Task Killers... The Answer from Google & Developers.

[Nickchapa]

Foud out which ones are eating battery... Did you see my screenie? Like all those that are apps are.

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[BayouFlyFisher]

Foud out which ones are eating battery... Did you see my screenie? Like all those that are apps are.

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That only shows which apps are loaded into memory. It does not show which are actually using cpu cycles and the battery. On the Droid with Chevy's 5.1 it's in Settings/About Phone/Battery Use. It will show the top 10 battery consumers. It will help point to your problem.

You really need to read this (I know it's been posted in this thread already): How Android Manages Processes

In Android, processes and Applications are two different things. An app can stay "running" in the background without any processes eating up your phone's resources. Android keeps the app in its memory so it launches more quickly and returns to its prior state. When your phone runs out of memory, Android will automatically start killing tasks on its own, starting with ones that you haven't used in awhile.
The problem is that Android uses RAM differently than, say, Windows. On Android, having your RAM nearly full is a good thing. It means that when you relaunch an app you've previously opened, the app launches quickly and returns to its previous state. So while Android actually uses RAM efficiently, most users see that their RAM is full and assume that's what's slowing down their phone. In reality, your CPU—which is only used by apps that are actually active—is almost always the bottleneck.

Why Task Killers Are (Usually) Bad News

Apps like Advanced Task Killer, the most popular task killer in the Market, act on the incorrect assumption that freeing up memory on an Android device is a good thing. When launched, it presents you with a list of "running" apps and the option to kill as many as you want. You can also hit the Menu button to access a more detailed "Services" view, that lists exactly which parts of each application are "running", how much memory they take up, and how much free memory is available on your phone. This set-up implies that the goal of killing these apps is to free up memory. Nowhere on the list does it mention the number of CPU cycles each app is consuming, only the memory you'll free by killing it. As we've learned, full memory is not a bad thing—we want to watch out for the CPU, the resource that actually slows down your phone and drains your battery life.
Thus, killing all but the essential apps (or telling Android to kill apps more aggressively with the "autokill" feature) is generally unnecessary. Furthermore, it's actually possible that this will worsen your phone's performance and battery life. Whether you're manually killing apps all the time or telling the task killer to aggressively remove apps from your memory, you're actually using CPU cycles when you otherwise wouldn't—killing apps that aren't doing anything in the first place.
In fact, some of the processes related to those apps will actually start right back up, further draining your CPU. If they don't, killing those processes can cause other sorts of problems—alarms don't go off, you don't receive text messages, or other related apps may force close without warning. All in all, you're usually better off letting your phone work as intended—especially if you're more of a casual user. In these instances, a task killer causes more problems than it solves.


Good luck with your phone issues!!

 

[Nickchapa]

Im trying to tell yoy I looked on the battery use area and thats what it said. That most of those r the problrm

 

[BayouFlyFisher]

Im trying to tell yoy I looked on the battery use area and thats what it said. That most of those r the problrm

List the top ten apps/services and their percentages so we can see exactly what is going on.

Thanks

 

[Nickchapa]

i just told you... they r running and thats whats going on...

 

[Martin030908]

All the evidence and support points to the utter uselessness of additional task killers...

 

[Helawat]

I sense a troll.

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[hookbill]

ok Nickchapa. Google is wrong, the developers are wrong we are wrong but you're right. We can stop arguing now.

 

[harrellj]

What your task killer is showing as running is not what is actually running. It is, instead, showing what is loaded into memory, waiting to be used. As you even mention yourself, the OS will load up your memory so that apps it thinks you'll use are faster. So a full memory uses as much power as empty memory.

To find out why battery life is improved when running a task killer, you need to find the rogue app(s). The best/easiest way to do so is see what are the items using the most battery. Why? Because what is using the CPU is using the battery. The top items tend to be cell standby/display/android os. Others can be higher based on usage (it is a percentage-based metric after all).

Of course, turn off the meory management/task killers to get the most accurate view in the battery usage list. Once you/we know your top battery hogs, suggestions can be made for alternatives.

Yeah, yeah.. I'm on my phone. So?

 

[zeppelinrox]

You can control androids built-in low memory management/task killing and customize it to your liking/needs....

SuperCharge Your Milestone and Droid! Tips, Tricks and Tweaks!

 

[hrdnhvy]

Advanced task killer is not opening the apps, those are the apps that have opened themselves, and that are running or that are sitting in wait in the background, u will find that u can not kill "forground" apps via a task killer & in most cases you dont want t to depending on the app & its role & what its going to do after u kill it.

I have advanced task killer but it opens apps i don't even use. the other ones are taskiller i was thinking about it because its useful and task panel is good but it takes up space. i heard of TaslkManager.

 

[harrellj]

Advanced task killer is not opening the apps, those are the apps that have opened themselves, and that are running or that are sitting in wait in the background, u will find that u can not kill "forground" apps via a task killer & in most cases you dont want t to depending on the app & its role & what its going to do after u kill it.

I have advanced task killer but it opens apps i don't even use. the other ones are taskiller i was thinking about it because its useful and task panel is good but it takes up space. i heard of TaslkManager.

To be more precise, you don't want to autokill apps at all. Hrdnhvy is correct, ATK is not opening apps on you, those apps are relaunching themselves after being killed.

The OS is designed to keep the memory fairly full, so that if you want to use an app, there's a good chance it is already in memory and will load faster (look up Windows and prefetching if you want a computer-based explanation). Any apps you autokill will just be restarted so they can be used (and yes, this includes apps you never use because one day it may be needed or it is tied into other apps that you're using).

Notice I keep saying autokill? That is bad, because you can get into a cycle where you kill an app, it launches itself, it gets killed and on and on. Some apps need to be autokilled, however they are badly programmed and should be replaced/upgraded ASAP. For the few times that an app goes bonkers, you can manually kill it in settings (or just reboot the phone).

Yeah, yeah.. I'm on my phone. So?

 

[Natey2]

... Notice I keep saying autokill? That is bad, because you can get into a cycle where you kill an app, it launches itself, it gets killed and on and on.

This can occur under low-memory conditions caused by memory/resource leaks, and not always caused by 3rd party task killers. I replicated it here:
http://www.droidforums.net/forum/dr...oid-apps-doing-behind-scenes.html#post1331045


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[zeppelinrox]

I posted earlier about it but i made a big update.
I fixed memory management problems by rearranging groupings and app priorities...

[Script]V6 SuperCharger !! HTK & BulletProof Launchers! FIX MEMORY FOR ALL ANDROIDS! - xda-developers

With real memory management... say buh bye to minfree managers that always stay in memory... plus fix OOM groupings...

Also, you can use your own settings.
Use the 3rd slot to set how much free memory that you want

Before...

After...

During....



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[grace1169]

En..Have got a new phone. I know that Task Kill is to shut down apps unresponsive. I am wondering is it OK not to install this one. Do you know other ways to end an app unresponsive?