Rooted 2.2 - Battery issues, lots of apps running

[deggdegg]

So after the whole August 18th 2.2 fiasco, I decided to root and upgrade to 2.2 at least until the official release so I can stop getting hyped up for nothing. Ever since doing so, it seems like a lot of apps are running on my phone, and I'm not sure what to do about them. Things like Voice Search, News and Weather, Facebook, Skype, etc, start up and restart immediately after killing them. This never happened for me on 2.1- I'd kill everything, and then everything would pretty much stay dead until I actually did something. Was there some change in 2.2 that makes more apps start up to be "on-demand"? I have News and Weather turned to not sync, Facebook is set to not sync, yet they keep starting up. Anything I can do about it?

Also, I'm not sure if it's related, but my battery life seems to be lower since I upgraded. Even doing a simple internet search and browsing for a few minutes seems to take 3-5% off the battery. I don't remember this happening on stock 2.1- I pretty much never even considered the battery, and could even go 2 days without charging. Could that be related to all these apps starting up?

 

[gatewayad]

Try this app, it lets you decide what you want to start on boot and you can disable apps from randomly starting on boot, should help
Autorun Killer in the market

 

[hookbill]

You need to understand that apps running in the background are not important. They don't kill your battery and they aren't running in full power. Task killers are not effective anyways.

Now the app the previous poster mentioned didn't save any battery life for me but it didn't hurt anything either, so that's the route I would go if you are going to obsess over this.

 

[deggdegg]

So Autorun Killer flagged Skype and Antivirus as self-restarters... I know in 2.1 these didn't keep starting up (Antivirus only started up when I downloaded something). Any idea if there's a way to disable this or should I just uninstall the apps?

 

[deggdegg]

Oh, and on the "task killers not being effective" point... even disregarding battery, you can't tell me my phone is running "better" with 80 MB of free RAM and 10 unnecessary things running in the background compared to 180-200 MB of free RAM with nothing running. If I need to start up an app on demand, wouldn't I be better off with more free RAM?

 

[robyr]

Oh, and on the "task killers not being effective" point... even disregarding battery, you can't tell me my phone is running "better" with 80 MB of free RAM and 10 unnecessary things running in the background compared to 180-200 MB of free RAM with nothing running. If I need to start up an app on demand, wouldn't I be better off with more free RAM?

Actually, he CAN say that. Because your "free RAM" was never taken up in the first place. It is simply paged/cached. There is NO usage of power for this. Infact, keeping memory full at all times will INCREASE your battery life because RAM is powered on REGARDLESS of whether or not it is currently occupied. You are simply exasperating your issue. Oh, and the reason Android pages apps you might not use at first boot? SO IT CAN PREEMPT SLOW DOWNS BY LAUNCHING THE APPS! After using the phone for a few minutes, the default paged applications will cycle out for the apps you actually use. Consider yourself educated.

EDIT: Also, Antivirus?! WTF man, you REALLY are stuck in a Windows mindset, aren't you?

 

[deggdegg]

Oh, and on the "task killers not being effective" point... even disregarding battery, you can't tell me my phone is running "better" with 80 MB of free RAM and 10 unnecessary things running in the background compared to 180-200 MB of free RAM with nothing running. If I need to start up an app on demand, wouldn't I be better off with more free RAM?

Actually, he CAN say that. Because your "free RAM" was never taken up in the first place. It is simply paged/cached. There is NO usage of power for this. Infact, keeping memory full at all times will INCREASE your battery life because RAM is powered on REGARDLESS of whether or not it is currently occupied. You are simply exasperating your issue. Oh, and the reason Android pages apps you might not use at first boot? SO IT CAN PREEMPT SLOW DOWNS BY LAUNCHING THE APPS! After using the phone for a few minutes, the default paged applications will cycle out for the apps you actually use. Consider yourself educated.

Notice how I said disregarding battery life... how am I better off using those 120 MB of RAM on apps I NEVER use than having them ready for apps I do use?

 

[robyr]

Oh, and on the "task killers not being effective" point... even disregarding battery, you can't tell me my phone is running "better" with 80 MB of free RAM and 10 unnecessary things running in the background compared to 180-200 MB of free RAM with nothing running. If I need to start up an app on demand, wouldn't I be better off with more free RAM?

Actually, he CAN say that. Because your "free RAM" was never taken up in the first place. It is simply paged/cached. There is NO usage of power for this. Infact, keeping memory full at all times will INCREASE your battery life because RAM is powered on REGARDLESS of whether or not it is currently occupied. You are simply exasperating your issue. Oh, and the reason Android pages apps you might not use at first boot? SO IT CAN PREEMPT SLOW DOWNS BY LAUNCHING THE APPS! After using the phone for a few minutes, the default paged applications will cycle out for the apps you actually use. Consider yourself educated.

Notice how I said disregarding battery life... how am I better off using those 120 MB of RAM on apps I NEVER use than having them ready for apps I do use?

Reread what *I* wrote. The apps at first boot cycle out later as you start using the phone and apps that you DO use get paged in, and the ones you don't are cycled out. Battery life and phone performance go hand in hand. If the phone is slow and having to repage all that trash, you are simply compounding the already weak battery on the Incredible. Stop using task killers.

 

[deggdegg]

Actually, he CAN say that. Because your "free RAM" was never taken up in the first place. It is simply paged/cached. There is NO usage of power for this. Infact, keeping memory full at all times will INCREASE your battery life because RAM is powered on REGARDLESS of whether or not it is currently occupied. You are simply exasperating your issue. Oh, and the reason Android pages apps you might not use at first boot? SO IT CAN PREEMPT SLOW DOWNS BY LAUNCHING THE APPS! After using the phone for a few minutes, the default paged applications will cycle out for the apps you actually use. Consider yourself educated.

Notice how I said disregarding battery life... how am I better off using those 120 MB of RAM on apps I NEVER use than having them ready for apps I do use?

Reread what *I* wrote. The apps at first boot cycle out later as you start using the phone and apps that you DO use get paged in, and the ones you don't are cycled out. Battery life and phone performance go hand in hand. If the phone is slow and having to repage all that trash, you are simply compounding the already weak battery on the Incredible. Stop using task killers.

Uh huh... so tell me why stuff I've never used is starting up constantly after the phone has been booted up for weeks. If the phone was being smart, it would see that I've never used those things, and not start them up at all.

Well, I should say "was starting up". That Autorun Killer seems to be working beautifully, now all I have running at any given time is "News and Weather" and anything that starts up to sync.

 

[deggdegg]

Also, I've had ATK installed on my phone the entire time I've had it, I tap it every time before I turn of the screen, and I NEVER had battery issues on 2.1. I could go 2 days without charging it.

 

[robyr]

I am done with this. You can either take your pseudotechnical "advice" that seems to be only harming the use of your phone, or listen to an actual developer and, personally, someone who actually knows what they are talking about.

I don't really care. I will tell you, however, that what you believe to be true and the actual truth are two different things. Google *themselves* have publicly responded to these types of questions, and even given a very technical and educational reason of why indiscriminate task killing is a stupid idea and only a placebo that was pretty much solely perpetuated by people that have no clue as to what they are talking about.

 

[deggdegg]

I am done with this. You can either take your pseudotechnical "advice" that seems to be only harming the use of your phone, or listen to an actual developer and, personally, someone who actually knows what they are talking about.

I don't really care. I will tell you, however, that what you believe to be true and the actual truth are two different things. Google *themselves* have publicly responded to these types of questions, and even given a very technical and educational reason of why indiscriminate task killing is a stupid idea and only a placebo that was pretty much solely perpetuated by people that have no clue as to what they are talking about.

I'm a software developer too (not Android, but I have a CS degree). Once you can explain to me how using up 120 MB of RAM of things I never use is beneficial to me, I will uninstall my task killer. I don't care if it rotates them out after some time, the point is, they should never get in there in the first place. Caching things I use frequently is great, and this is why I will set such things to "ignore" on my task killer. But stuff I don't want simply shouldn't be there at all, and if the phone isn't going to be smart enough for that, I will have to handle it myself.

 

[jntdroid]

http://www.droidforums.net/forum/dr...lers-answer-google-developers.html#post687986

 

[robyr]

I am done with this. You can either take your pseudotechnical "advice" that seems to be only harming the use of your phone, or listen to an actual developer and, personally, someone who actually knows what they are talking about.

I don't really care. I will tell you, however, that what you believe to be true and the actual truth are two different things. Google *themselves* have publicly responded to these types of questions, and even given a very technical and educational reason of why indiscriminate task killing is a stupid idea and only a placebo that was pretty much solely perpetuated by people that have no clue as to what they are talking about.

I'm a software developer too (not Android, but I have a CS degree). Once you can explain to me how using up 120 MB of RAM of things I never use is beneficial to me, I will uninstall my task killer.

I already did, sir. That memory is not used. It is inactive. It takes 0.0001ms to claim that inactive RAM that is currently only holding a page of the programs state. The program is not "running" its not "using RAM" and to be honest, I am calling you out right here and now. Any competent developer knows that the only RAM usage that is even remotely a problem is ACTIVE nonpaged RAM. Go examine your memory management section in your OS course book again. CPU cycles are infinitely more pressing to worry over than RAM usage, and it doesn't matter if its on a phone or a fullsize system, the constants remain. CPU cycles bad, RAM paging good.

 

[deggdegg]

I am done with this. You can either take your pseudotechnical "advice" that seems to be only harming the use of your phone, or listen to an actual developer and, personally, someone who actually knows what they are talking about.

I don't really care. I will tell you, however, that what you believe to be true and the actual truth are two different things. Google *themselves* have publicly responded to these types of questions, and even given a very technical and educational reason of why indiscriminate task killing is a stupid idea and only a placebo that was pretty much solely perpetuated by people that have no clue as to what they are talking about.

I'm a software developer too (not Android, but I have a CS degree). Once you can explain to me how using up 120 MB of RAM of things I never use is beneficial to me, I will uninstall my task killer.

I already did, sir. That memory is not used. It is inactive. It takes 0.0001ms to claim that inactive RAM that is currently only holding a page of the programs state. The program is not "running" its not "using RAM" and to be honest, I am calling you out right here and now. Any competent developer knows that the only RAM usage that is even remotely a problem is ACTIVE nonpaged RAM. Go examine your memory management section in your OS course book again. CPU cycles are infinitely more pressing to worry over than RAM usage, and it doesn't matter if its on a phone or a fullsize system, the constants remain. CPU cycles bad, RAM paging good.

So it takes zero CPU cycles or RAM to start up things I don't use. Gotcha.