Database Users

18 apps running at once?

Trying to figure out what's a problem and what's not. Advanced Task Manager....says 18 apps are open. Is that fibbing?

ok so not 18...10.
Voice search, gallery, maps, car home, clock, settings, gmail, voice dialer, weatherbug, mp3 store....the G1 never had that many going at once in memory.

and the phone still zips around im hoping?

it does give very small lag when they are all running, then when i kill them all it speeds up. i actually recorded a video of the whole process.

Mine has 31 currently running?!?! WTF??? Some are running twice like AK Notepad and The Weather Channel? I'm thinking 2.1 is having issues managing applications. I keep hitting my end all widget and it's always like 20+ apps running. So much for the extra ram, things just keep restarting for now reason!
EDIT: After more playing around, it looks like the Back button does not close applications like it does on the G1 and MT3G. Great, better get used to using the Task Manager Widget or nothing will close!!!

setzer715 said:
Mine has 31 currently running?!?! WTF??? Some are running twice like AK Notepad and The Weather Channel? I'm thinking 2.1 is having issues managing applications. I keep hitting my end all widget and it's always like 20+ apps running. So much for the extra ram, things just keep restarting for now reason!
EDIT: After more playing around, it looks like the Back button does not close applications like it does on the G1 and MT3G. Great, better get used to using the Task Manager Widget or nothing will close!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do we *really* need to kill apps though? We have ample memory to cope, right?

Either that or Advanced Task Manager is giving a false report...I don't know which. But yeah the back button doesn't seem to exit the app.
I'm waiting for this video to finish rendering and I'll post it up on Vimeo. It clearly shows the phone lagging, then speeding back up when they are all killed.

spr33 said:
Do we *really* need to kill apps though? We have ample memory to cope, right?
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Click to collapse
I don't think they all need to be running at once though, no matter how much memory we have. I don't want it running unless I open it, with the exception of the few that have to run if your using widgets.

spr33 said:
Do we *really* need to kill apps though? We have ample memory to cope, right?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
According to Task Manager before I started launching apps I had 109Mb avail mem. After launching and backing out of a bunch I was down to 49Mb. That was withing 5min. Can you imagine a full day of not ending apps?

I just emailed the developer to rule out a false report with his app and Android 2.1.

setzer715 said:
According to Task Manager before I started launching apps I had 109Mb avail mem. After launching and backing out of a bunch I was down to 49Mb. That was withing 5min. Can you imagine a full day of not ending apps?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Android manages that for you, it utilises the most amount of RAM possible. It'll end apps once it needs more RAM

efeltee said:
Android manages that for you, it utilises the most amount of RAM possible. It'll end apps once it needs more RAM
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I never encountered this with my G1 though. It never ran that many apps at once.

OK video is here:
http://www.vimeo.com/8604778
Video mark 2:48 and go from there.
Some would probably call this "finicky" but I don't expect any lag on a $500 phone. I also understand that not everyone moves as fast as I do.

nphaskins said:
OK video is here:
http://www.vimeo.com/8604778
Video mark 2:48 and go from there.
Some would probably call this "finicky" but I don't expect any lag on a $500 phone. I also understand that not everyone moves as fast as I do.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Like has been said.. Android is managing this for you. Unused RAM is worthless RAM. this is the same issue people tried to ***** about with Windows Vista. The system is keeping the application in memory incase you switch back to it. If you do, you avoid the load times. If you don't keep applications in RAM then switching between them would take forever and pretty much negate the ability to multitask.
THIS IS BY DESIGN.

Nedlinin said:
Like has been said.. Android is managing this for you. Unused RAM is worthless RAM. this is the same issue people tried to ***** about with Windows Vista. The system is keeping the application in memory incase you switch back to it. If you do, you avoid the load times. If you don't keep applications in RAM then switching between them would take forever and pretty much negate the ability to multitask.
THIS IS BY DESIGN.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd like to think that we could have a civil and professional conversation without jumping in with your panties in a wad. Do you see my post count? Do you tink I was here when people we're complaining about this? Oh that's right we we're born with knowing how Android works that's right.
At any rate....I appreciate your response.

I think he got irritated you were jumping the gun a bit, you went even so far to post a video of it lagging..that kinda seems to lower the credibility of the device for people without that specific knowledge.

nphaskins said:
I'd like to think that we could have a civil and professional conversation without jumping in with your panties in a wad. Do you see my post count? Do you tink I was here when people we're complaining about this? Oh that's right we we're born with knowing how Android works that's right.
At any rate....I appreciate your response.
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Click to collapse
My apologies for seeming harsh. But, there is another thread on this exact same topic already in which this answer has already been stated :-/
If for some reason it really worries you, just use the Taskiller widget or something.. but, it really isn't anything to worry about. The slight second long pause in your video is simply from Android being notified it is low on memory and killing off a background process to make room for the one you are loading up. You shouldn't see it too often and the fact that it keeps the programs/apps in RAM is part of the reason the phone feels so snappy compared to a G1/MyTouch

hmmm, the only lag I saw in the video was the occasional having to press the touch sensitive buttons one more time?
Correct me if Im wrong?

Thing is: the more you use taskiller the slower it'll get unlike what everybody thinks...
Just leave the apps in the RAM and they'll load from the RAM (= instantly) otherwise they'll load from storage card (=milliseconds of delay)
All I can say from the video is that the Nexus is hugely fast. When you started the camera I thought "alright sit back & relax for 5sec like on most Androids" but this was insane!

nphaskins said:
I never encountered this with my G1 though. It never ran that many apps at once.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
"It'll end more apps once it needs more ram".
The G1 had less rom and therefore had to end apps earlier because it needed to free up ram for the Os/new apps.

Should i use a task killer? Atk?

SHOULD I USE A TASK KILLER?
The tips&tricks thread (nice by the way) answered;
"Absolutely not. You have the best OS and one of the best spec'd phones ever. You would be doing more harm than good. If you do have one, uninstall, reboot and let me know what you think!"
I don't get it. You'll be doing more harm than good? Right now I'm using Advanced Task Killer along with Auto Task Killer and it has definitely made a difference in my battery life.
Why would you NOT want to have these apps?
I'm confused LOL

I don't use one at all. I don't see the need for one on this phone...
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

iceman1251 said:
I don't use one at all. I don't see the need for one on this phone...
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It surprised me when I did see all the programs running ... would it not be of a benefit to close those for the sake of the battery? I found this to be very true and it was a noticeable with my battery.
I'm just trying to figure out why that other guy would say to uninstall it. Reasons...

I was using one for reasons of speed, but I stopped using it and I honestly did not notice a difference in performance or battery life. So for me, I will no longer be using a task killer. I simply don't see the need.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

In the time of low spec'd Android phones it was need. But with phones with fast processors and lots of ram its not really needed any more. Some people have said it even slows down the phone.

Task killers are a waste of time for any phone that has 256 RAM and up.

I'll let others chime in, but the reason I put that in the sticky is because I listen to those who know more than me... and EVERYONE who is in the know with android (developers and google) suggest task killers do more harm than good. I did not intend to come off harshly in the sticky, but I don't want those new to android thinking this is something they need to do.... when in fact, it could cause a lot of problems and they would not even be aware it was the cause.
Hope that helps, a little...

OK, like the OP, i do not get this claim that Killers do more harm.
Suppose you started a game which took 50-100K of your valuable RAM. Even if you have 500K of it, not much is actually left for apps. Even if you quit playing the game or other memory hungry app, it often still hangs in memory. Eventually you will have several pages of different apps which you've used over last days
What's wrong is with kicking them from there? How can this be harmful? That's sounds like a nonsense.
Don''t you all know also that unused memory is switched off by power management to save the battery?

Hahaa... okay, you are correct. Google and the ROM chefs are all wrong. Android is not capable of killing off apps when they are no longer needed. Everyone, rush to the market and immediately start killing off every app the second you close it. Especially the system apps you never use.
Alright, enough sarcasm (didnt mean to sound rude). Like I said in the sticky and above, I am only quoting those MUCH more knowledgeable on the subject. I will admit I purchased a task killer 2 years ago... and I hate seeing it under "Downloads" in the market as "Purchased" now. If you feel the need to kill off apps, so be it. But for those new to Android (and those who are very familiar), it is mine (and others) opinions, especially on the Vibrant, to not use a task killer.
Even Google at Google I/O 2010 told app developers to no longer add "Quit" or "Close" into their apps, as they were NOT needed.
This thread helped me. I have cleaned up the Sticky with more input. Here is a good article from a few months ago that sums it up well (also now in the sticky):
http://androinica.com/2010/05/07/go...-imply-task-killermanager-apps-are-pointless/
To the OP, thanks... this did help me and I'm certain a lot of others were probably put off by my vagueness. Do you think this makes it better now? Anything else needed you think?

s15274n said:
Hahaa... okay, you are correct. Google and the ROM chefs are all wrong. Android is not capable of killing off apps when they are no longer needed. Everyone, rush to the market and immediately start killing off every app the second you close it. Especially the system apps you never use.
Alright, enough sarcasm (didnt mean to sound rude). Like I said in the sticky and above, I am only quoting those MUCH more knowledgeable on the subject. I will admit I purchased a task killer 2 years ago... and I hate seeing it under "Downloads" in the market as "Purchased" now. If you feel the need to kill off apps, so be it. But for those new to Android (and those who are very familiar), it is mine (and others) opinions, especially on the Vibrant, to not use a task killer.
Even Google at Google I/O 2010 told app developers to no longer add "Quit" or "Close" into their apps, as they were NOT needed.
This thread helped me. I have cleaned up the Sticky with more input. Here is a good article from a few months ago that sums it up well (also now in the sticky):
http://androinica.com/2010/05/07/go...-imply-task-killermanager-apps-are-pointless/
To the OP, thanks... this did help me and I'm certain a lot of others were probably put off by my vagueness. Do you think this makes it better now? Anything else needed you think?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I really appreciate your dedication and yes it did help me built onto my knowledge base. As I always tell people, "If you don't know what you don't know then YOU DON'T HAVE A CHOICE, however, if you do know than YOU THEN HAVE A CHOICE."

I really think using AutoKiller is a better method to controlling what you have running in the background.

Finally someone to educate the masses ... time to get them off this task/app killer *CrAcK*
Dan0zonE

As said previously. Maybe worth using them on a G1 but not on any recent phone.
For those who do think it worth running them. How quickly do new apps open? Lets say you kill 30 apps, how long before 30 new apps are running? 20mins? If it's such a huge drain on resources why has google not fixed this issue, its been around since the first retail offering G1 with android 1.1? In fact, as previously pointed out google does not recommend even using task killers. I would say using a task killer to kill the apps is a far bigger drain (cpu, battery) that allowing android to as it was intended.
Android is not like windows. Android will shut down and make available what is needed. It does not need any help.

They cause more problems than good. Task killers slowed my phone down more.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

The problem with task killers is two fold.
First you have to really grasp what you are killing. Many apps and services are interdependant so killing the wrong app or process can result in apps dead-ending, or worse locking up and taking all the cpu task time (which will make battery use worse).
Second, everyone's phones are different. We may all run an identical build of 2.1 on our Vibrants, but I'd wager each of us is running a different set of 3rd party applications, so anecdotal statements that "task killers work" don't necessarily mean anything, other than for you specifically.
Here's the bottom line. So long as you do not have a buggy app taking ridiculous amounts of cpu time your battery life is solely dependant on what you are doing with and have installed on the phone. The Android Service UI does an excellent job of handling task management, providing those 3rd party tasks are behaving. Apps on the market do not go through an orwellian level of scrutiny like on the Apple App Store, and many (if not most) are currently in a constant state of development owing to the explosive growth of our smartphone platform.
And one additional tip thanks to the Vibrants styling. As the phone is incredibly thin, it's quite easy to feel when the cpu is a crankin! If after you've locked your phone for 10 minutes or so the upper middle back is warm? You probably have sleep issues with an app or apps.
In essence welcome to beta testing, even if you didn't realize it. And welcome to the consequences of an open platform.
Use the built in battery stats, market apps like spare parts, and you can likely discover what 3rd party apps you may have that are giving your battery grief. The level of detail you can gain from the built in stats in 2.1 are excellent and immensely useful, providing you use them.
In my experience apps and widgets that routinely poll for data and interrupt the phone's sleep process are the main culprit you can control. And the OS's built in battery usage statistics can really tell you what is going on.
Some apps may look cool and do great things, but if they're interrupting the sleep process or eating entirely too much cpu when they are active, you're probably best off trying one of the gazillion alternatives to that app available on the market.

I flash my occasional ROM, but am not a developer of any sort. this post has been great insight into my many attempts to "protect" my phone from the running apps. I did start to notice that advanced task killer was asking me to shut down system processes that I would never know what they do. Now obviously I can see the third party apps and scrolling widgets that needed to be closed when I finally let my device sit, but after uninstalling ATK I have found that my device is actually running more smoothly.
FYI - a simple battery pull at the end of the day has been my best medicine.
thanks for the discussion guys!

S4X said:
Don''t you all know also that unused memory is switched off by power management to save the battery?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I hope that was meant as a jest.

Never used one on my G1 from the day I bought it an I was one of the early adopters, and now to the Vibrant.
I've always had awesome battery usage and I just use my phone. I've never used a task killer in my PC so I don't see how this is any different.
Task killers are IMHO a waste of space and money if they charge.

This is one if the best threads on XDA about task killers. I will make a point and link it in the sticky thread also. Really encouraged by the Vibrant forums.

From what I have heard, tasks when you first load a rom need to run to configure. If you keep closing them they will keep trying to run to do what they need to. So, it actually slows you down.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

Slow X, looking for info and/or advice

My X has been running slow and a little funny. I have froyo 2.3.15, with FlyX Rom, Revolution Themes, LauncherPro Plus, and Beautiful Widgets all running. Revolution was the last thing I added about a week ago and ever since then, it seems to be running different. Its slower to react, doesn't change from portrait to landscape very fast, whenever I unlock the screen, if I'm holding it straight up and down, it always opens into landscape mode. This seems like a pretty standard setup to a lot of people on here. Any advice and info on this topic would be appreciated, or just conversation about what others are running similar or different. Thanks a lot!
(also, I ran quadrant benchmark with scores between 1440 and 1495)

brandon2x said:
My X has been running slow and a little funny. I have froyo 2.3.15, with FlyX Rom, Revolution Themes, LauncherPro Plus, and Beautiful Widgets all running. Revolution was the last thing I added about a week ago and ever since then, it seems to be running different. Its slower to react, doesn't change from portrait to landscape very fast, whenever I unlock the screen, if I'm holding it straight up and down, it always opens into landscape mode. This seems like a pretty standard setup to a lot of people on here. Any advice and info on this topic would be appreciated, or just conversation about what others are running similar or different. Thanks a lot!
(also, I ran quadrant benchmark with scores between 1440 and 1495)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I cannot recall whether or not FlyX includes the build.prop modifications or not, if not you would definitely want to make those. Other than that the only other thing I would recommend is giving MinFreeManager a shot, it changes the "low memory" requirements for the built in memory manager (task manager) of android. If configured properly it can really make a difference in both battery life and performance (not speed, but responsiveness). It does not do it for you, it lets you set the fields, so learn how to do it first, it varies depending on your use of your phone, I don't run any facebook or other streaming applications so my settings are 6,8,16,60,60,150 but this could vary greatly, and may adversely affect others, so read up on the app in the market.
Again that app will improve responsiveness, in that it will give you less delay when swyping the screen in the UI and such, in that your phone does not have to kill a task to free up memory to complete the next task, it will not improve benchmarks, at the same time, poor memory management will give you poor performance in real world use but may not affect your benchmarks, another reason that benchmarks are poor ways of measuring performance.
Outside of that, what it really comes down to is our Android systems need hardware acceleration... Google really needs to get of there... well... you know... and get with the game here, based off the recent discussion and their advisement to manufacturers to hold of the release of tablets until the next android release, I am hoping they are currently implementing it, but without GPU hardware acceleration in the UI and web browser, we will constantly have the appearance of choppiness and the illusion of poor performance even on our overqualified phones... it is one area where I am sad to say the iPhone has us beat... very sad to say... as a matter of fact, I just washed my mouth out with a bit of soap...
EDIT: a good example of how well that application worked for me over actual "tasks killers" on the market such as task killer and such... before having this app installed and configured, a quick investigation of "settings, applications, running services" and viewing the available memory, it would display "Avail:16MB+98MB in ##" after having this app and having it configured it displays "Avail:72MB+116MB in 26" I am assuming my poor UI responsiveness was due to the first of the two numbers...

Yeah I always hate to say that about iPhones too but they do seem to keep the same speed and responsiveness ALL the time... Oh well, they've been around a little longer so Android will just have to keep working on it. I believe it'll be there soon. I will try that app you recommended. I appreciate the speedy response.

brandon2x said:
Yeah I always hate to say that about iPhones too but they do seem to keep the same speed and responsiveness ALL the time... Oh well, they've been around a little longer so Android will just have to keep working on it. I believe it'll be there soon. I will try that app you recommended. I appreciate the speedy response.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
no problem, yeah, the iPhone has had GPU hardware acceleration in the UI since it came out, they structured their OS around it, Google chose otherwise, and I can only hope they regret that decision now... but hopefully they will make amends for that...
just make sure you read the post referenced in the app itself. It is written for the HTC Hero which only has 288MB of Ram as opposed to our 512MB Ram, but it still basically applies.
Keep in mind:
It does not automatically set on reboot until you tell it to, do not tell it to until you are sure the settings you have set do not mess with anything.
You probably will not notice a difference for about an hour... at least that's how long it took for me to truly notice a difference... I'm not really sure why, it apparently took that long for the priorities to take affect, and get the right processes killed, etc., etc. After that, especially later that day I was truly noticing a difference, especially in typing... I have always had a delay when typing on this phone, and that seems to be gone now...

yeah i was guessing that. i read an article at androidcentral.com about it and just set it to aggressive for now. applied it, but the specs under "running services" haven't changed so i'll give it an hour or so. i'll let you know how it turns out. thanks again!

brandon2x said:
yeah i was guessing that. i read an article at androidcentral.com about it and just set it to aggressive for now. applied it, but the specs under "running services" haven't changed so i'll give it an hour or so. i'll let you know how it turns out. thanks again!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sounds good, your welcome and good luck!
If those settings work out for you without any problems, you'll probably want to up them a bit, it might say aggressive, but they are only so aggressive... If it makes a big difference for you then stick with them, if you still have slow down, and you are running what you described before, you can probably get away running settings similar to what I posted, just don't have them set on boot just in case, if they don't work out you can always set them lower or back to a preset. It is definitely something you can expiriment with, if worst comes to worst, you can always reboot, but as long as you don't touch the first 4 values, you won't mess anything up, the worst that you will do with the last 2 is temporarly screw up facebook sync. or something similar, and really you can get away with changing the 4th value to, it just has a chance of affecting more things, but I doubt you'll end up affecting anything with values around 50 anyway. Like I said, experimenting never hurts, slow phones do... Just keep an eye on it ;-) good luck again.

To add a little correction.if you are running fly x then you are not running 2.3.15 you are running the earlier related release it Is based on. Even if you did have2.3.15 before installing it fly x over writes the system to the files it uses. All roms do. Do you actually have like 2.3.9 I think
Sent from my DROIDX using XDA App

It does say 2.3.9. I inquired about this before because I used teamblackhat to get .15 and the system never seemed to change to .15 every time I tried to download it... I guess that's why, because of flyx...
Sent from my DROIDX using XDA App

After reading Captian Taco's post I was eager to try it out, and its actually making a big difference =D thanks!

Yes it is... its been running much smoother and more responsive all day. Thanks again captaintaco... (boy thats kinda funny to type...)
Sent from my DROIDX using XDA App

Thanks CaptainTaco! Installed MFM to clear up my "lag" issues that are usually experienced in the evenings after a reset first thing in the a.m. each day. Before MFM it wasn't a huge deal to do a reset to clear up the issue, but I much prefer it to just work right all the time.

pduboise said:
Thanks CaptainTaco! Installed MFM to clear up my "lag" issues that are usually experienced in the evenings after a reset first thing in the a.m. each day. Before MFM it wasn't a huge deal to do a reset to clear up the issue, but I much prefer it to just work right all the time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey don't thank me, thank the creator of MFM, I'm pretty sure he was one of the first to discover the power of Androids integrated minimum memory management, if not the first. Just glad to share my discovery of his discovery haha. But yea, to be honest I don't even use a custom Rom anymore, it runs so quick just having that (thought it works even better in conjunction with your standard simplistic task killer such as "advanced task killer" just to kill apps in the foreground after you are done with them, since many apps don't include a way of closing themselves out...
I still try the custom Roms out and play around with them for the hell of it, but as for right now, I rely heavily on corporate integration, and most of the good blurless Roms remove features required for true and proper corporate sync, such as calender sync and the like... and I just don't like touchdown pro... So this helps me out greatly... remove some bloat, throw launcher pro on there, and get this fix fired up, phone runs like a dream... now if only they could get exchange active sync running like it was on Sense... best implementation I have seen of Exchange active sync so far... I do miss that...

Well after all the advice I ended up installing the zapx rom last night. Wow! It is sooo fast... everything just responds and reacts so much faster than before. I suggest installing zapx to anyone. Best rom so far I think...
Sent from my DROIDX using XDA App

Using Launcher Pro, easier way to close apps faster?

I heard App Killers use memory, so I was wondering is there a way to get a shortcut, or a way to tweak to put what apps I want terminated and that I use on the go all at once or all in the same list? It's annoying to go into settings, then applications, then run and scroll through each one and force stop lol .

Don't force apps to stop. If it's not in use, it doesn't matter if it's in the memory.
Linux operates differently. In Windows you could use up a bunch of memory and it slows things down, but until you get to a critical level your Atrix isn't going to slow down. It's better to let it manage itself, otherwise it will simply start the task over and pull it to the foreground even though it was using no resources happily in the background.
Only close apps if they're erratic or if you want to clear memory for something hardcore like a PSX or N64 emulator, etc.
Trust me. I don't kill apps and used my phone like some sort of newb, but it actually works way better than when I try erratically killing apps all the time.

so even if its in the running tab say like browser and gmail, and say an app that uses gps and data and I close it but don't force stop it, it won't do a big deal on my battery? Sorry im new to all this, very new.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App

As soon as apps like Maps are out of focus (not immediately running on your screen) the GPS will stop searching. You will notice that Android is more than capable of handling it's own memory management. Just relax and let the OS do it's job. Some things you're killing with a task killer will just be immediately reopened by Android, as it's being referenced by another app. That will kill your battery much more so than just letting Android remove resources from a running app.

tripleh3lix said:
so even if its in the running tab say like browser and gmail, and say an app that uses gps and data and I close it but don't force stop it, it won't do a big deal on my battery? Sorry im new to all this, very new.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Divinedark said:
As soon as apps like Maps are out of focus (not immediately running on your screen) the GPS will stop searching. You will notice that Android is more than capable of handling it's own memory management. Just relax and let the OS do it's job. Some things you're killing with a task killer will just be immediately reopened by Android, as it's being referenced by another app. That will kill your battery much more so than just letting Android remove resources from a running app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
^^^
This brother is right!
Yep, it's kind of a strange concept. I was so skeptical and yes, sometimes I look at the stuff in the background and still get suspicious. But the battery life and performance speaks for itself. After months and months of it pestering me, I finally submitted. I only kill tasks before running high end console emulators or a couple other apps that require a lot of juice.
It's definitely something that takes time getting used to. I've had an Android for almost exactly a year to this day and it's still a hard concept to grasp. As long as you're not running some crappy program that was poorly coded, it otherwise does a great job.
First Android OS was 1.6/Donut and that wasn't nearly as good as Froyo and Gingerbread. HUGE difference. I'm using an Xperia X10 because my Atrix is currently broken, but I've got CM running Gingerbread and WOW. It's like a completely different phone!! Even just the stock Froyo handles tasks much better. The Atrix is damn near flawless in comparison too.

tripleh3lix said:
I heard App Killers use memory, so I was wondering is there a way to get a shortcut, or a way to tweak to put what apps I want terminated and that I use on the go all at once or all in the same list? It's annoying to go into settings, then applications, then run and scroll through each one and force stop lol .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I like Watchdog, http://goo.gl/c4On5. It will tell you if an app needs killing. You can even put a widget on your screen and watch how many apps are running, how many are idle, and what % of cpu is used.

bongd said:
^^^
This brother is right!
Yep, it's kind of a strange concept. I was so skeptical and yes, sometimes I look at the stuff in the background and still get suspicious. But the battery life and performance speaks for itself. After months and months of it pestering me, I finally submitted. I only kill tasks before running high end console emulators or a couple other apps that require a lot of juice.
It's definitely something that takes time getting used to. I've had an Android for almost exactly a year to this day and it's still a hard concept to grasp. As long as you're not running some crappy program that was poorly coded, it otherwise does a great job.
First Android OS was 1.6/Donut and that wasn't nearly as good as Froyo and Gingerbread. HUGE difference. I'm using an Xperia X10 because my Atrix is currently broken, but I've got CM running Gingerbread and WOW. It's like a completely different phone!! Even just the stock Froyo handles tasks much better. The Atrix is damn near flawless in comparison too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you. I have 4 and a half hours with this thing powered on, and screen is on an hour and a half and it's on 50 percent already. Was using maps and just texting that's about it. I keep turning gps off when done.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App

My experience with task killers (ATK to be specific)

I am reasonably new to the android community and so when I first got the device I looked up some of the most commonly downloaded applications to get an idea for what I should get. Advanced task killer was up there as one of the most popular so I went ahead and downloaded it.
I used it for about a month thinking "alright cool I don't have to search through the stock task manager to force close applications". However I came across several articles at that point stating that with newer smartphone's technology that a task killer was unnecessary and in fact detrimental. All of the articles stated that the phone ran better and smoother when allowed to manage it's applications on its own. While I hadn't really ran into many bugs (just a few glitches here and there) I still thought I might speed up the phone a little bit and decided to stop using it.
Here's the weird part, I start getting bugs AFTER I stop using the task killer! My menus ran slower, the keyboard was not as responsive, I even actually felt like the accuracy of my touches went down. I was patient with it though and gave it time but the problems persisted. After a week of staying off of it (in which I should point out I fully rebooted the phone several times) I decided to start again and boom.
Magically the problems went away, my menus are nice and smooth, keyboard response is perfect, and touches are right on point. I think these articles are getting a little too theoretical in their accusations against task managers. Personally I have mine only set on medium detection and safe auto kill. This basically means it autokills almost nothing and 1 touch kills all of the game/map apps that I told it not to ignore. With modest settings such as these I think that there is very little chance of it upsetting any sort of operative processes of the phone and I mean the bottom line here is the results!
I personally find that my phone runs much better with a task killer than without. So anyway just thought I would share my experience in case it may help anyone, I'd be interested in hearing others as well.

There is no need to use any Task Killer programs anymore, and using them is detrimental to the phone either way. This has been discussed time and time again on this forum and other phones' as well.

dLo GSR said:
There is no need to use any Task Killer programs anymore, and using them is detrimental to the phone either way. This has been discussed time and time again on this forum and other phones' as well.
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I realize I may have typed a little more than your attention span would allow you too pay attention to so let me shorten this for you.
I got the task killer.
I then read about it being detrimental so I stopped.
I got more bugs/worse functionality of the phone thought it was weird but stuck to it.
After getting fed up after a while I tried using the manager again and everything became quick and smooth again.
Clear now? I'm just posting that this is my personal experience, and I thought it may be interesting to some because it seems contrary to what most are reporting.

tl;dr
Factory reset. If you're being honest and not missing something you have a rogue app or setting causing a problem. Start fresh and you'll see that using a task manager and killing apps yourself is not the way to go.
The only thing I keep mine for is for killing rogue apps. And that's not a very common occurrence if you're doing things right and not downloading ****ty apps from stupid devs.

bongd said:
tl;dr
Factory reset. If you're being honest and not missing something you have a rogue app or setting causing a problem. Start fresh and you'll see that using a task manager and killing apps yourself is not the way to go.
The only thing I keep mine for is for killing rogue apps. And that's not a very common occurrence if you're doing things right and not downloading ****ty apps from stupid devs.
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Click to collapse
haha well at least you admitted to it in the beginning, hopefully you caught the boiled down version then.
It's interesting that you mention the rogue app issue. I don't have any of the problems I usually hear about in the forums when that is the case, although I do use words with friends, which i realize is buggy but it plays against friends and family that have iphones as well.
I doubt that is the culprit though, the problems and slowdowns I was experiencing are mainly things i have seen people mention as problems with the phone in general.

JonEleven said:
haha well at least you admitted to it in the beginning, hopefully you caught the boiled down version then.
It's interesting that you mention the rogue app issue. I don't have any of the problems I usually hear about in the forums when that is the case, although I do use words with friends, which i realize is buggy but it plays against friends and family that have iphones as well.
I doubt that is the culprit though, the problems and slowdowns I was experiencing are mainly things i have seen people mention as problems with the phone in general.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Once you break the phone in and all the apps load and cache it should be smooth as butter. A brand spanking new refresh isn't always the quickest. I find that after a few hours usage (after a complete wipe) that things start really moving along.
In my task killer I have damn near every program excluded as well. And a nice thing about Froyo is that system apps and important things usually aren't killed anyway. I set my task killer this way as a buffer because I really don't want to kill anything in the background that doesn't need to be killed. Doing that can make it relaunch in the foreground thereby slowing things down when the program wasn't using any resources to begin with.
A lot of it is a matter of perception too - a lot of people get OCD about managing tasks manually and start killing things, falsely perceiving that speeds are picking up and that they're improving battery life. Fact of the matter is that it's other factors which are leading to success. Killing tasks is inherently flawed because you're waking up apps which aren't doing jack **** to begin with.

Today I purchased the full version of SystemPanel. The reason was simple. I wanted information. The product was exactly what I needed. An app that gives real time and historical information on: battery charge and discharge; CPU utilization; phone usage, the list goes on. After two hours I noticed that it showed CPU cycles from apps that should be idle... Pandora and Amazon App Store... so I opened Pandora and saw it was stuck in a search. I exited Pandora and suddenly the CPU dropped and rate of battery drain slowed. What makes this a great app is the historical view and the ability to see historical CPU usage at the individual application level and compare to the overall phones CPU, usage and battery level. The end result is solid information on where and when the juice goes. The help describes why they will never implement an Auto-Kill feature, i.e. does not save any juice and if an app is not behaving... don't kill it, fix the problem or uninstall! Hope this helps!

jjwatmyself said:
Today I purchased the full version of SystemPanel. The reason was simple. I wanted information. The product was exactly what I needed. An app that gives real time and historical information on: battery charge and discharge; CPU utilization; phone usage, the list goes on. After two hours I noticed that it showed CPU cycles from apps that should be idle... Pandora and Amazon App Store... so I opened Pandora and saw it was stuck in a search. I exited Pandora and suddenly the CPU dropped and rate of battery drain slowed. What makes this a great app is the historical view and the ability to see historical CPU usage at the individual application level and compare to the overall phones CPU, usage and battery level. The end result is solid information on where and when the juice goes. The help describes why they will never implement an Auto-Kill feature, i.e. does not save any juice and if an app is not behaving... don't kill it, fix the problem or uninstall! Hope this helps!
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Click to collapse
I've got this app purchased as well. I usually uninstall it unless I suspect that a program is running wild like how you've described.

bongd said:
I've got this app purchased as well. I usually uninstall it unless I suspect that a program is running wild like how you've described.
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Seems that out of all of the apps out there, these guys dug in to do something of use. Now I can post screen shots of the Moto car dock charging problem that I have.

i don't think ATK is really detrimental...i've been using it and as long as you keep everything in check, it should run fine, just make sure the apps that are being killed are the ones you want killed.

I had ATK installed on my Atrix pretty much since day 1. Then i realised i was being an idiot to have it running in the background when i never really used it. Instead, i always just used the standard task manager, and added apps that i didn't see a point in having sit idle in the background to the auto-end list. Works quite well, and no annoying "Touch here to launch Advanced Task Killer" crap in the notification pane.

Unless there is a technical challenge it's best to kill tasks as sparingly as possible. End of discussion

I think you are missing the simple fact that killing tasks has no impact, positive or negative, on Android.
Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk

elementaldragon said:
I had ATK installed on my Atrix pretty much since day 1. Then i realised i was being an idiot to have it running in the background when i never really used it. Instead, i always just used the standard task manager, and added apps that i didn't see a point in having sit idle in the background to the auto-end list. Works quite well, and no annoying "Touch here to launch Advanced Task Killer" crap in the notification pane.
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Same here, using the stock one, the auto end list too free ram. I noticed many apps that I don't use very often load on startup and run in the background.
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slimslim said:
Same here, using the stock one, the auto end list too free ram. I noticed many apps that I don't use very often load on startup and run in the background.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
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Free ram has no impact on performance or battery on Android. Killing a task should always be adhoc and not automatic.
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bongd said:
Unless there is a technical challenge it's best to kill tasks as sparingly as possible. End of discussion
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Agreed!
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I have mine set to close only a few programs that eat battery in the background. Like the xda app.
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jjwatmyself said:
Free ram has no impact on performance or battery on Android. Killing a task should always be adhoc and not automatic.
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Click to collapse
Not entirely true, does impact the performance and is noticeable especially when I have less than 100 megs available. Even on my old winmo phone more free ram made a huge difference. Also has little impact on battery while apps running on background use cpu.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App

I realize you're a douche, so bite me.
JonEleven said:
I realize I may have typed a little more than your attention span would allow you too pay attention to so let me shorten this for you.
I got the task killer.
I then read about it being detrimental so I stopped.
I got more bugs/worse functionality of the phone thought it was weird but stuck to it.
After getting fed up after a while I tried using the manager again and everything became quick and smooth again.
Clear now? I'm just posting that this is my personal experience, and I thought it may be interesting to some because it seems contrary to what most are reporting.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App

dLo GSR said:
I realize you're a douche, so bite me.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Haha no need to get hostile man, you just clearly had not read my post.
At least have the decency to put tl dr beforehand if you are going to do that, because your first response literally almost quoted something I had already written
And I have to agree with slimslim about the ram, I find it very noticeable when the level of free ram gets down to around 100