely told it to "minimize".

If a task killer appears to give you a benefit, it's because and ONLY because you have a poorly coded app installed somewhere that is consuming resources when it is not supposed to(An app whose sleep mode does not actually sleep). There is no other scenario where a task killer will give you a boost in battery life.

Due to the openness of the Android Market, half baked applications have no difficulty getting onto the Market. It's up to the end user to carefully look over their applications and decide if they are any good or not. Don't expect everything you install to be perfect. There are very minimal requirements for an app to get onto the Market.

My advice is to figure out what the culprit is and get rid of it instead of using a task killer.

follow-up question:
is there an app or something where I can see which programs are still active and using memory? Just in case, say, I use the home button to get out of Angry Birds because someone texted me, but then I decide to look something up in my browser and completely forget I still have Angry Birds open.
Alternate-- does android have some sort of sleep timer, where if I do forget and leave something active, it will automatically put it into sleep mode after say ten minutes?