Increase Battery Life with this Tip

[Auditor_Kevin]

Hey All,

By now, we all know that the skype mobile app is force-installed onto our Droid Xs and there's no way to remove it. So we're going to have to live with it (for the time being).

I'm also sure some of you have realized that the phone auto-starts the Skype mobile app upon startup. So on top of it being bloatware, it's also draws precious battery power.

I just read this on another forum, but did you know that if you actually fire up the Skype app and go into the settings, you can disable the "Auto start"?

This will keep it from starting up and drawing battery life every time we turn on our phones.

Also helpful for the 99% of DX owners that will never use Skype: disable ALL the settings. That way it will never search for updates or notifications, either.

 

[QuadsWest]

Nice tip! Thanks.

 

[kpiskin]

I'm not exactly sure what I've done other than deep cycle my DX a couple times but my battery life has improved dramatically over the past few days to the point that it seems better than my original Droid.

 

[IIGood]

I've never fired up Skype prior to seeing this thread.

Yesterday, I did update my X with the .604 OTA update.

I opened Skype Mobile today to check the above mentioned settings and the option to start Skype when the phone starts was already unchecked...

 

[Auditor_Kevin]

Well that's good that yours was unchecked.

My default Skype setting was "always turn on at phone startup", so I unchecked that..........along with every single other option.

 

[WHOisDAN]

Mine was already unchecked.

 

[Elkay]

My was defaulted to auto-start the day I got it and I was quick to change that and turn off every other setting in there that I could. Even still, I find that if I use ATK I still see it load on reboot anyway so I still have to kill it. Not sure what's making it still load.

 

[rastaman]

Where/how in the DroidX do you uncheck these app? Is there someway I could find out what should be running and what shouldn't? I know that's up to the user, I'm not sure what I'm using and what I'm not.

 

[Elkay]

Advanced Task Killer (ATK). As for a list of what is needed versus not, it's somewhat personal preference but I've seen no actual list of what should be running for basic functionality. It's in safe mode by default and won't let you kill anything that's going to lock the phone up, and a simple reboot will restore all of the default running apps.

 

[rastaman]

Cool, thanks! Does it matter which OS sytem, or which phone you have?

 

[Ringhale]

Funny mine was unchecked too, but if I go through settings and check running apps skype is listed as a running app.. so it seems as unchecking it did nothing for me,,,

 

[6thgear]

nice tip, thanks