PLEASE READ: Do NOT worry about Apps running in the Background

[Steeeler]

I deleted the App Killer...it just leads to OCD : )

I am so glad I am not the only one who suffered from this! Just cant seem to stay away from the app killer icon.

 

[ThePhoneGuy]

I have 15 apps running right now in the background according to APP KILLER, I haven't touch or killed any of the apps except for the APP KILLER itself, i killed APP KILLER only, and left the other apps to play themselves out.

With about 10 text messages and three calls, a few internet surfs, and a 2 minute timer on the face screen... i still have a pretty strong battery left, just the tip of the battery has darken since 9AM.

I still have 15 apps running, its 5pm, my phone has been idle since my above post, no calls, no texts, the battery icon still only has the tip part darken.

its now 930pm, i sent a few text messages and as of right now there's 12 apps running, i haven't played with the phone at all, i left the DROID idle and only use when i needed to, and the tip of the battery icon is darken.

So i left the apps running "at will" all day with little phone use to see if the apps would kill the phone.... they didn't. Doing other things may drain the battery like, playing with the phone, screen light, GPS, Bluetooth, and maps, but the apps themselves didn't seem to drain the battery to point where we have to obsess about them running in the background. Thanks

 

[burkey1000]

Took phone of charge, full night charge. 7am this morning. Went to work had the phone in my pocket, must have somehow how started the sat nav, was in my twice weekly morning meeting when the phone shouts out, "gps signal lost ", knew it had started the nav some how. Anyway to save time i just clicked the back button to get away from the screen thinking it was off. Wrong, by luchtime phone was totaly dead wouldnt even start back up. So yes gps is heavy on the battery life.

 

[blackngray70]

Good info thanks!

 

[Getaphixx]

TY andjarnic for taking the time to elaborate.

 

[rican408]

Ok this the kinda thing people will argue about on crackberry. I have to say once again I dissagree. True I know nothing about how this works besides what was explained in this thread. But what I have actually experienced is different. My phone will slow to a halt! The only thing that fixes it is to restart the phone or use appkiller. Then my phone goes back to being super snappy....

 

[Big Cam]

Good to know, that's one thig I currently hate about my BB.

 

[Zenmervolt]

Took phone of charge, full night charge. 7am this morning. Went to work had the phone in my pocket, must have somehow how started the sat nav, was in my twice weekly morning meeting when the phone shouts out, "gps signal lost ", knew it had started the nav some how. Anyway to save time i just clicked the back button to get away from the screen thinking it was off. Wrong, by luchtime phone was totaly dead wouldnt even start back up. So yes gps is heavy on the battery life.

A slight correction here:

Having an active GPS connection is heavy on battery life. I leave GPS and WiFi enabled and still can let the phone run for 7 hours with only a 30% drop in battery power. If I start up an app that actually uses the GPS continuously, the battery drains much faster, but merely having GPS enabled in the phone's settings will not kill the battery; you have to have a running application that actually makes use of GPS for the battery to drain.

I know that you're talking about potential battery use from a GPS app running in the background, and I agree with you on that, but I did want to point out that just having the GPS option enabled in the phone's settings won't drain the battery; there has to be an app using it.

 

[Dream]

Took phone of charge, full night charge. 7am this morning. Went to work had the phone in my pocket, must have somehow how started the sat nav, was in my twice weekly morning meeting when the phone shouts out, "gps signal lost ", knew it had started the nav some how. Anyway to save time i just clicked the back button to get away from the screen thinking it was off. Wrong, by luchtime phone was totaly dead wouldnt even start back up. So yes gps is heavy on the battery life.

A slight correction here:

Having an active GPS connection is heavy on battery life. I leave GPS and WiFi enabled and still can let the phone run for 7 hours with only a 30% drop in battery power. If I start up an app that actually uses the GPS continuously, the battery drains much faster, but merely having GPS enabled in the phone's settings will not kill the battery; you have to have a running application that actually makes use of GPS for the battery to drain.

I know that you're talking about potential battery use from a GPS app running in the background, and I agree with you on that, but I did want to point out that just having the GPS option enabled in the phone's settings won't drain the battery; there has to be an app using it.

I just turned my GPS off but I did notice that whenever using the web, google.com would always locate me. I assume it was using GPS. I also have WeatherBug Elite and I had the setting to "my location" updating every 30 minutes. I turned that off as well and just used my home city since I never travel more than 30-40 miles away in a day. Im hoping this will increase my battery life. I was seeing 20% drop every 2 hours with little to no use.

 

[Zenmervolt]

I just turned my GPS off but I did notice that whenever using the web, google.com would always locate me. I assume it was using GPS. I also have WeatherBug Elite and I had the setting to "my location" updating every 30 minutes. I turned that off as well and just used my home city since I never travel more than 30-40 miles away in a day. Im hoping this will increase my battery life. I was seeing 20% drop every 2 hours with little to no use.

I've been using the Weather Channel's widget instead of WeatherBug (since WeatherBug's PC software has historically been awful I didn't want to install it on my phone) and it uses the "my location" setting as well, but I don't see bad battery drain from it. It might be worthwhile to try using something other than WeatherBug? I have no idea if that will help, but it's possible that TWC was a bit tighter in their coding and they aren't polling GPS info but are basing location on cell tower data.

When using the web, IIRC the google main page will ping for location each session, but I believe it can get that from cell towers too (I may very well be wrong on this, someone correct me if I am). I haven't noticed this using any appreciable amount of battery though.

My phone settings:

- Exchange active-synch (push) enabled
- Google calendar widget
- The Weather Channel widget (set to "my location")
- WiFi, GPS, and Synch enabled
- Screen brightness off (the lowest setting, the one below "auto")
- Battery Widget (just so I don't have to go into settings to get a quick percentage readout)
- Screen time-out at 1 minute

And, of course, whatever main app I am running at the time. I'm pretty anal about shutting an app down when I'm done with it rather than just going back to the home screen.

One last thing to check is to make sure that you have updated your phone's PRL. This ensures that it has the latest cell tower preferences which can make a big difference in power consumption. Sometimes an out-dated PRL can have your phone trying to use an old tower and having to transmit at higher power and ping more often as a result.

To update the PRL, dial *228 and choose option 2.

 

[Over50Droid]

Best post I have ever read!! Made a whole lot of sense to me!!

 

[burkey1000]

Just to clear things up here, when i said the gps was on i did mean the navigation i thought i made it clear. It was trying to give me directions so the nav was running. Not just gps enabled, and just wanted to point out that when using the navigation its heavy on the battery. hope this clears things up a little, but thought i made it clear on my post that the sat nav was running the program. Hope this helps to clear it up.

 

[kunak83]

So how is everyone's battery life without killing any apps?

 

[ThePhoneGuy]

So how is everyone's battery life without killing any apps?

Great, the only Apps i kill are, maps, bluetooth, WiFi, and GPS.

 

[New2u]

the apps that come native on the phone i keep running except browser. Everything else i kill when i'm done with it, i don't care if i need to or not, just what i do.