Autoloading apps - now short bat life

[harrellj]

For the redraw issue, there's a setting in launcherpro that will have it attempt to keep itself in memory. However, I'd suggest trying to figure out what is causing the memory bloat (and getting the devs to fix the offending app) for a more permanent fix. Also, are you rooted? If so, feel free to kill off certain apps (and be careful which system apps you uninstall, some are required for other features of the phone... like talk is used for the market). Plus, rooting gives you the ability to get more in-depth in figuring out what the system is doing.

Check out your battery usage meter, that'll give you a fair idea of what might be not only killing the battery, but also maybe gobbling up memory (and yes, the display will likely be tops in that list).

 

[eliassami5]

I don't know, but I typically kind of care why these things run. I use LauncherPro, and the thing redraws (preventing me from interacting with anything) when my phone's low on free RAM. I noticed that this particularly happens when all these things are running in the background, whether they're in the foreground or not. Perhaps this is an issue with LP, but still, I still like free RAM because it seems to give me fewer issues.

anything that is memory intensive will cause your home screen to close, playing flash games, watching flash videos, playing some games from the market..etc. Apps are only allowed to use a certain amount of memory and if they are improperly written or just are memory intensive by nature it will cause android to have to close down many more programs than it usually would, like the home app, and other important processes.

Play with launcher pros memory settings and see what works best for you, try starting with the low memory preset setting and keep increasing memory allotment till you have no more redraws. Launcher Pro's developer has stated that the default memory setting that launcher pro comes with might not work for every phone so play with it till you find something that works for you.

 

[tgs3838]

For the redraw issue, there's a setting in launcherpro that will have it attempt to keep itself in memory. However, I'd suggest trying to figure out what is causing the memory bloat (and getting the devs to fix the offending app) for a more permanent fix. Also, are you rooted? If so, feel free to kill off certain apps (and be careful which system apps you uninstall, some are required for other features of the phone... like talk is used for the market). Plus, rooting gives you the ability to get more in-depth in figuring out what the system is doing.

Check out your battery usage meter, that'll give you a fair idea of what might be not only killing the battery, but also maybe gobbling up memory (and yes, the display will likely be tops in that list).

how do you check your battey usage. Prob stupid question. But im not sure how to do it

 

[jsh1120]

I do not understand why apps that I do not use and do not intend to use are running. Amazon MP3, visual voice mail, voice search and My Verizon Mobile I never use. I have a crigs list app that runs all the time and I use the app every 2 or 3 weeks, why should it be running?

The problem here is a misunderstanding of the term "running." Just because an app is loaded in memory does not mean it is "running." It is simply sitting there, ready to run if needed. In the event that the Android operating system needs that memory space it will remove it from memory.

It may offend you that an app you never use is "in memory," but it has no effect on either performance of your phone or the longevity of your battery.

 

[binxwalker]

I do not understand why apps that I do not use and do not intend to use are running. Amazon MP3, visual voice mail, voice search and My Verizon Mobile I never use. I have a crigs list app that runs all the time and I use the app every 2 or 3 weeks, why should it be running?

The problem here is a misunderstanding of the term "running." Just because an app is loaded in memory does not mean it is "running." It is simply sitting there, ready to run if needed. In the event that the Android operating system needs that memory space it will remove it from memory.

It may offend you that an app you never use is "in memory," but it has no effect on either performance of your phone or the longevity of your battery.

I have to adamantly disagree with your sweeping generalization that all apps that load into memory are just "sitting there, ready to run if needed". Applications NEVER just sit in memory and do nothing. They are constantly in communication with the CPU and the OS monitoring processes that they create in order to know when they may be needed to act on a request. Visual Voicemail is a perfect example of one of those apps. It opens multiple threads that are looking for requests to respond to AND it is a badly written app that behaves poorly with other communication processes. There is no reason to have any application running in memory that is not used and the fact that Verizon forces the loading of applications like Visual Voicemail and hides the service so that it cannot be disabled is infuriating.