Sky News App

[pm5544]

I have noticed that when I hit on the back button for the Sky News App which actually should end the active app it still shows in active applications albeit with zero CPU but with RAM showing. This of course can be seen by holding on the home button for recent apps.

Is this a bug would you think as another that does similar to this is the Google Music which I have had to disable because I don't use it.

I think I may not have given it long enough to be released from active apps as it did eventually vanish, I thought to send a screenshot of what I was on about though.

I wonder why the BBC app vanishes immediately after hitting the back button but the Sky app doesn't?

 

[pm5544]

Actually the issue remains, I had been out of the app for nearly 1.5 hours and found it still residing in active apps hogging memory, so I've un-installed it.

 

[Deleted User]

Android OS is based on Linux, which is designed in a way that's very different from most people's frame of reference which is Windows. With Windows, anything that's in RAM is open AND running (which uses power/electricity/battery). With Linux, open and running are two DIFFERENT things. An app that's just open is not consuming power from your battery, and is ready to be used without loading fresh, and again isn't using battery until you give it reason to, like loading the app and viewing it on the screen. You really need not worry about it being open. It's functioning as designed. In Linux, empty RAM is wasted RAM. I strongly suspect that was why you were seeing the app as open in RAM without using CPU cycles.

 

[pm5544]

Thanks for that reply.

I can understand what you are saying, but what confuses me is that I have only ever seen two apps that do this, and I have a few on the device, the other app is Google Play Music, I just disabled that as I don't ever use it, and now that doesn't show as active, nor does it show as an icon on the app screen.

I wonder why the BBC News app doesn't behave like the Sky app, as soon as I back button that app it vanishes immediately from active apps.

 

[Deleted User]

First: Disabling does exactly what you described. It removes the icon and all updates, and precludes you from using it, unless you enable it again. Second: How an app behaves is partly dependant on is design (does it need to update in the background, for example), and partly on your usage (recently used apps will reside in RAM until the space is needed for something else). So, in the case of BBC, that's by design as it's not something you can easily control. Again, that's because you're not supposed to. Android is designed for you to NOT babysit your RAM. It will mind it FOR you.

 

[Deleted User]

Oh, I forgot to mention that disabling is only available to apps that you can't delete because they ship with the device

 

[pm5544]

It must be the design then because both applications need to update in the background.

When disabling is it important to force stop the app first?

 

[Deleted User]

Not that I recall, but I disabling will stop it, hide the icon, and uninstall updates. Basically, it's like deleting it without actually removing it.