I Need Help With Task Management

[music_man185]

i've read several articles on the internet that state that android does not need a task killer. that it manages and closes tasks all on its own. however, last night i pulled up all my running applications. i was using over 300mb of ram. my phone had been idling for over an hour (screen off, no usage). and i still had applications running that i hadn't used in several hours such as gallery and tikl. shouldn't android have killed these apps by that point? and isn't 300mb of ram a lot at one time?

edit: i also noticed that tikl uses quite a bit of ram. but every time i force it to stop, it comes back on its own without me even opening it.​

 

[nbucko]

Android leaves the recently used apps in memory until you open a different app that needs some of that memory. It could theoretically be days before it closes anything if you don't open many different apps.

Sent from my Droid using DroidForums

 

[tjk629]

I'm going to use the analogy of a door for some of this.

Android will put a placeholder for some apps into memory. Normally this is a small size and just allows the app to load faster. Just like if you were to leave a door open a crack, cause someone will be coming in soon.

Like on my Bionic. VZ Navigator is using up 5MB of RAM. Obviously, VZ Navigator doesn't just use 5MB.

This is why task killers aren't always helpful. Cause say you put an app like tikl on a auto kill list. The task killer will kill it, but Android will just re open it. Just like someone opening and closing a door.

Ultimately, it's best to let Android do what it's going to do. It will manage everything, and if it needs the resources it will get it. Only use things like Task Killers (or better Task Managers) to take care of Apps that are acting bad.

 

[music_man185]

ok. but is running 300+mb of ram going to drain my battery faster?

 

[tjk629]

ok. but is running 300+mb of ram going to drain my battery faster?

Depends on what is in the RAM. If it's just an app sitting there it's really nothing. But if you have stuff like email, social networking, weather, GPS location, etc. where it's getting data then yeah it'll drain the battery.

Are you having issues with battery life on your device?

 

[kodiak799]

300+ mb of ram! Man, I'm so ready to upgrade my D1 lol

 

[tjk629]

300+ mb of ram! Man, I'm so ready to upgrade my D1 lol

It's actually fairly common. My Bionic has 420MB and a DX and Droid Pro I checked out had like 211/268MB.

 

[music_man185]

i'm not sure what average battery life is for the droid x. i take my phone off the charger at 6:00 a.m., during the day i do some moderate web browsing, a couple very short calls, and a few texts. i'm usually down to 30-40 percent battery when i get home around 6:00 p.m.