Hi Ray,
You probably make some assumptions about how programs run on Android
that may not be fully justified. Android is designed in such a way,
that programs in the background can be killed by the system and
quickly revived without you never noticing that they had been killed.
Instead, from the user experience it should appear as if applications
never get closed (or never have to be opened in the first place).
It is similar to the question: Is the moon there when you don't look
at it? [1] From the user perspective, the moon should always be there.
You know where the moon is, you know where to look ("sky") to find it.
>From the Android perspective, the moon does not have to be there if
the user does not look there, so Android may kill it and compress it
to a few bytes (moon position, moon phase). When the user looks at the
sky again, Android pops up the moon at the correct position with the
correct moon phase, and as a user you never know if the moon existed
while you were not looking at it.
The advantage is that Android does not have to allocate the resources
for the moon all the time.
Your example with the messenger would also be solved differently:
The application would be split into several pieces.
There may be a background service, listening to new message
notifications, and a more heavy UI part.
The UI part may be killed frequently when you open the dial activity
or your address book, and whenever you look back at the messenger UI
you would find it in the same state as you left it.
Even your background service does not have to run all the time, if it
can be revived on certain messages (broadcast action) or is only used
in certain time intervals.
So, even if you *assume* from a user perspective that your program
runs in the background - it may be that nothing runs at all. But
whenever you look at it - it is there.
Peli
www.openintents.org
----
[1] "I like to think that the moon is there even if I am not looking
at it." Quote: Albert Einstein. http://www.some-guy.com/quotes/einstein.html
(in reply to quantum physics where "true" reality is not so clear...)
On Sep 24, 4:54 pm, Razor1973 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Dianne,
>
> Thank you for your explanation.
>
> I actually do like this for the most part. However, there are cases
> in which I do want to know which applications are running and which
> are not. For example, what if I am running an instant messenger and
> decide to log off and keep working on something else and hours later,
> I open the list of recent applications? The messenger will be there,
> yet, unless I remember, I won't know whether I am still signed on or
> not unless I click on it and re-open it (or bring it back from the
> running background processes; irrelevant from what you say). Am I
> correct? Again, for the most part, I like the way Android implements
> this, but there are cases in which an old school task manager would be
> more useful.
>
> Now, is Android so open that it is technically possible for someone to
> build an actual task manager that fully replaces the recent
> applications functionality and allows the user to see only the running
> apps and kill them if he/she wants?
>
> Thank you again and congratulations on the amazing job you guys have
> done with Android. This is only the first version. I can only
> imagine what the platform will be like a year from now!
>
> Ray G.
>
> On Sep 23, 10:40 pm, hackbod <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > That is not a list of running applications, it is most recently used
> > applications. Some of them may actually be running, some may not, but
> > it's not something you need to be aware of.
>
> > In a very course way, yes, the design is like Windows Mobile where the
> > system takes care of killing apps as memory is needed. However, the
> > way this is done is very very different, and is designed from the
> > ground up to not be something that users need to deal with (which also
> > means that it is a fundamental of how all applications interact with
> > the system, which helps us make it work well). Our goal is that from
> > the user's perspective, all applications are running all of the time,
> > and the fact that their processes are being killed and returning as
> > the system runs is not something the user needs to care about or is
> > ever aware of.
>
> > Just let the system run and do its thing and all will be happy. :)
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