i listened and took off my app killer.

[dkshaer]

Had Apollo task killer for a month or so and then after reading various posts, removed it. Have not noticed any decrease in speed or performance and maybe a slight increase. My conclusion - task killer is not necessary.

Have Juice Defender but have it disabled until it is updated to work with 2.1. I clearly noticed the battery lasting longer with Juice Defender and Ultimate Juice at work.

 

[aminaked]

I've read it so many times. The guy at the verizon store installed it for me. Do they get a commission for this stuff? Do you really think google failed and it has come down to these GED-wanting verizon store reps to help out? Apologies to any smart people who work in cell phone stores but most of them are misinformed.

 

[jarby]

The rep at the Verizon store put ATK on my phone as well. Did I mention that already? Sorry if I'm repeating myself. I didn't even have to ask. How convenient. But he said I HAD to have it or my battery would just die in like 2 hours.

Okay....I deleted any task killer I had on my phone. Ran it for a day, but I didn't use it heavily. It usually remains in my pocket for most of the day while I'm working and give it some decent use on my break. I was still at 90% battery by the end of the day. So I really don't see the difference in keeping a task killer.

But I would like to run it with some decent use and see where I end up at. That's tomorrow's task. I did download ATK again.....I think I have OCD over this. Can I sue Verizon for this? Anyways, going to run my phone but I'm not going to touch ATK once and see where I end up. That's the true test for me.

Also, I did install Android System Info and I can stop tasks manually if needed be. Using just that alone seemed to work just fine the other day.

I'm still on the fence though. You have to give me the benefit of the doubt here. I was told from the beginning that this is a MUST have. Sometimes it's hard to break old habits.

 

[SpykeZ]

The reason you get better battery life out of your phone is cause android is based off linux, it can handle it's own memory on it's own. It's something people here don't get and don't seem to understand ever. Killing apps is only going to let your phone have to restart them which uses more CPU cycles to start them up thus using more battery.

There is literally no point to killing tasks. Once it's stored in the memory it'll kill it's own task on it's own, and being linux, it can store idle apps with it virtually using no resources.

App needs more memory? it'll close off what it doesn't need.

So to whoever said it's something the task bashers will never get? Sorry but your the one that will never "get" how the OS works.

Only time I ever needed to kill a task is when a game or something gets bugged and won't close, and for that, I use system panel since it shows a lot more information than these other crappy task killers.

 

[brando56894]

I stopped using task killers about a month after I got the droid and read one of these threads. I still have them available but rarely use them, I leave the memory management up to Pete's scripts

Since this is along the same lines check out autostarts from the market. it allows you to manage what apps load at various stages.

 

[aminaked]

I totally agree with the direction of this thread right now. I am against AUTOMATED task killers. There is sometimes the need for a MANUAL task killer like Android System Info...like when you have a buggy app that hangs. I'd suggest that those apps should be uninstalled as you're the dev's guinea pig if you tolerate it.

Furthermore, I try to use the "Exit" or "Quit" button in an app when I'm done using it. This probably isn't all that necessary in many cases, but it does give the app a chance to free up some resources if it does have threads running.

Other ways to get a speedy phone w/ long battery life: cut down on widgets and any apps that autostart (antivirus, automated task killers, notepads with reminders--I use Papyrus which doesn't autostart--etc., etc.)

 

[Merritt]

Uninstalled my taskkiller a few days ago and haven't really noticed any decrease in speed or battery life. If anything it's gotten a little better, and I can always go to the applications menu and check on which apps are running, and have the option to stop them or leave them alone.

 

[adrynalyne]

Well, one of these days when somebody's battery runs down in 2 hours and they can't make a phone call, you folks saying task managers aren't needed and shouldn't be on the phone are gonna have to answer for it.

Its a grey area, and it would behoove you to learn more about how your phone reacts to the killing of tasks, and realize, that only in a perfect world does every app behave as its supposed to, and not sit in the background burning cpu cycles. This in the end kills the battery and performance.



Here is my take on it.


http://www.droidforums.net/forum/dr...t-battery-life-tips-reasons-4.html#post467042

 

[Darkseider]

Well, one of these days when somebody's battery runs down in 2 hours and they can't make a phone call, you folks saying task managers aren't needed and shouldn't be on the phone are gonna have to answer for it.

Its a grey area, and it would behoove you to learn more about how your phone reacts to the killing of tasks, and realize, that only in a perfect world does every app behave as its supposed to, and not sit in the background burning cpu cycles. This in the end kills the battery and performance.



Here is my take on it.


http://www.droidforums.net/forum/dr...t-battery-life-tips-reasons-4.html#post467042

Plain and simple. If your battery runs down in 2 hours you are running bad apps, a bad ROM, bad kernel or a combination of all 3. It is well known at this point by folks that spent the time and money to test all these auto task killers and process killers, etc... that they have absolutely NO positive effect AT ALL on usability or battery life. These tests were done over a period of time repeating the same tasks and usage time over and over to ensure consistent results. I can say with a clear conscience and complete honesty that Auto Task Killers/process killers have absolutely no effect on a device that is running PROPERLY.

The key here is that the ROM, Kernel and applications are all working properly and playing nicely. If there is one or more bad apps then the task killers are treating the symptom and not the cause. In that case the battery life may increase from what it was but is still not what is should be as the the errant app/apps will restart again and again ad nauseum due to the task killer killing it.

A perfect example of an app that went errant recently was SetCPU. Now this app is a good app when working PROPERLY but the fact that it was discovered in version 1.52 to not only reduce battery but cause excessive heat as well. Now folks didn't remove SetCPU because they needed it. Had they known initially and removed it they would have had reduced temps and better battery. Now with SetCPU v1.51a and the latest update things are back to normal and it is working properly.

Again this is just one example of how a bad app can really muck with the system causing folks that use Auto Task/Process killers to have a placebo effect of better battery life. When in all reality if the root of the cause is traced down and removed and/or fixed the need for this crutch would no longer be necessary as cited in the above example.

 

[aminaked]

Maybe the conclusion is that if you like experimenting with new apps that are often not ready for primetime, an automated task killer is a good idea.

If you stick to well-designed apps, an automated task killer just uses resources as the OS is designed to handle this stuff--if all is working as intended.

To each his own!

 

[brando56894]

I blame my poor battery life on buggy apps. When Pete released BBv1 everything was perfect and flying.

I decided to do a complete reinstall since I had an annoying (but not performance hindering) problem with the market so I reflashed the SBF, re-rooted with DMupdater and flashed BB and proceeded to reinstall 150 apps manually.

It was fine for a few days and then everything seemed to slowly go to hell over the course of a week or so. Over this time I received about 10-20 app updates and stuff is crashing now on a regular basis, Caller ID doesn't work, It takes me about 30-45 seconds to even attempt to answer a call (phone freezes/lags), and the phone in general is extremely laggy as if I was running at about 250-400 MHz when in reality I'm running between 800-1200 MHz. My CPU usage is always about 50-100% and will stay there for a few minutes and then drop back down to idle, once I try to do stuff again it jumps back up to 75-100%

 

[adrynalyne]

Well, one of these days when somebody's battery runs down in 2 hours and they can't make a phone call, you folks saying task managers aren't needed and shouldn't be on the phone are gonna have to answer for it.

Its a grey area, and it would behoove you to learn more about how your phone reacts to the killing of tasks, and realize, that only in a perfect world does every app behave as its supposed to, and not sit in the background burning cpu cycles. This in the end kills the battery and performance.



Here is my take on it.


http://www.droidforums.net/forum/dr...t-battery-life-tips-reasons-4.html#post467042

Plain and simple. If your battery runs down in 2 hours you are running bad apps, a bad ROM, bad kernel or a combination of all 3. It is well known at this point by folks that spent the time and money to test all these auto task killers and process killers, etc... that they have absolutely NO positive effect AT ALL on usability or battery life. These tests were done over a period of time repeating the same tasks and usage time over and over to ensure consistent results. I can say with a clear conscience and complete honesty that Auto Task Killers/process killers have absolutely no effect on a device that is running PROPERLY.

The key here is that the ROM, Kernel and applications are all working properly and playing nicely. If there is one or more bad apps then the task killers are treating the symptom and not the cause. In that case the battery life may increase from what it was but is still not what is should be as the the errant app/apps will restart again and again ad nauseum due to the task killer killing it.

A perfect example of an app that went errant recently was SetCPU. Now this app is a good app when working PROPERLY but the fact that it was discovered in version 1.52 to not only reduce battery but cause excessive heat as well. Now folks didn't remove SetCPU because they needed it. Had they known initially and removed it they would have had reduced temps and better battery. Now with SetCPU v1.51a and the latest update things are back to normal and it is working properly.

Again this is just one example of how a bad app can really muck with the system causing folks that use Auto Task/Process killers to have a placebo effect of better battery life. When in all reality if the root of the cause is traced down and removed and/or fixed the need for this crutch would no longer be necessary as cited in the above example.

Like I said...in a perfect world, task killers may not be needed. Can you yourself qualify what apps are perfect in this scenario?

Lets concentrate on apps, because not everyone is rooted.

 

[Darkseider]

Well, one of these days when somebody's battery runs down in 2 hours and they can't make a phone call, you folks saying task managers aren't needed and shouldn't be on the phone are gonna have to answer for it.

Its a grey area, and it would behoove you to learn more about how your phone reacts to the killing of tasks, and realize, that only in a perfect world does every app behave as its supposed to, and not sit in the background burning cpu cycles. This in the end kills the battery and performance.



Here is my take on it.


http://www.droidforums.net/forum/dr...t-battery-life-tips-reasons-4.html#post467042

Plain and simple. If your battery runs down in 2 hours you are running bad apps, a bad ROM, bad kernel or a combination of all 3. It is well known at this point by folks that spent the time and money to test all these auto task killers and process killers, etc... that they have absolutely NO positive effect AT ALL on usability or battery life. These tests were done over a period of time repeating the same tasks and usage time over and over to ensure consistent results. I can say with a clear conscience and complete honesty that Auto Task Killers/process killers have absolutely no effect on a device that is running PROPERLY.

The key here is that the ROM, Kernel and applications are all working properly and playing nicely. If there is one or more bad apps then the task killers are treating the symptom and not the cause. In that case the battery life may increase from what it was but is still not what is should be as the the errant app/apps will restart again and again ad nauseum due to the task killer killing it.

A perfect example of an app that went errant recently was SetCPU. Now this app is a good app when working PROPERLY but the fact that it was discovered in version 1.52 to not only reduce battery but cause excessive heat as well. Now folks didn't remove SetCPU because they needed it. Had they known initially and removed it they would have had reduced temps and better battery. Now with SetCPU v1.51a and the latest update things are back to normal and it is working properly.

Again this is just one example of how a bad app can really muck with the system causing folks that use Auto Task/Process killers to have a placebo effect of better battery life. When in all reality if the root of the cause is traced down and removed and/or fixed the need for this crutch would no longer be necessary as cited in the above example.

Like I said...in a perfect world, task killers may not be needed. Can you yourself qualify what apps are perfect in this scenario?

Lets concentrate on apps, because not everyone is rooted.

At this point yes. Seeing that I run a very minimal amount of apps and those that I do run are stable, from what I can tell, and have never caused any issues all. Now some of their earlier iterations caused some havoc at which point I removed them until there was a fix. One for example was the initial offering of the Engadget app. When it was first released it would cause slowdowns, FC and even have its' process run amok and unchecked even though it was doing nothing. I promptly removed the app and no problems. It has been updated since and works like a charm.

That's just one example I have had with a bad application. Others will have other experiences as well and if you search the forums there are plenty of examples to be found. As for apps in a perfect world. Stock applications installed from factory, 99% of the time those offered by a large outlet such as Discovery Channel, Fandango, Layar, etc... Not saying that small 3rd parties are all bad apps., as a matter of fact some are excellent and I have them. I have uninstalled more than I kept because they just didn't fit the bill but again that doesn't mean they are all bad.

Examples of third party apps that play nice would be:

Dropbox, Meridian, Hoccer, Ringdroid, SwiFTP

It does take time though to use the applications, find what works and what doesn't and then based on these findings essentially separate the wheat from the chaff. It takes time and effort. Then again anything that is worth doing takes time and effort. So there you have it.

 

[aminaked]

I blame my poor battery life on buggy apps. When Pete released BBv1 everything was perfect and flying.

I decided to do a complete reinstall since I had an annoying (but not performance hindering) problem with the market so I reflashed the SBF, re-rooted with DMupdater and flashed BB and proceeded to reinstall 150 apps manually.

It was fine for a few days and then everything seemed to slowly go to hell over the course of a week or so. Over this time I received about 10-20 app updates and stuff is crashing now on a regular basis, Caller ID doesn't work, It takes me about 30-45 seconds to even attempt to answer a call (phone freezes/lags), and the phone in general is extremely laggy as if I was running at about 250-400 MHz when in reality I'm running between 800-1200 MHz. My CPU usage is always about 50-100% and will stay there for a few minutes and then drop back down to idle, once I try to do stuff again it jumps back up to 75-100%

You are living on the edge, my man. Cool beans!

Sounds like somewhere in there, either your extreme customization or one or more of those 150 apps is the problem, as you say. You need to carry around a supercomputer.

 

[Abby Normal]

Like a lot of others the verizon store installed ATK on my phone telling me I needed it....

I used to get a lot of freeze ups and had to remove battery to get started again.

I removed ATK, the freeze ups stopped...

After awhile and some upgrades I thought I would give it a try again. I installed it once more.. Didn't take long,,, a week or so and I got a freeze up again. I removed it and have never got a freeze up since...

Of course having said this, I will probably get freeze up as soon as I post this :icon_evil: