The Droid has its own task killer

[gatorbait]

It seems like task killer apps are some of the best selling apps in the Android marketplace, but isn't this because past Android phones didn't have the capability to kills apps themselves? I know the Droid can run pretty efficiently without killing apps, but if you do need to kill them for some reason the Droid has the ability to kill running apps and processes without an app. It's under Settings ---> Applications.

Are there many people that are unaware of this capability? Because I am surprised of the number of people who download an app killer applications from the marketplace for their Droid. I know some of the app killers have advanced features, but I'm assuming the great majority of people are using them to manually kill running apps.

 

[cereal killer]

Personally I wont mess with Task Killer's anymore.

I do use the native one within 2.0 but thats to only shut down the browser at night.

 

[JhankG]

I think it comes down to convenience. I like being able to tap a widget on my homescreen to kill any apps that I haven't made an exception for.

 

[SCDroid]

I used Advanced Task Manager and then uninstalled and ran it for 3 days without it. Personally i felt that the phone had a lot less lag when i killed the apps i didn't want running. When i didn't have ATM the phone got extremely laggy after a days use and i'd have to restart around two times a day. With ATM i just kill the apps when it gets laggy. But to each his own.

 

[Dave12308]

They both kill off different things.

The built-in process killer is for stopping, starting, and re-starting background SERVICES.

The task killer app is for shutting down APPLICATIONS themselves.

Task killer would be like Windows' Task Manager
The built-in process killer would be like the services.msc control panel (Start -> Run -> services.msc)

 

[Dave12308]

I used Advanced Task Manager and then uninstalled and ran it for 3 days without it. Personally i felt that the phone had a lot less lag when i killed the apps i didn't want running. When i didn't have ATM the phone got extremely laggy after a days use and i'd have to restart around two times a day. With ATM i just kill the apps when it gets laggy. But to each his own.

It must be one of the apps you are running. I haven't used a task manager program since the day I got my Droid, and it always seems to run about the same. But a poorly coded 3rd party app that isn't shutting down correctly can potentially cause performance issues (memory leaks and things like that)

 

[ajs410]

Even better built-in task manager. Settings -> Application Settings -> Manage Applications. It's possible to put a Shortcut to this specific Settings sub-dialog on your home screen.

There's more. Touch menu -> filter -> running, and you will see everything that's running, and you can force stop things if you feel the need to.

Dave is right, think of this as "End Process" in Windows Task Manager. This is NOT the x button that closes the window. It's a rude way to shut down applications and should only be used when they're misbehaving.

 

[gatorbait]

Even better built-in task manager. Settings -> Application Settings -> Manage Applications. It's possible to put a Shortcut to this specific Settings sub-dialog on your home screen.

There's more. Touch menu -> filter -> running, and you will see everything that's running, and you can force stop things if you feel the need to.

Dave is right, think of this as "End Process" in Windows Task Manager. This is NOT the x button that closes the window. It's a rude way to shut down applications and should only be used when they're misbehaving.

Yes, this is what I was talking about in my original post. Isn't this basically the same thing that a downloaded task killer application would accomplish?

 

[Martin030908]

Even better built-in task manager. Settings -> Application Settings -> Manage Applications. It's possible to put a Shortcut to this specific Settings sub-dialog on your home screen.

I tried to doing this out of curiosity and found no way to do this... just for future reference.... how would you do this? the shortcut on the home screen that is

 

[ajs410]

Yes, this is what I was talking about in my original post. Isn't this basically the same thing that a downloaded task killer application would accomplish?

With the filter set to running, it's pretty much the same. Some task killers would show you system processes and others would just show you apps. Problem is this method takes several clicks, as there's no way to change the filter's default setting, and most "task killers" only require one click.

Then again, most task killers also run in the background, which is extra bad because it might kill something important at the wrong time, and it just wastes your battery. So maybe the extra clicks are good, as they become a deterrent for excessive use.

I tried to doing this out of curiosity and found no way to do this... just for future reference.... how would you do this? the shortcut on the home screen that is

Long press home screen -> shortcuts -> settings -> manage applications.

 

[Martin030908]

^ ahhh... minor oversight on my part. Thanks for pointing that out..... I had a brain fart.

 

[gatorbait]

Yes, this is what I was talking about in my original post. Isn't this basically the same thing that a downloaded task killer application would accomplish?

With the filter set to running, it's pretty much the same. Some task killers would show you system processes and others would just show you apps. Problem is this method takes several clicks, as there's no way to change the filter's default setting, and most "task killers" only require one click.

Then again, most task killers also run in the background, which is extra bad because it might kill something important at the wrong time, and it just wastes your battery. So maybe the extra clicks are good, as they become a deterrent for excessive use.

That's a great point about the extra clicks. A task killer app from the marketplace does definitely lend to ease-of-use, but like you said since it is always running in the background it can drain battery life and use system resources. I wonder how many people with Droid task killers knew you could actually filter the applications list to show only running applications? My primary reason for starting this thread was just to tell other Droid users of a capability that they may have not known existed!

 

[RW-1]

Please tell me if I'm misinformed, but if it is an application running that is just sitting idle, won't the OS at some point kill it? If it is misbehaving, then I can see that causing issues ....

 

[vandums]

I have never understood why most app just don't have a quit option programmed in. Then this wouldn't be an issue. If you just back out of something it stays open. If you choose quit is closes.

 

[Martin030908]

We've since consolidated the task killer discussion to this thread http://www.droidforums.net/forum/droid-applications/65483-task-killers-answer-google-developers.html

CLOSED.