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Back ground apps

N

nzlowie

Newbie
Hi all

I've just got my first android phone (HTC One) and love it...

I'm starting to have some questions so he's the first.

How can I stop back ground app? I don't start Facebook or Maps but they keep restarting. Can we stop this?
Installed a password keeper program but now it won't let me uninstall it. Keep trying or forget it?

How much juice does the GPS use? Should I leave it off or can it stay on?

I'm sure I'm going to have more questions.. so thanks in advance.
Dave
 
BACKGROUND APPS
You shouldn't kill background apps. Ever. Some are necessary and killing them is counterproductive as they could crash your phone or try to restart themselves more often and kill more battery. Apps running in Android take up memory - not battery.

FACEBOOK
That said, uninstall facebook and use the mobile web browser for facebook. The facebook app is very well designed and elegant, but it is a battery suck. No matter what you set it for or how often it should phone home for updates, it will always lead your apps in battery suck.

GPS
As for GPS, turning it off when not in use makes logical sense. Fewer active antennas will use less power. However, leaving GPS toggled on only opens the gateway to the antenna and allows an app to use it. If there are no apps using the GPS, there will be no power drain. That said, if you see GPS being used occasionally in notifications without your consent, track down what app is using it, why and how often. Then make the adjustments.
 
Advanced Task Killer will eat a lot more battery than your background apps. Avoid.

The Maps service will be running if you have location services enabled. If you want stuff like that (weather reports for your current location etc) then something has to be checking your location, which appears in the list as "Maps". If you don't want that stuff, turn things off in the location settings.

GPS uses juice when in use, not otherwise. It's harmless to leave on.

Can't comment on FB as I don't use it (so disable the app).

What I would suggest is adding a battery monitor like GSam Battery Monitor, use the phone as you want, then look at the monitor and see what is actually using power. Don't sweat about things you see in the background unless they are using significant power.
 
Thanks very much guys, much appreciated.

Some useful info.

In the words of Arnie, I'll be back!

I'll keep playing a store up the next set of questions that I need help with....

Thanks again. Dave
 
Just tried to uninstall FB, it won't let me.... Made sure it was stopped and it still won't let me uninstall it. I have another app that won't let me uninstall as well. And yes it was one I down loaded not a setup one.
How do we force an uninstall?


Thanks
 
You can't uninstall a pre-installed app like FB unless you root the phone. But you should be able to disable it (settings >apps, select app and there will be a disable button). Unless your carrier has been messing around you will be able to disable it, and since system apps live in a different partition you wouldn't actually save space by uninstalling, so this is as good in practice.

A downloaded app you should always be able to uninstall. The one thing that would stop you is if the app is set as a device administrator. Go to settings > security, scroll down to device administrators, and see whether it's listed there. If so, deselect it and you'll be able to uninstall it.
 
Yes it was selected as administrator, deselected and gone! Cheers for that.

Went to downloaded apps tab and FB isn't listed.... it did show up on the running page though.

Idea's?
 
erickricky said:
We will likely never see true multitasking, but once session state saving becomes available they could allow apps to register a timer event to launch the app at a certain time, loading its session state and continuing. This is all pure speculation though.
​
Click to expand...

Android features preemptive multitasking - unused apps are first put to sleep and then removed and cached for fast start later.

True multitasking.

Individual state restoration is another matter - works for sleeping apps.
 
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