if so, what are your reasons for doing so?
Yes, i use a task killer mainly to free as much much RAM as i can
Yes, i use a task killer mainly to kill off misbehaving apps
No, i don't use a task killer
Other (please state)
if so, what are your reasons for doing so?
I used to use one when i first got my G1 but then found it had more negative effects than not using one.
And have'nt used one since, and it seems even my little old G1 is perfectly capable of running fine even with multiple apps open which is quite handy for switching back and forth.
I did on my Hero. Another reason why I don't like Android - the Taskiller apps are nonsense. Should be implemented in the phone in the first place instead of having to download.
CrusadeRUK
you've got the right idea
no, they shouldn'tOriginally Posted by 6230
. the manufacturers did the right thing by NOT including one.
BrightSpark, why do you think that? I just find it annoying having to worry about your phone slowing down, unwanted/unneccessary apps open all the time... I know TaskKiller would sort this but I feel it should be there in the first place.
No I don't use one. The in built one is fine anyway.
they're only useful for killing off misbehaving apps. as a developer of one of the task managers states, there is zero difference in power/battery usage between when the RAM is full compared to when the memory is empty. in fact, he states that killing off apps is "NOT RECOMMENDED" (his words in capitals).
android keeps as much of the likely to be used progs in memory as possible, and this meant to be good.
this is interesting reading
http://geekfor.me/faq/you-shouldnt-b...-with-android/
Have one installed for curiousity/paranoid surveillance reasons
Might throw it out later since it seems redundant. On the other hand it's a file manager as well, and for that purpose it's pretty neat.
BrightSpark, thanks for the article
Well this is because Android suspends applications in the background when they aren't running but the items which run in the background are spawn services.
So most likely when your killing things in your Task Manager your only closing the suspended application which isn't required. This is pretty much exactly the same way it seems Apple is going to do this in iPhone 4.0 so a Task Manager should not be required for either OS.
The only use I can see is if your application has crashed then each time it's suspended and you go back to it... it'll still be crashed. Hence you need a way to remove it's suspended state so you can restart it. Not sure if Android has a way to do that built in or if you need a third party application to do it.
When an app stops responding in Android, the system asks you if you want to wait for the app to come back to life, or kill it.
I use a task manager to get as much free RAM as possible.
But surely there's no need to get as much free RAM as possible? That used RAM is a cache to speed the phone up and if it needs more it'll free some up on it's own.
Don't know. I'm an S60 veteran, been using S60 since 2004. I try to make sure that when I'm not using my phone, there are no unwanted application processes running in the background. Though some say this isn't needed on Android, I like to have control of what's running. Not to mention that, in my experience, not killing apps doesn't make the phone any faster than when I do kill apps.
Free RAM is wasted RAM, it's why desktop OS's will normally use a large chunk for disk cache and so on to allow apps to open quicker and so on. No different on a phone.
It is an issue however if the OS randomly picks an app to kill like on Symbian so then you need to manage it but Android never kills off it's background services as far as I know so it's not an issue at all. It just will kill off the GUI's and code which doesn't run in the background but not before saving it's state.
I expect this is roughly the same way that Apple is doing it in OS 4.0 but the exact details aren't out just yet.
lightindark, S60 is terrible at RAM management, Android does it very well.
I have a task manager to kill unresponsive apps, like Youtube was stuck earlier just giving me a blank screen, first time I''ve had that. I wasn't sure what to do, then remember I'd installed a taskmanager just to be nosey, so tried that.
>*<<*<*
Hi all,
Well i haven't tried an Android device as yet but from what I've read Task Killers are totally unnecessary bar for shutting down frozen apps. I think many of us have come from OS's and devices that didn't have enough Ram in the past and bad habits have been formed. Most new devices have 256mb of Ram or more and OS's that are designed to have all apps open in the back ground with no ill effects. This idea that you need tons of free Ram sitting there doing nothing for your device to run fast and smoothly is just wrong IMHO.
Personally i think a lot of the so called problems on these new device is less to do with how much Ram it has or even how the OS is using it but more to do with people installing every app they can find. As lets face it not all apps are created equal and it only takes one rouge app to cause major problems, well that's MO anyway. It's also why i fail to understand the fascination with installing as many apps as possible and only ever install what i really need and will use.
Marc
it's not android that does the memory management - it's linux that executes the memory management. android is just the interface on top
from windows which has poor memory management, especially when compared to unix
I'm really confused, there is no reason for some apps to just open and stay open for no reason, when ever i check, there is a dozen tasks running which I haven't opened and dont use: google maps, voice dialer, etc . does having the tasks open drain battery life? I dont care if it takes RAM, as long as it doesn't drain battery life its fine, though I dont understand why they should open and be running the first place without user input.
does that for me too.
have a read of that article in the 7th post - this one here:
http://geekfor.me/faq/you-shouldnt-b...-with-android/
thanks, very interesting and good to know.
some more info about it from a developer:
http://www.droidforums.net/forum/dro...ackground.html
I've talked to a developer who is very well versed in Linux/Android and he summarized the following as correct......
Android is different to most other phone operating systems. It's closer to Linux than any other type of operating system. Lots of services and applications constantly run in the background just like they do on Windows. However, and this is important, they do not have to use up a ton of resources. A service or app can be loaded, yet use almost no additional memory, and 0% CPU until it actually has to do something.
In general, killing off stuff is a waste of time. Android automatically asks apps to close that aren't needed when it needs more memory. Killing off some of the processes you are killing off also means it'll slow your phone down, as these processes only need to reload, and when you do need to use them it means the phone will be slower for the few seconds it takes to reload them.
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