Using battery for what the user is actively doing is generally fine -- for example if you want to let them do something with the camera, then of course they clearly understand that is what they are doing and if they see your app at the top of the battery use list because they have been using it and doing things that "feel" like it is doing work.
(Of course you do want to make sure you don't do anything gratuitous -- for example if you sit spinning on the CPU when the foreground but not doing something significant like running a game then you risk your app "feeling" like a battery abuser.) Also it is worth knowing that the screen being on is typically the biggest battery consumer, so just the act of using your app is going to have significant battery impact. When doing stuff in the background, however, you must be very very careful. Consider it this way: if I find my battery is draining because I have been using navigation and twitter and the web browser for hours, I am going to be somewhat understanding. On the other hand, if I leave my phone sitting unused all day, go to look at it and see the battery is almost drained down, and then see your app in the battery list... I am not going to be too happy. ;) And poor behavior in the background can have a much more visible impact because it the battery is not otherwise being drained very much, so you basically get as much time as you need to hang yourself. On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 2:27 PM, Acchao <[email protected]> wrote: > I'm curious as to how many developers take into consideration battery > life before implementing a feature. > Say you could implement a really nifty feature using the camera, but > you know that would drain the phone's battery faster on an > nonessential ability, what do you do? Do you completely disregard > battery consumption because that really just isn't your concern/ it's > just too cool? Or do you go for a more simple variation, that would > give the user longer battery life? > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "Android Developers" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]<android-developers%[email protected]> > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en > -- Dianne Hackborn Android framework engineer [email protected] Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to provide private support, and so won't reply to such e-mails. All such questions should be posted on public forums, where I and others can see and answer them.
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