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Task manager?

M

mamiamjo

Well-Known Member
I saw a Hero video on You Tube, and it looked like there were always apps running in the background (web browser etc).
Does the Sprint HTC Hero have a Task Manager Application to close those apps out when you're done or do you need to down load one?
 
Good question. With this new phone on the network, I am going to have to retrain myself into knowing all there is about Android. I am sure if there is a Android equivalent for every Win app. If not now there soon will be.

TS
 
mamiamjo said:
I saw a Hero video on You Tube, and it looked like there were always apps running in the background (web browser etc).
Does the Sprint HTC Hero have a Task Manager Application to close those apps out when you're done or do you need to down load one?
Click to expand...

there are all kinds of task killers in the market
 
Edaze55 said:
From what I understand, it does not come with one.
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Affirm. Android is pretty good at managing memory in any case, and background apps (unless designed specifically to be otherwise) are effectively 'sleeping' and consume few resources.

If/when a task manager is required, I can thoroughly recommend TaskPanel X. Free, regularly updated and very efficient.
 
Slug said:
Affirm. Android is pretty good at managing memory in any case, and background apps (unless designed specifically to be otherwise) are effectively 'sleeping' and consume few resources.

If/when a task manager is required, I can thoroughly recommend TaskPanel X. Free, regularly updated and very efficient.
Click to expand...

You've been doing this longer than I have. I'll definitely give this a look in a few days, after I get my hands on my droid.

Thanks Slug.
 
Edaze55 said:
I'll definitely give this a look in a few days, after I get my hands on my droid.
Click to expand...

There are other TMs, as pointed out, so check 'em all and see which ones fit you best. That's the beauty of the Market - even paid apps give you 24hrs to try-before-you-buy - so you can test-drive anything that takes your fancy.

Btw, I'm almost as excited about the Sprint debut as you guys.... your enthusiasm is infectious! :D
 
Slug said:
There are other TMs, as pointed out, so check 'em all and see which ones fit you best. That's the beauty of the Market - even paid apps give you 24hrs to try-before-you-buy - so you can test-drive anything that takes your fancy.

Btw, I'm almost as excited about the Sprint debut as you guys.... your enthusiasm is infectious! :D
Click to expand...

Ive heard of some of the others, and most likely will try them all out at one point or another, but that was the first time I had heard of the one you use.
 
I think this is something we need a post covering. So many people are using task managers, which is likely un-necessary for the most part, and quite a few folks don't know what they can and cannot safely kill. All of the task managers I have tried include an ignore list so I figured I'd post what I have ignored in TasKiller, along with what I know about each item, and hopefully others will do that same and we can some up, at the very least as set of stock applications to ignore and maybe some help keeping other application running correctly. So here is my ignore list and what I know about each item (hopefully the ones I don't know about can be explained by others):

Stock:

  • Touch Input - Reasons obvious by the name
  • HtcIQAgent - Not sure what it does exactly but it should be left running
  • IQRD - Not sure
  • OMADM - Not sure
  • HTC Sense - The Sense UI - Killing it only causes it to reload and auto-killing it would loop your phone into oblivion
  • Clock - The clock backend - Killing it will cause your alarms not to go off
  • Calendar - The calendar backend - Killing it will stop calendar syncing and cause you not to receive reminders for calendar events
  • com.coremobility.app.vnotes - The voicemail backend - Killing it will cause you not to get visual voicemail notification and stop you from being able to listen to voicemails through the voicemail app.
  • Mail - The Mail backend - Killing it will cause the phone to stop syncing mail from any account other the google account you associated your phone with.
  • Gmail - The google backend for your phone's associated account - Killing this will stop you from syncing with your phone's associated account.
Third Party:

  • Astrid - The Astrid widget's sync backend - Killing this will stop Astrid from syncing.
  • Handcent SMS - Killing this will stop the Handcent SMS process and cause Handcent to load again when you get a message which degrades performance.

That's all I have on ignore list for TasKiller. I don't use the widget to kill everything anymore because it's not necessary and I tend to dump any app that doesn't properly manager memory and sleep and either do without or find a replacement. The ignore list is still nice because TasKiller won't let you kill an ignored app and lets you hide them as well. I hope more folks will share their ignore lists.
 
Great list...thanks!

romeosidvicious said:
  • Gmail - The google backend for your phone's associated account - Killing this will stop you from syncing with your phone's associated account.
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I think I may have to respectfully disagree with you on this one, at least on my Hero, anyway. I tried sending a message to my Gmail account both with and without the Gmail app running on my Hero and received the 'new message' notification in both cases. It may have taken a bit longer without the Gmail app running, but that could also have just been perception. As always, YMMV...


sleepy
 
This is a great idea. As I have used several different task killers only to find out that I have screwed up something. It seems like I always end up killing something that I shouldn't.
 
i think this guy romeosidvicious is wright about task managers. they r a little dangerous i started using mine recently an killing all apps to save battery life an my phone stopped receiving notifications like msg,voicemail, and even calls. had to do a hard reset it sucked ass. learn to use it and don't abuse it.
 
Well I'm not an expert, but I've tried a few of the task managers and settled on Taskiller. It seems to be the only one that the auto-kill worked on for me. It also seems to automatically ignore many of the system apps.
After some trial and error, these are the only apps on my ignore list:

HTC Sense
Taskiller
Calendar
Touch Input

I started with only the first two, but Calendar and Touch Input kept coming up, and half the time HTC Sense would restart. After adding them to the ignore list, no restarts. Everything else works for me, Gmail, messages, etc. I don't have any email besides the default Gmail so I don't have Mail ignored. I don't know if I would need it ignored if I did.

Just my 2 cents.
 
I've found that killing the Calendar or Mail processes made Sense restart. Incidentally, Sense is called TouchFlo on my Hero 1.5. TasKiller has a list of processes that it ignores by default including Sense/TouchFlo.

Notable other items on my ignore list:
- Clock - I assumed it is needed for alarms
- com.htc - General Sense/htc stuff, again I assume it's a good idea.
- NetCounter - an app that measures data usage over Wifi and 3G so I can ensure I don't go over my data limit. Needs to be running to measure.
- Various widgets. Killing them means they have to reload when you go to their home screen, which in turn means they take a second to load and you might as well use an app.

I don't know if there's any reason to use TasKiller over Advanced Task Killer or vice versa.
 
You don't need to use task killers. Android was built to run itself just fine. You don't need a third party app to tell your phone how to do what it was designed to do. You're just going to end up damaging your phone.
 
MahaloCat said:
Agree - BUT Autokiller is great....stops things from opening period.
ZOOOOM
Click to expand...


I use AK, but I am also rooted. I am assuming these individuals are not and are using task killers because they don't know any better. I hate to put it that way, but if Google had intended Android to require a separate task manager they would have installed it themselves.

Besides, AK really is an exception. It doesn't just kill everything and then let apps boot back up, it keeps the memory at a predetermined value... just like Android. The only difference between the Android OS and AK is that we actually have a choice in what those values are.
 
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