How to remove HTC branding on HD2 (T-Mobile - US phone) - HD2 General

(reposted to a more relevant subforum)
Hello All,
It's probably a stupid question for most of the ppl here, but I need to know how to remove all that HTC branding and their eye candy. I'm working on some software and we will be using HD2 for a demo. The problem is that some phone manufactures hire retards that break very fundamental things in WinCE and that destroys my APP completely.
So, I simply want to know how to get rid of all their junk and have vanilla default WinMobile 6.5 installation on that phone.
For curious ppl: the problem with their software that i have is that the "X" button that meant to do some action doesn't do anything in my app, it simply minimizes it and my app doesn't get any notification that the "X" button was clicked. The Acer phone (also with snapdragon) at the beginning had an opposite problem, the 'X' button would always kill my app even if I handle WM_CLOSE/IDCANCEL messages properly, but with latest update that problem was fixed. Latest update in HTC/T-mobile still has that same problem and I absolutely have to find a solution asap. Using some cooked ROM is not an option (cannot be accepted by the customer).
If it's not very clear what I'm talking about: on some old old htc devices after factory reset I had to hold green and red call buttons on the first boot to prevent it from running operator branding junk. That's what I want to do on the HD2 phone from T-Mobile

Hi,
look at some of the ROMs here. There are some which contains only WM without Sense (what you call branding). Other way is just disable Sense in the Settings for the Home Screen and see if your application still does not work.
But to be honest, I guess it's more an issue of your application and WM 6.5 not a "branding" issue.
bye
Sven

It's the issue of that sense thing and has nothing to do with the os or my app itself. I'm not doing any quirks, I simply follow documented stuff on ms web site and it doesn't work.
The top bar that contains the 'X' button seems to be modified or subclassed by their junk code and that's why my app doesn't receive messages that it it receives just in every other mobile phone that I test with (6 and 6.5 WinMo, for 6.5 Acer s200, toshiba tg01, samsung omnia all work just the way they are expected to work). I absolutely can't use any other rom (I can take hummer and do whatever i want with my test device, but for the real demo at the customer site nothing like that can't even be discussed).

As was said, you can get roms without Sense at all, where Sense covers the majority of the HTC customization, or you can simply disable it in the Today Screen setup. Beyond that, if the X button is your only concern, get a task manger and force its behavior to what you want.
The stock HD2 doesn't have a task manager or any change to the smart minimize behavior, so the message sent when the X is hit should be WM_ACTIVATE with parameters fActive = WA_INACTIVE and nonzero fMinimized. If you're used to seeing a WM_CLOSE message, those are WinMo installs where the Smart Minimize button has been customized to close, rather than the HD2 being the modified environment. The stock HD2 does, on the other hand, have a very aggressive memory recovery config that practically allows only one program running at a time. That aggressive OOM killer is why the smart minimize was left at default behavior.

That's what I figured after testing that it has that horrible smart minimize. What about poor guys like me who don't like smart stuff at all? What that aggressive memory recovery thing you mentioned? What does that mean? All current devices have way more memory than os 6 can allow to be used. All shared dlls in total take like 10MB nowdays that leaves all the apps with like 20MB addressable ram. That's the problem and aggressive memory recovery sounds like some buzz word that has no meaning in the real life (unless I'm a total noob and fail to see the "smart" part in the aggressive memory config
Any way I can disable smart minimize? By the way, I figured that I can workaround that smart crap: I made a test app and it works as expected, the only difference is that my app uses different window style flags which seem to trigger smart behavior.

hattmoward said:
Beyond that, if the X button is your only concern, get a task manger and force its behavior to what you want.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That worked perfectly!
I tried to check HTC task manager : http://www.freewarepocketpc.net/ppc-download-htc-task-manager-v2-0.html
and it did exactly what I wanted. It did not modify anything, it did not add that manager as shown on the download page but it simply disabled smart minimize thing and it's now working as expected/required.
thanks for help!

Related

Phone Application

I am new to the whole PDA form so please forgive me if this is obvious but I have not found the answers on this site.
I have an O2 XDA mini s and am slowly getting the hang of it.
Problem: On closing all running programs in task manager I loose the use of the phone keypad, pressing the green call button brings up the phone application but minus the number keys, calls can still be made through contacts. A soft reset is required to recify.
?Related problem: In task manager, there are programs running that are not visible on the list (if I press below the last visible item something is selected and I can "goto" it.
Plus on occation the listed item takes me to a different program ie. selecting media player takes me to Word (no set pattern though).
All help would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance
StefanF: what task manager are you using?
V
Sorry, just to clarify, PDA is "as out of the box", so just the WM5 task manager.
Thanks for your interest, I have followed several of your posts and seen your site. You have some great programs I would like to use, particually like the big phone buttons and close application tool but am quite scared of this thing.
It may be a while before I mess to deeply.
Stefan: that sounds like an odd problem.
The built in task manager is useful but not very comprehensive.
If you want to view all running tasks etc, there are much better programs out there, many are freeware. If you can't find any better, check out one I've posted here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?p=190257#190257
It's not written by me, I've just re-added some features.
Note - closing the phone (cprog.exe) is not a particularly good idea unless you really need it, because some other apps expect it to be loaded (eg contacts)
My programs
Some are ok. You might want to try my program VJOkButt if you just want to close apps to keep your memory healthy. But that's subject to taste and it's not clear how useful - although on the Wizard, it might be helpful.
The big phone buttons are actually just for the universal, it's not designed for Wizard. Basically it's for VGA phones that are using the ful VGA hack.
I've got some other stuff coming out soon. Stay tuned :wink:
V
Phone application
Thanks for the info.
I think, from what you have said, I need to know what I am doing to shut down the phone application as it is never my intention.
Pitty about the big button program. Why is there not full customisation of the screen (as in desktop PC's, can change the size of buttons, scroll bars... both of which are to small for finger use on this)
As a side note, when I am in an application the menus and any selections within make a click upon pressing ie. in word, Menu>Cut each selection makes a click. I have all tap sounds off but the only way I can stop it is to turn the master volume all the way down. Any ideas?
Once again, thanks.
You have to overwrite some of the default sounds with empy sounds to disable all click sounds. At least that's what I did, but that was a long time ago..basically you use your pc, make an empty .wav file, and overwrite the necessary files in your \windows\ folder. If you're interested in doing this and need more help, shout out!
Closing the phone - yes, you would probably not close it without knowing what you're doing. I presume when you're not using the task manager you're not having the phone problems?
Try a program called CETuner to help play around with your scrollbars etc. It's good for modifying colour themes and various settings on the go. Another program worth looking at is Tweak 2k .net.
V
Many thanks.
Personally i'm currently using Magic Button to close apps and act as a task manager. http://www.freewareppc.com/utilities/magicbutton.shtml
It allows you to close or minimise apps, and by clicking the "house" icon on the windows bar you can also close all, soft reset etc. Final point on it is that you can see X number of running apps and touch to swap to them, or "hide when inactive" and "keep alive" so you dont close (or even see) some apps - i keep messages & phone in this state to improve response times but close use close all to kill everything else.
Danger using Task Manager
Stefan,
I had the same problem. Ideally you should use Start/Settings/System/Memory/Running Programs to close down active tasks. Yes, the Task Manager does it and you can launch it from the menu, but it is a bit dangerous (as I found out). The Phone app appears in Task Manager as an unnamed icon and its icon looks like the Windows Media Player one (at least it does on my XDA Mini S). Shutting this down will do exactly what you describe (I started a thread called 'Help I'm stuck in Contact History on this).
By all means use Task Manager if you want to, just don't shut all apps, leave the unnamed 'media player lookalike' icon.
Cheers. :wink:
To the original poster:
I had this problem when i got my XDA at first. To be honest, i think its the o2 active stuff that messes up the phone app.
My suggestion is this: back up any important data, then do a hard rerset of your phone. When the screen comes up about Standard, Corporate or Basic install choose the Corporate option and use the passcode 0506. this will allow you to use the phone without any of the o2 crap and since i done it i've had no problems with the phone.
just to let you know, this will stop the phone setting up its own GRPS and MMS settings, but if you phone o2 ar go into a shop then they will happily send them to you.
Hope this helps.
Task Manager or Active ?
I suspect that it is shutting down the phone app that's causing the issue not Active. I agree, get rid of Active if you don't like it (I use Basic so I still get the MMS settings), but I don't think Active is the cause.
Just my humble opinion of course.
I'd completely overlooked that StefanF was using o2. I'm an O2 and Orange user, but O2 active has never touched my system. Sounds like that's quite an oversight by them if the O2 Task Manager allows you to close the phone app... not recommended!
V
Oooer indeed
My friend has an XDA Exec (Universal) and he had lots of problems with the phone app which I strongly suspect were much the same thing. (although his apps in task manager were not unnamed, he had multiple phone apps running). I didn't know the Task Manager was an O2 add-on, I assumed it was a WM5 feature.

phone app not closing

Hi. I've used the phone a bit, and I have GSPocketMagic++ but the phone app won't close with the X. Plus, even worse, in the menu I can see that there are 4 instances of the phone running! i.e. Seems like every time I go to the phone interface then it has a new instance in the list. (GSPM seems to be fine and great otherwise.) Thanks.
Now with another app, I'm seeing strange behavior on the part of GSPM (not closing another app and keeping it always on top), unfortunately, I'm guessing it's GSPM but it could also be the phone app.
what do - as a sufferer of this also s use magic button - free . . it solves it about 50-6-% of the times - but this is still my main cause to reboot . . .
I wrote an app, VJPhoneToggle or something, that will close cphone.exe
I've also written a generic task killer.
However, you should know that closing cphone.exe is not advisable. On my Mio A701 it puts the phone in flight mode and prevents calls coming in.
On the HTCs, trying to commence a call from the contacts screen will cause an error.
But otherwise, it's a good way to save a bit of memory. I wuoldn't really advise it though.
re the various instances of cphone running. Probably unlikely - more likely is that the various dialogs in cphone, eg callhistory etc, show up as seperate entries.
VJOkButt can help close some of the dialogs sometimes. But VJPhoneToggle is probably what you need.
V
As Vijay was hinting - you can get rid of the app by putting the device into flight mode. But the purpose of that eludes me. It's a (Pocket PC) phone after all...
AFAIK
MB doesn't really close the phone either.
Need to try the phonetoggle - lol i am still a vijay-virgin!!!

Why do Leo's programs only minimise on exit?

What's that about?
I've never used Task Manager so much in my life.
I'm not sure the thinking behind this.
Get the TouchX Taskmanager off this thread...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=4947950&postcount=1
Then, on the home tab, drop down the task manager (top right corner) and you can change the options (wrench) so that apps close when you click X. It also gives you a dropdown list of running apps so you can switch between them.
Hope this helps
Thanks John.
It still leaves me baffled though at the choice of doing things the way HTC have done. Surely there's going to be many consumer out there that don't even know what a Task Manager is, who will be running slow phones with no idea why.
Or maybe they all bought an iPhone.
See Here
CHIP STAXMAN said:
Thanks John.
It still leaves me baffled though at the choice of doing things the way HTC have done. Surely there's going to be many consumer out there that don't even know what a Task Manager is, who will be running slow phones with no idea why.
Or maybe they all bought an iPhone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can also get Microsoft's perspective on this Here
This is not an HTC issue- PPC and WinMo have always minimised apps by default unless the application itself has a Menu/Quit routine.
HTC have previously utilised their own Task Manager, which for some reason they didn't include in the HD2 hence the need for external apps such as JCM suggested. Maybe they thought 200MB was ample- compared to the 16MB of the early PPC devices?
In general I've not encountered any slowdowns, but I tend not to use many apps that stay memory resident.
If you press and hold the X, instead of just tapping it, it will properly close the program. That option is within the Task Manager on the phone, in the settings of the phone.
madindehead said:
If you press and hold the X, instead of just tapping it, it will properly close the program. That option is within the Task Manager on the phone, in the settings of the phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I couldn't find this option on my brother's HD2 (T-Mobile). I've seen it on all previous devices that I've add.
Will have to try the other suggestions here.
Yep, in my T-Mobile UK build I can only access the SENSE settings and not the windows mobile settings that allows you to change taskbar settings.
Grrr
That's because the task manager button in the home page was removed for this version of Sense. Literally the first thing I did when I got the phone was to find out how to add that back.
I personally think it's a stupid idea, so I'm glad for this wonderful resource that we know as xda!
Dang was hoping for a registry setting,
Any idea how turn turn on windows settings only?
CHIP STAXMAN said:
Thanks John.
It still leaves me baffled though at the choice of doing things the way HTC have done. Surely there's going to be many consumer out there that don't even know what a Task Manager is, who will be running slow phones with no idea why.
Or maybe they all bought an iPhone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Having the programs already cached in memory allows faster access with successive uses. windows mobile automatically closes background programs should available memory get too low.
There are many threads on this site about increasing available memory on devices to increase speed, but many of the ideas are counter productive, because best speed is obtained when items are preloaded into memory. this is why there is great performance boost by increasing file system cache and glyth cache ect. but this comes at a memory cost
Slow device will only occur when memory runs out, this is pretty rare on modern phones (Touch pro and onwards) especially when using WM 6.5.
Remember, you have paid for that memory in your phone, so make sure to use it and not leave it empty so you can look at your task manager and see 50% free just to think it makes your phone quicker
rumpleforeskin said:
Remember, you have paid for that memory in your phone, so make sure to use it and not leave it empty so you can look at your task manager and see 50% free just to think it makes your phone quicker
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good points rumple.
It's all those years of Windows use that have made me believe that killing processes is the cure for most evils. I'll have to retrain my thinking.
Do minimized programs use much battery?
qweac said:
Do minimized programs use much battery?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Depends on the program. If it's one that only does things when you interact with it (press buttons, scroll stuff etc.) then no. If it does other things then it may well do, but it obviously varies greatly and depends what it does.

hd2 really pi***** me off now!

got a hd2, stock rom, latest, all patches,
and its doing my head in!
runs so slow, messages are so slow to load, and the phone sometimes doesnt come out of standby!
i love the size of the phone etc, but its tempting to sell it now
any suggestions?
same deal here, any help would be great!
runs so slow, messages are so slow to load,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
known issue with the messaging app. Only real help is to reduce the ammount of mesages you store.
and the phone sometimes doesnt come out of standby!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
called the 'sleep of death' No cure for it once a rom is installed that i am aware, however many of the cooked roms have cured this issue. (I haven't seen it for about a month now)
Long thread about not waking up HERE
samsamuel said:
known issue with the messaging app. Only real help is to reduce the ammount of mesages you store.QUOTE]
sorry for off topic, does Android w/ Snapdragon or Android in general have the same problem/s like Windows Mobile does?
All this stuff should be as quick as speeding bullet.
and another question,
what kind of processor do we need to get what we want out of WinMo?
From what I gather it would have to be atleast 2 to 3 ghz. (for it to never stutter.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
im using a hero and an hd2 both freeze up from time to time. if you use Google apps a lot stick with android. if your lazy stick with android. if you have time to always tweak your phone go with winmo. and despite what you read windows has way more apps than android the only problem is most of the apps are 3 or more years old and not being updated anymore so not too finger friendly.
My HD2 (U.S. Tmobile - Stock Rom) runs like lightning, but not for lack of effort (well, not too much effort). I installed BsB Tweaks and Clean Ram, applied the performance tweaks in BsB (there's even one messaging that allows for "classic" style), and make sure to run Clean Ram (level two) once or twice a day. I also make liberal use of the task manager after opening any apps that fail to close with the press of an X (most?). Occasionally I'll notice a bit of slowdown, but Clean Ram will usually cure what ails it. Worst case scenario is I'll need to do a soft reset (which I always do after installing/uninstalling any apps), but, with BsB, it's a breeze as there's a command for it in the menu, so no need to wrangle with the battery cover and poke the red button!
As far as Android goes, I've no clue how it will run on HD2 level hardware, but, seeing as much of the issues with the HD2 seem to revolve around the Sense UI and HTC in particular, I would imagine some of the same issues will crop up. I'm coming over from Android (G1) to WinMo. My G1 had the same issues with messaging (HTC!!!) but, otherwise, didn't require much by way of maintenance. It was just slow and there was nothing I could do about it!
Play around with some of these tools on here. I'm a total WinMo noob, but I gotta say I'm loving the tweakability of the OS, and I'm especially enjoying learning about all of the cool stuff XDA has available for it.
No Lag here
Hey guys, I'm not sure if you guys are managing your opened applications properly... HD2 will keep all the apps you opened in the background running unless you actually closed them... and for most of the apps the only way to close them is to go to taskmanager (start>taskmanager>endtask, see a quicker way to do this below)....
Solution: you need to close the applications that are open!!!!
some tweaks that make this easier
- BsB Tweaks (solves many problems)
- Dutty's Taskmanager (allows you to switch between currently opened apps and also allows you to close them, it puts an icon on the top right corner in the taskbar) HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!

Multi-tasking in Android 2.1

Is Multi-tasking currently supported in 2.1? I get this doubt because everytime I open a new application the previous goes hidden. This apparently takes up or keeps eating the resources in the background.
Instead, if 2.2 (froyo) comes up with something like the iPhone 4 handles it will be simply superb. I know even now there are add ins from the market, still they are not easy and friendly as iPhone 4 handles multi-tasking - where we can simply scroll through the application and open or close or minimise the different applications that are already open.
Please someone confirm this...or am I missing something until android 2.2 comes out.
Your right... whenever I am running an application and I press the menu button then start another application, I can see the old application running in the Services (or background).
When I quit the new application and go back to the former app, it shows me where I left off... Now, this is "technically" multi-tasking but of the sucky kind...
To minimize just press the homebutten. To switch between the last 6 task just press the homebuton for about 1 second.
In 2.1, you still long press the home key to show the most recently run applications. This is not necessary the running application. You could have manually closed an application but it will still be shown. Similarly, you could have application actually running and yet not shown there.
Another point to be aware is that although long press of home key brings up the most recently used application and allows you to jump to them, there is no facility to force close an application from there; unlike in iOS4, where on the multitasking application dock, you can force close it, as well as jumping to that application.
Another key difference between the two is that in Android 2.1, only the last 6 used applications are shown, although most of the time, I find 20+ applications running, often started by themselves mysteriously (that's another story though). So, for the running application not listed as one of the six, you can't jump to them via long pressing home. Instead, you have to go back to the desktop, find your application, and launch the application in order to switch to them.
So yah, 2.1 is a little "backward" still compared to iOS4. Hopefully 2.2 improves on this.
As far as I know the multitasking from android is better than the one in iOS4. Multitasking is not complete on iOS4, there are some applications that you are not available to use as multitasking application.
http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/04/multitasking-android-way.html
Here is the link to why and how the android multitasking works.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/199528/multitasking_with_ios_4_is_horrible_apple_blew_it.html
Here an article of PCWORLD giving negative feedback about iOS4 multitasking
eaglesteve said:
In 2.1, you still long press the home key to show the most recently run applications. This is not necessary the running application. You could have manually closed an application but it will still be shown. Similarly, you could have application actually running and yet not shown there.
Another point to be aware is that although long press of home key brings up the most recently used application and allows you to jump to them, there is no facility to force close an application from there; unlike in iOS4, where on the multitasking application dock, you can force close it, as well as jumping to that application.
Another key difference between the two is that in Android 2.1, only the last 6 used applications are shown, although most of the time, I find 20+ applications running, often started by themselves mysteriously (that's another story though). So, for the running application not listed as one of the six, you can't jump to them via long pressing home. Instead, you have to go back to the desktop, find your application, and launch the application in order to switch to them.
So yah, 2.1 is a little "backward" still compared to iOS4. Hopefully 2.2 improves on this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
..now that's one place where we look ancient than iOS4, are there any words that this will be improved in 2.2?
Instead it could have just been without multi-tasking so when we start a new app the previous one to get closed atleast that saves on the RAM. I hate iPhones but just this feature makes me disturbed why android hasn't dones this yet as this is so very basic.
I know the third part app in the adroid market does this but not as elegant as the iphone 4 handles this.
sany said:
..now that's one place where we look ancient than iOS4, are there any words that this will be improved in 2.2?
Instead it could have just been without multi-tasking so when we start a new app the previous one to get closed atleast that saves on the RAM. I hate iPhones but just this feature makes me disturbed why android hasn't dones this yet as this is so very basic.
I know the third part app in the adroid market does this but not as elegant as the iphone 4 handles this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually, the way iOS4 handles it is not even half as elegant as the way jailbroken phones do it. It is even better to disable iOS4 task switcher and use Cydia task switchers (there are 5 or 6 different method, you pick the one that you like most). If I'm the developer at Google, I'd copy jailbroken iPhone's switcher called the Circuitous. With it, you can swipe the task bar left or right to go to the previous or next active application!!! You can also double press the home key for example to show a list of task actually running (rather than most recently launched applications). You press home key to truly quite the application, and long press to make it run in the background while in both case show the desktop.
I personally don't like the task switcher in iOS4. It does not let me force close the application with the same act of quiting it. Instead, one has to bring up the task list and remove it there in order to force close. This is not productive. Also, very often I toggle betwen two or three application, and I find swiping the taskbar to be a lot more fun and productive.
How do I know if there's programs running in the background or not?
And how do I shut down programs where I can't find any Quit button (mostly of the programs I think is like this).
Chrilleee said:
How do I know if there's programs running in the background or not?
And how do I shut down programs where I can't find any Quit button (mostly of the programs I think is like this).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Samsung's stock widget will tell you if anything is "running" other things will be idling that the widget may or may not pick up on. You can pick up a 3rd party task killer to see more details.
3rd party task killers would be one way to quit the programs after closing. The way Android operates, if you hit the "back" button out of your program it quits running but will stay in memory if there is available room in your memory.
Actually the Android 'idea' is that you don't close applications. Android will keep applications around in case you want to go back, and only close them when memory is needed. Before closing them outright it will try to close secondary activities and recover memory elsewhere, so that closing an app is the last resort.
Android applications are explicitly organized in autonomous activities so that they can be stopped independently.
Keep in mind that the fact that an application is 'in background' does not mean that it is actually doing something, and empty memory does you no good unless it's actually needed, so it might as well be used to keep an application loaded.
Only applications that stay active in background have a quit button, like IM clients for example. The others don't have it because ideally you don't need to close them. Of course when the system does need to free memory you might experience some delay as applications are closed.
On the iPhone OS there is a similar model, with the difference that applications don't have 'activities' that can be independently closed. In case of memory starvation the OS first asks applications to free some memory, if possible, then starts killing them outright, but it has no means to force applications to free memory.
I stopped using task killers and found that they are not that needed unless you really can't stand small delays now and then. I didn't find the iPhone multitasking any friendlier at all...
eaglesteve said:
Actually, the way iOS4 handles it is not even half as elegant as the way jailbroken phones do it. It is even better to disable iOS4 task switcher and use Cydia task switchers (there are 5 or 6 different method, you pick the one that you like most). If I'm the developer at Google, I'd copy jailbroken iPhone's switcher called the Circuitous. With it, you can swipe the task bar left or right to go to the previous or next active application!!! You can also double press the home key for example to show a list of task actually running (rather than most recently launched applications). You press home key to truly quite the application, and long press to make it run in the background while in both case show the desktop.
I personally don't like the task switcher in iOS4. It does not let me force close the application with the same act of quiting it. Instead, one has to bring up the task list and remove it there in order to force close. This is not productive. Also, very often I toggle betwen two or three application, and I find swiping the taskbar to be a lot more fun and productive.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is there anything similar to Circuitous available in the market for use.
thanks
S
I really do not understand how people say that iOs 4 is better in multitasking than 2.1 android. I've used the "multitasking" feature of iPhone and it is for sure not multitasking. It behaves as it should only for native apps and I believe it will not finally work for every application of the appstore.
On the other hand, multitasking on android is better. Every app you choose to re-start comes at the state you left it. Not on the first screen. Of course there is a lot of room for development, but it actually is multitasking and not multitasking in quotes.
P.S. I kind of laugh with Jobs's enthusiasm for things that already exist in the market even for years (for example videocall). It is like they invented something revolutionary and actually there are many people who totally fall for all these...
Uneducated sheep...
darnap; said:
On the iPhone OS there is a similar model, with the difference that applications don't have 'activities' that can be independently closed. In case of memory starvation the OS first asks applications to free some memory, if possible, then starts killing them outright, but it has no means to force applications to free memory.
I stopped using task killers and found that they are not that needed unless you really can't stand small delays now and then. I didn't find the iPhone multitasking any friendlier at all...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Damap,
In both iOS 4 and jailbroken iPhone running backgrounded, any activities other than the telephone application can be manually closed rather then left running in the background, in order to free up memory.
I don't know about the other Android phones but I find SGS unbearably slow, whether if I do not use task killer to manually kill off the application every now and then. Not sure how much of it is due to the way Android multitask though.
ivas75 said:
I really do not understand how people say that iOs 4 is better in multitasking than 2.1 android. I've used the "multitasking" feature of iPhone and it is for sure not multitasking. It behaves as it should only for native apps and I believe it will not finally work for every application of the appstore.
On the other hand, multitasking on android is better. Every app you choose to re-start comes at the state you left it. Not on the first screen. Of course there is a lot of room for development, but it actually is multitasking and not multitasking in quotes.
P.S. I kind of laugh with Jobs's enthusiasm for things that already exist in the market even for years (for example videocall). It is like they invented something revolutionary and actually there are many people who totally fall for all these...
Uneducated sheep...
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There is some important points to be aware of, and most iPhone users are not aware of these points:
- If you want "true" multitasking, you must jailbreak and use backgrounder. All third party applications could then multitask. However, even that will not have two applications with audio running simultaneously. So, you can't have radio and music playing at the same time. The one in the background must pause.
- To be eligible for multitasking under iOS4 third party applications must specifically enable so. If not, you can only multitask them with jail breaking.
- if an application has been enabled for multitasking under iOS4, then backgrounder application in a jailbroken phone offers the option of letting user select the method of multitasking. The choices are to either multitask this application the "true" way as it always did prior to iOS4, or the iOS4 way (which means you don't start your applications from the beginning, but when in background, only certain processes such as GPS, VOIP, downloading, audio are running), or to automatically select the method, which means that if the application has been enabled for iOS4 multitasking then that mode will be used, otherwise it will multitask the "true" way.
sany; said:
Is there anything similar to Circuitous available in the market for use.
thanks
S
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Sorry I'm not aware of such customization possibility yet. But i would like to request for such tools so that multitasking in Android can be more easily performed. One thing about using back button for quitting application is that I find it goes to a different screen of the same application rather than the previous application, so it can be confusing. Sometime back button merely get rid of a pop up message but does not seem to quit the application.
You can't really get more simple than the os doing everything for you though. The point with android is you don't think about things like multi-tasking and just use your phone. Can't get more simple and elegant than that.
There is no need for a task manager like ios as you just open the apps you want without worrying about closing apps, or what's open and what's not.
ios on the other hand uses sudo multi-tasking, the apps don't actually stay open. I'm sure this works well but it has it's limitations. So when you close an app in ios task manager, you are not actually closing the app as it is already closed, essentialy you are just removing the icon from the drawer.
Android's system is far better. Why have a task manager when you don't need one, and especially when you only use sudo multi-tasking so the apps in the task manager are not even open at all.
Sent from my X10i using XDA App
bushbox browser said:
You can't really get more simple than the os doing everything for you though. The point with android is you don't think about things like multi-tasking and just use your phone. Can't get more simple and elegant than that.There is no need for a task manager like ios as you just open the apps you want without worrying about closing apps, or what's open and what's not.
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Both Android and iOS4 are exactly the same in saying that nobody shoud have to manually close an application. Both advocates that you let the OS close it when resources are insufficient. For iOS4, most of the application merely save the state where you left off, so it is not actually active, but with some exceptions: GPS, VOIP, audio playing, downloading, etc.
However, I personally do not find it to my liking. If I've been using say TomTom navigation software and have just completed a trip, and know that I wont be using it again in the next few days, I would rather be able to long press the home key to completely stop it, instead of just pressing the home key to keep it running in the background.
bushbox browser said:
So when you close an app in ios task manager, you are not actually closing the app as it is already closed, essentialy you are just removing the icon from the drawer.
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bushbox browser, this is not how it works, based on what I was told. If you have removed the icon from the multitasking dock, then come back to launch the application, it will start from the beginning rather than where you last left of. This was a question that I asked and was told the answer. Therefore, it is capable of stopping the task from running there, not merely removing the icon from the drawer.
Hope that helps to clear up the misconception.
eaglesteve said:
Both Android and iOS4 are exactly the same in saying that nobody shoud have to manually close an application. Both advocates that you let the OS close it when resources are insufficient. For iOS4, most of the application merely save the state where you left off, so it is not actually active, but with some exceptions: GPS, VOIP, audio playing, downloading, etc.
However, I personally do not find it to my liking. If I've been using say TomTom navigation software and have just completed a trip, and know that I wont be using it again in the next few days, I would rather be able to long press the home key to completely stop it, instead of just pressing the home key to keep it running in the background.
bushbox browser, this is not how it works, based on what I was told. If you have removed the icon from the multitasking dock, then come back to launch the application, it will start from the beginning rather than where you last left of. This was a question that I asked and was told the answer. Therefore, it is capable of stopping the task from running there, not merely removing the icon from the drawer.
Hope that helps to clear up the misconception.
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thanks all, it is really comforting enough to see comments from knowledgeable people in the forum who are really researching with the apps and how they work.
My only concern is that nothing in the background should slowdown the performance by hogging the resource. As long as it is taken care off that is fine.
sany said:
thanks all, it is really comforting enough to see comments from knowledgeable people in the forum who are really researching with the apps and how they work.
My only concern is that nothing in the background should slowdown the performance by hogging the resource. As long as it is taken care off that is fine.
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My concern is the same as yours too. Unfortunately, I'm personally of the view that allowing so many applicaitons to be kept alive DO hog resources and slow things down. Therefore I'm using the task killer on my SGS to manage it. I'm using a task killer that also kill itself after killing off the unwanted task, so that itself would not be taking more resources (or at least that's how I hope would turn out).
Then the other aspect of multitasking is the user interface or how we effect:
- showing all live applications (not just most recent 6 applications), to swith there. As I said, I've notice that on my SGS, if left alone, typically have 20 to 30 applications live. The long press of the home button showing just 6 of them is not exactly a workable way to switch, is it?
- then, there is an issue of being given the freedom to truely quit an application rather than minimise it to the background, and here Android's as well as iOS4's design leaves much to be desired IMO. They both need to learn from jailbroken iPhone's backgrounder.
- finally, I believe Android as an OS could improve by having a true task manager showing applications which are truely alive, thus allowing switching to them, as well as allowing quitting of the listed applications. Yes, if user want to let the OS manage it they could just leave the list alone and not quit it, but freedom should be given to users to do so.
That's the reason I much prefer the jailbroken iPhone's method of multitasking (especially when using the Circuitous method of task switching) over iOS4 as well as Android's.
This is like a neverending story, when I had WM phone everybody was b*tching about the way he have to go to task manager and close apps and always look for tha apps that are running. Now I have android which is doing everything on its own, u dont have to care about running apps and now is everybody dreaming about iPhonish multitasking. Did I land on Mars here?

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