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Where is the Quit / Exit button ?

J

josvanr

Lurker
I'm kinda new to android OS, so this may be a 'toopid question, but, bare with me.. Ok : so I just used some great app and now I'm done, and... I want to ... *exit* the app. So I look for the 'exit' button... 'quit' button.. hmmm.. nope can't find it.. !? Is there really no 'quit' button for android apps? (like in all other operating systems: the X button at the top right corner of the window) Shurely this can't be true. Only way to quit is to go to the home menu and start up a 2nd application dedicated to killing other apps and then kill app nr 1 from that?? Like buying a car that only has an 'on' switch and when i arrive at my destination, I have to open the hood and disconnect a gas lead or sometning to stop the engine.. (Or press the back button 10 times go through all documents you viewed until you reach the home screen). Isn't this like one of the basic features an OS should provide in its user interface?

josvanr
 
Well the back button is the quit button..but only for apps which don't maintain multiple steps..

I read it on my SGS in tips section that "The back button is a good way to quit apps"..so mostly all apps will quit on pressing the back button..

It doesn't work for apps like market and browser which maintain all the steps that u performed, so they take u back step by step..
 
Quite true Josvanr. And it is wishful thinking to say that "most apps" close when you hit the back button. Not true. Some apps have an "end" button built into home screen. But most don't. I have installed Quick Exit, and it stays on my status bar so I can drag it down and stop applications to keep them from running and draining my battery. I also use Task Killer, but I don't keep it on auto...it also drains my battery. I just put the widget on my desktop and kill apps manually. Uses much less battery life over all.
 
This is probably one of the most perplexing parts of someone new to Android. For the most part, you don't directly tell apps to end. When the system sees that its running low on RAM, it will kill an old app that you haven't used in awhile and is just sitting idle in the memory. For the most part, it works fairly well. App developers might put a dedicated end button in a app that may possibly eat battery in the background before its killed by the system.

For some reason, this drives people up the wall, since they are so used to traditional app management. You want almost all your RAM being used. Its far more efficient to keep things running in the RAM, than to keep reloading it from the far-slower flash memory. Something people also don't get is that using all your RAM does not mean more battery usage. Your RAM consumes the same amount of power regardless how filled it is. And an app sitting idle does not consume CPU power.

For some reason, this is an amazingly hard concept to grasp.
 
Demache said:
This is probably one of the most perplexing parts of someone new to Android. For the most part, you don't directly tell apps to end. When the system sees that its running low on RAM, it will kill an old app that you haven't used in awhile and is just sitting idle in the memory. For the most part, it works fairly well. App developers might put a dedicated end button in a app that may possibly eat battery in the background before its killed by the system.

For some reason, this drives people up the wall, since they are so used to traditional app management. You want almost all your RAM being used. Its far more efficient to keep things running in the RAM, than to keep reloading it from the far-slower flash memory. Something people also don't get is that using all your RAM does not mean more battery usage. Your RAM consumes the same amount of power regardless how filled it is. And an app sitting idle does not consume CPU power.

For some reason, this is an amazingly hard concept to grasp.
Click to expand...

what he said...


android is linux and it dont have the same issues as Windows and other OS. It tries to manage your memory for you for true multi-tasking.


big thing to remember: FORGET ABOUT IT!

give it a try! change your thinking.. see how it feels.

PS.. do a search on task killer... and why you dont need it!
 
Demache said:
This is probably one of the most perplexing parts of someone new to Android. For the most part, you don't directly tell apps to end. When the system sees that its running low on RAM, it will kill an old app that you haven't used in awhile and is just sitting idle in the memory. For the most part, it works fairly well. App developers might put a dedicated end button in a app that may possibly eat battery in the background before its killed by the system.

For some reason, this drives people up the wall, since they are so used to traditional app management. You want almost all your RAM being used. Its far more efficient to keep things running in the RAM, than to keep reloading it from the far-slower flash memory. Something people also don't get is that using all your RAM does not mean more battery usage. Your RAM consumes the same amount of power regardless how filled it is. And an app sitting idle does not consume CPU power.

For some reason, this is an amazingly hard concept to grasp.
Click to expand...


Yep............ definetly what he said.

Get rid of all task killers, they use more battery killing the apps then leaving them alone.

There is a free app call watchdog. Which shows you how much cpu is being used. cpu is what kills battery when you are using an app. Especially games. When you press the back button and it goes back to home screen the app goes idle and the cpu is then not being used which means it does not kill your battery.

Hope i explained it well
 
josvanr said:
Is there really no 'quit' button for android apps? (like in all other operating systems: the X button at the top right corner of the window) Shurely this can't be true.
Click to expand...
First of all, don't assume that Android works like all other OS's. Here's one resource to refer to among many others:
Android Developers Blog: Multitasking the Android Way

Demache said:
For some reason, this is an amazingly hard concept to grasp.
Click to expand...
I don't think it's that it's difficult to grasp. It's more ignorance, really. People expect what they're used to and they expect Android to be like their former device when frequently that's not the case. It's the old trying to fit a square peg in a round hole thing...

It seems even worse with ex-BB users who seem to be used to being OCD about memory, reboots, etc.
 
only hope that Android remembers to save my data when it kills an application for me (eg when I decide to write a dissertation on my phone or something ;-)

josvanr
 
The Android app life cycle (this only applies to apps, not services like the music player and background data sync of of something like twitter) is based on the visibility of the application's windows. There are basically three states: visible with focus; visible without focus; not visible. When visible with focus you are actively using the app. When visible without focus then a dialog window of some kind has been drawn over your app's window (battery is low warning, you hit a button in the app that opened a dialog). In both cases the app is still considered to be in use. When the app's window is no longer visible (you hit the home button, you long-press the home button to see recently-used apps and launched a different one, your click a notification that launches another app), the OS calls a routine that is provided by the app to save it's state, and then the OS puts the app 'to sleep'. It is no longer using any CPU cycles but it's memory is still allocated. If the OS finds there is no more memory to allocate to satisfy new requests, it will reclaim the memory from apps that are in this sleep state. This should be ok because the app already saved it's state (at least it was supposed to, the OS told it to) before it was put to sleep. Whether the app is asleep or the memory has already been reallocated, the next time it is launched it is given any saved state information it provided when it was first put to sleep.

So you don't need a manual way to exit every app. The OS manages it for you transparently. Some applications may have been written poorly and they can be killed manually by going to Settings -> Applications -> Manage applications -> Running -> application -> Force Close.
 
sitlet said:
Yes, use the back or home button, either works.
Click to expand...

As said, Home button sometimes leaves the App in the background. Might be useful if you want to go back to it later, but not so if you want to exit straight up. I tend to press Menu button and exit from there.
 
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