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Task killer apps " THE TRUTH"

ok i got my htc evo, and this is my first ever droid based phone. since i dont know anything what so ever about droid this and that, one of the first things i did was install advanced task manager from the marketplace, because a friend recommended it.
ive read all throughout this forum about this and that, whats running and whats not, and since ive been using ATM since day one, ive noticed that most everyone has a phone OTHER than the evo--mostly blackberrys and other phones of the sort, but no evo's.
so is this a problem with those specific phones or what?
ive also noticed, what shows up in ATM, does not show up in the phones list by going to menu/settings/applications/running services-----the list in there only shows 11 items, where as ATM shows 19!!
stuff in atk is stuff like, sprintg zone, sprint navigation, maps, sprint football live, sprint tv widgit, voicemail, gmail, updater, mp3 store, etc....a bunch of crap i never started up and have no idea how they are running, but NONE of those listed above are showing up in the phones running services list.
so what gives? which is accurate and which is not?
 
Using windows mobile for years, I also had to change my mindset how android os works. I did research on the os system and agree it is not a good app to have. The apps runs for a reason and the best way to close them is to back out of them instead of using the home key!!
 
i used to use atk but after reading this thread a while back i decided to delete it. i did notice a performance boost and my phone seemed more responsive. having said that, i also noticed a decrease in battery life.
flash to a few weeks later and i think i have found the solution, for me anyway. everyone knows that you can manually turn off apps in applications settings. i tried this for awhile but it seemed to be to much of a hassle until i added the running services shortcut to my home screen. now i use this as a task killer and keep the performance boost without the drain on battery!
like i said it works for me and is just my .02
 
Well I've read several articles lately on battery life extension through use of Task Killer/Manager. It does seem most Task Killers do kill tasks that may actually be needed -adversely affect performance (happened to me). And many articles also point the battery life as being used by apps that in the background access the 3G/WIFI data heavily. For battery saving those same articles go on to suggest setting the sync, update, 3G/WIFI access interval to as long as you can tolerate (not constant). Furthermore, I'm testing an app called Juice Defender (www.latedroid.com)-which purports to monitor 3G/WIFI/GPS access to limit those problem apps and should extend the battery without the whole task killing mess. It also may be able to throttle the CPU speed when idle (supposed to save even more power) - but only if you ROOT your phone (I really don't dare -yet)...

Thoughts, opinions anyone?
 
jcylcruzin said:
Well I've read several articles lately on battery life extension through use of Task Killer/Manager. It does seem most Task Killers do kill tasks that may actually be needed -adversely affect performance (happened to me). And many articles also point the battery life as being used by apps that in the background access the 3G/WIFI data heavily. For battery saving those same articles go on to suggest setting the sync, update, 3G/WIFI access interval to as long as you can tolerate (not constant). Furthermore, I'm testing an app called Juice Defender (www.latedroid.com)-which purports to monitor 3G/WIFI/GPS access to limit those problem apps and should extend the battery without the whole task killing mess. It also may be able to throttle the CPU speed when idle (supposed to save even more power) - but only if you ROOT your phone (I really don't dare -yet)...

Thoughts, opinions anyone?
Click to expand...

Auto killing tasks is bad.

Juice defender works.

Custom CPU clock speed profiles when rooted and lower voltage kernels save battery life if you are rooted.

I usually get about 1.5-2 days of use per charge on my Droid using Bugless Beast 0.4 and ChevyNo1 1.2ghz ULV kernel.
 
I thought I would chime in on this. After reading all 6 pages I decided to remove Advanced Task Manager and just see what happens. Surprisingly, my battery life has nearly doubled. Overnight when I wasn't even using my phone (after killing everything using ATM, no GPS, etc) I would lose around 20-30% of my charge. After removing ATM I lose a few %. I want to point out that when I was using BB (latest) ROM I didn't see this occurring (at least not as extremely). I don't know if it is specific to Chevy's latest with ATM or not but just a thought. I had read how great the latest Chevy ROM was and almost bailed and went back to BB because the battery life was so bad not even using the phone. After removing ATM now the battery life is slightly better then BB was (never tried without ATM) and I'm not closing tasks (just turning off GPS, etc). This has been over a few days now.

My main point is this ATM issue may be ROM dependent which would explain why some have the problem and some don't. I'm not saying that ATM sucks or there is anything wrong with BB or Chevy ROMS. Just my observations. I like both ROMs and am happy with the performance of both.
 
If you run SystemPanel/Task Killer it will actually show you what is runnnig and what it not. It has a handy little bar to tell you how much it is drawing. Funny thing is the only app that is drawing when I turn it on is SystemPanel/Task killer...and you can't kill or exclude it. Enough said?
 
The only apps I worry about are things like Twitter and Facebook apps which like to frequently poll for updates - and that's what kills my battery. I fire up task killer - kill those apps and then forget about it. I certainly don't keep a task killer running.
 
Zerophi said:
Task killer apps are not needed with android operating system.

Yes there are going to be alot of things running in the background, *** But there not using resources like windows would***

Task killer apps will stop emails from updating and it will slow applications because they have been turned off.

If you have OCD and you want to constantly close programs because it's just killing you to know there in the background then go right ahead and download one of the task killer apps and enjoy, but it's a waste of time.
Click to expand...

I think I may have OCD.
 
Well I just read all 6 pages here myself too. And I have to say that I have played around with having ATK on and off of my BH2 for over a month. And I can tell a HUGE difference when I have ATK not installed on my phone. When it is installed I don't get any email notifications and everything runs SUPER slow. If I take it off auto-kill mode and just kill the apps it messes up and kills my beautiful widgets no matter if I have it on the ignore list or not. Meaning it stops my clock and weather from updating.

Everything works completely 100% fine when there is NO task killer installed on my phone.
 
Ok. You say the Droid will run faster with all the apps running. What about the camera? How do you shut the camera off? Doesnt that use alot of battery?
 
I had ATK installed for a couple of days and I noticed that when I killed apps they reappeared in ATK in less than 5 minutes without me going into the app.

So what I did was quit using it. My battery lasts from 730a until 8-9p without running ATK. That, for me is:
3 hours of phone calls
150 sms
Watching a movie
30 minutes of pandora
Browser usage
Not to mention I use beautiful widgets and launcherpro
Facebook, emails, and twitter

My phone has been running for 58 hours. I opened every app on my phone yesterday and when I opened 'running services' from the settings menu, there was only 6 things in there. All were android processes except seesmic and twitter.

For me, that makes ATK pointless. Seems as if the android's internal task killer is doing the job.
 
I just got the Evo and was immediately told by many people that I NEEDED the ATK; so I downloaded it. After reading this forum, I am now doubting whether I should have it. I am going to try it both ways, so if I do not use the ATK, how do I close the apps that are running??
 
MelB said:
I just got the Evo and was immediately told by many people that I NEEDED the ATK; so I downloaded it. After reading this forum, I am now doubting whether I should have it. I am going to try it both ways, so if I do not use the ATK, how do I close the apps that are running??
Click to expand...

I was told the same when I got my Devour. The rep claimed that the reason my phone was rebooting was because I needed ATK. I called up tech support one day and they said that it wasn't needed and was probably the reason why I was having so many issues with my phone.

Anyway, I've noticed that using the Back button instead of pressing the Home button closes out some apps. The other way is to go to Settings>Applications>Manage Applications. Click on the app you want and click close.
 
My experience with "Advanced Tax Killer" was the same. However, I have been using "Automatic Task Killer" for quite some time and it definitely improved my battery life. I highly recommend it.
 
My 1st smart phone AND not having internet access at my house I got excited and started loading all kind of stuff like movies to my youtube, before that my phone was working Great, then things went bad, running really slow and I started having lots of problems so I deleted all my movies thinking they took up to much space causing my phone to slow, still no change, me being blonde and all I finally turned it over to my hubby, he did a search and learned that killing ATK might help so he uninstalled it, my phone has been working great and moving smoothly since...like I said, I'm only blonde so its just my experience with it *shrugs*

but I think what "Apeman" stated makes sense

"Judging that different people are having different issues with the Droid is a combination of manufacturing, the consumer use, and what apps people have installed and have running so we will never have a precise answer, and everyone's experience may vary."


peace
 
So much misinformation in this thread. Let me straighten some points out:

1) Android is not really Linux. It's built on top of a Linux OS, sure, but it's so vastly different from typical applications of Linux the comparison is outright pointless. Android is a whole new OS that just happens to use the Linux kernel. The most relevant difference here is memory management. Apps running in the background, using no CPU, can generally be cleared out with very little effort to make room for a different app -- and Android does exactly this. In the meantime, the app is still sitting there, waiting for you to come back. You'd be surprised how much of a difference this "app cache" approach makes in responsiveness -- and task killers utterly destroy it. And if you think you're conserving battery at the cost of responsiveness, well, you're wrong. It takes more CPU time, and thus battery, to start an app than it does to restore an app already in memory, and there's still peripheral stuff like the NAND access and the screen being on for that extra second.

2) That said, some apps run services that genuinely take up CPU or do other power-consuming things like data traffic. Killing these, or disabling features within them related to the offending power usage, WILL conserve battery. I haven't found a reliable way to figure out which apps run services and which don't; I will at some point. (Btw, not all services actually do battery-consuming things continuously or on a regular basis. Most of them just subscribe to an event and do something small when that event happens; in the meantime, they're just as inert as an app in the cache, though their used RAM can't be reclaimed.)

3) Less memory usage != less battery usage. RAM needs to be "refreshed" by re-accessing it periodically. But how does the hardware know what memory is being used right now? It doesn't; it just refreshes everything. You could come up with some crazy scheme where you can "turn off" cells you're not using, but that infrastructure would actually use more power than just refreshing all the cells in the first place. So those apps sitting in memory not doing anything? Not costing you a thing.
 
I have yet to chime in on this debate and figured now is as good a time as any. Ive tried it both ways and TKs make no difference. Placebo plain and simple. But if it helps you sleep at night, go for it.
 
i have the droid with 2.2 and before the upgrade to 2.2 when i played music i put on the droid, i used the atk to of corse close it but now that the 2.2 is on it wont close the app. i took out the battery and things you say to do but i still have to go into running to close it. is there any othier way to close it. i went to verizon they could not get it to work. they said to goto atk web site, rate it and send email to let them know whats up. DOES OR WILL THEY LISTEN!!!!! THANK YOU TO ALL THAT CAN HELP ME!!!!!!​
 
This is what a programmer mate send me, it may be useful:

I stopped using a task killer last week to see if there is a difference. There is, and it's huge. : Android

I have removed ATK now, but still using TaskPanel with Auto kill list in sleep mode for programs that should be closed/exit/killed such as browsers, apps i use once in a while, like london tube or google translate..etc. Have decidd to put all the news app and many background app like homescreen, htc sence, facebook (thinks that upload data) on ignore list. On top of that, am using Juice defender (though I find JD will slow down processing operations and sometimes even cause massive delay in opening apps). ATK removed has indeed improve battery life for the last two days.

Spoke to another friend who write software for mobile phones and said the main thing that causes batteries (large proportion of it) is the screen LED and its brightness, GPS on and wi-fi, music player, video player, camcorder and most of all, the core function of the mobile phone, CALLS!. As long you keep wi-fi off and only use it when necessary and GPS off unless using it in car (keep you phone charge), the apps running is pretty disproportionate to the aforementioned. I am feeling slightly anal now having killed task every single time I use an app in the past two months!
 
I may be able to add to this discussion. I will be honest, I didn't read every post, but I read quite a few and there seems to be some confusion over how the Android OS works.

It is Linux based but resources aren't released when you press that little home button. Android holds your most recent apps in memory because it is more efficient than releasing it and then having to load it again if used often. This will actually have a positive effect on battery life if an app is used often enough and shouldn't have an effect at all if used once in a blue moon (because the same process will happen whether Android releases the resources on exit, 5 days down the line or whether you do it manually).

Android will collect resources of old apps when a new one is opened which doesn't have enough space required.

The only apps that would save you battery life by killing are ones that have background processes (service), things like music players.

All in all, I have no need for a task killer, because Android will do that at a far better time than I could. The task manager mentioned on the first page would be useful to see which apps have services and how much CPU they are using in the background. I found that zero percent of my apps use the CPU in the background, just the OS itself and Market.
 
I've read along on this and tried several options. What has worked for me has been to remove ATK which I had relied on before the first Froyo update. I did have battery problems at first and JuiceDefender Lite seems to have solved my problems. I now can go a full day without a battery reload. I just did the second Froyo update so I'm still monitoring the juice but it seems to be doing fine with JD and no task killers.
 
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