New (so far quite happy) Droid owner with two quesions

[dsg29]

Hi all! I've had my Motorola Droid for four days now, and of course it's rarely left my hand. This is my first smartphone, and so far it's everything I hoped for. I never liked Blackberries and I refused to leave Verizon for the iPhone, and to be honest, wasn't interested in settling for a smartphone that was less than what I determined I needed.

The Droid OS takes a little getting used to, and I'm sure I'll have lots of questions that will be answered hereabouts. In the meantime, I do have a two part introductory question for all of you wiser, more experienced users -- which should be just about everyone, I guess. I had done a TON of research on the phone and all the best, greatest hits apps I needed to get started. I've mastered customized and assigned ringtones, syncing, background and other setup stuff. Among the apps I immediately installed was Advanced Task Killer - free edition. It does a great job, but I notice that certain apps keep opening themselves repeatedly, and have to be killed again. This is annoying.
First question: How can I keep things like the corporate calendar (which I don't use) and its pesky brethren from turning themselves back on and sucking down memory and battery life?

Second question: Can I delete (or permanently hide) standard installed stuff that I never plan to use (like the Corporate calendar, the standard, installed Verizon ringtones that I will never EVER use) and other apps that are just taking up valuable real estate?
Thanks, gang!
David

 

[Matth3w]

1. You can't, unless...

2. You root and do what you asked in question number two...

 

[natediddy1120]

Yep...Matth3w is correct...

But I'll also go ahead and tell you that you do not need the task killer.... at all...just do a search of the forum about it

 

[dsg29]

Thanks, Matth3w! (cue mad scientist obsessively rubbing hands together) "Excellent. We shall be performing a bit of surgery on the patient, then. This won't hurt a bit....."

Hmm, Natediddy, that's interesting. I'll start hunting for wisdom on it. Hey, learning new stuff already! You guys are helpful. I appreciate it.

 

[BayouFlyFisher]

Thanks, Matth3w! (cue mad scientist obsessively rubbing hands together) "Excellent. We shall be performing a bit of surgery on the patient, then. This won't hurt a bit....."

Hmm, Natediddy, that's interesting. I'll start hunting for wisdom on it. Hey, learning new stuff already! You guys are helpful. I appreciate it.

Is this place great or what?? You got two two great responses in 6 minutes. Try that with anybodies customer service department!!

I agree, you do not need a task killer. That is one of the great things about the android operating system. It manages ram expertly. It will knock anything out of ram that it needs to in order to do the job at hand. It takes no battery power for something to be loaded in ram. It does take some power however to be constantly kill stuff and then having it restart. Killing apps is sooooo a Windows thing.

Welcome aboard and enjoy this place and your phone.

 

[Matth3w]

I have a task killer but I rarely use it. However, I have ALL of the important applications excluded from killing. But once a day I will kill apps that are chillin in the background.

 

[dsg29]

Hunh. BayouFlyFisher, you just pointed something out that I should have realized. I'm coming at this OS with an old, WIN based mindthink. I assume that app handling and memory management are the same on Droid as they are in Windows and I must watch everything like a hawk.
It ain't necessarily so. That's certainly going to be a very useful thing for me to remember for the future with this device and OS. Thanks for that one.

And yep, I'm thrilled with the quick, knowledgeable welcome. It's been less than a half hour and you guys have already made me much smarter. You rock.

 

[BayouFlyFisher]

Hunh. BayouFlyFisher, you just pointed something out that I should have realized. I'm coming at this OS with an old, WIN based mindthink. I assume that app handling and memory management are the same on Droid as they are in Windows and I must watch everything like a hawk.
It ain't necessarily so. That's certainly going to be a very useful thing for me to remember for the future with this device and OS. Thanks for that one.

And yep, I'm thrilled with the quick, knowledgeable welcome. It's been less than a half hour and you guys have already made me much smarter. You rock.

The real "frame of mind" change between android and windows was pointed out to me a while back when I referred to some feature (I think it was long press some button to activate a menu) as "not very intuitive". A poster pointed out to me that was because I was in a windows frame of mind and had come to think of "right click" as being intuitive. And of course it isn't any more intuitive than Long Press, it's just been drilled into my head for years and years.

Anyway, have fun.