How to keep frequently-used apps running in the background?

[skywalker993]

I'm using a LauncherPro Plus on Android 2.2 because the stock launcher is pretty slow, especially with animations such as scrolling and menus. However, now the messaging app is extremely slow on start-up. It keeps automatically closing like a minute after I go back to the home screen, so when my friend responds and I pick up the phone, it takes about 10 seconds to load the simplest messaging app. I want to keep a few apps constantly running in the background (email and messaging) so that they don't have to reload again and again and again.

I've searched the android market and google for several hours and all I can find are task managers intended to KILL apps; there is nothing to maintain apps or make them persistent. I'm pretty frustrated and am about ready to start making my own lightweight messaging app, with all the simplicity and conversation organization of the stock SMS app, but I will make it persistent.

I really don't want to have to do that since I don't know the first (well, maybe I know the first, but definitely not the second) thing about making android applications. Please help me out!

P.S. My phone is not rooted, but if that's what it takes to make a simple change like this, I'm willing to consider it.

 

[Usta]

What phone do you have?
I'd suggest you to check your phone sub-forum to see what others do to keep their phone fast.

 

[AngryHatter]

That is the way to defeat the phones operating system. Not a great idea.
The phone keeps recently used apps in memory if you need them.
If you manually try to keep something else loaded the phone is not doing what it's supposed to be doing.
I'd look at what you have downloaded as far as a slowdown or slow system.

 

[rbasusparky]

I want to keep a few apps constantly running in the background (email and messaging) so that they don't have to reload again and again and again.

With an android phone, clicking the <back> key (may have to be clicked several times until the app closes completely - e.g. browser) is the preferred way to exit an app to ensure that it is closed/shutdown completely and conserve battery life since you minimize the number of apps and widgets running as well as minimize the amount of RAM usage. If you wanted to take advantage of android's multi-tasking capability and exit out of an app that you wanted to return to shortly, you would click on the <home> key instead, which keeps the app running in the background at a minimal state but allows the user to return back to the point where they were at when they exited the app instead of the app having to reload again.

With regards to the messaging app, you may want to run the stock messaging widget on one of your homescreens instead so that you can always respond back immediately to the latest text message through the widget.

 

[Dexter_prog]

So, is there any apps to do this. I know how the OS works and how to close apps, I don't care about that, I want my contacts app to ALWAYS be running in background so that it doesn't take 5 seconds to open my phone book,

 

[UncleMike]

The only place I've seen something like this is in custom ROMs. CyanogenMod includes the ability to lock both the Messaging app and Gmail in memory - meaning it will always kill some other app if more memory is needed, and leave Messaging or Gmail alone.

 

[Dexter_prog]

ah, I have CM, but I need to keep Go Contacts in memory so that it doesn't take like 3-5 seconds to load up the dialer or the phonebook :/