Perhaps a paranoia started by Windows Mobile - many folks here assume
that once an android application is started it stays open on the
background forever.
While with Windows Mobile that may be the case - android takes a much
different approach.
In fact far many developers the way android handles applications send
to the background seems to be a 'a hassle' initially.
The Dalvik Java Virtual Machine (dalvikvm = android's brain) is
extremely careful about the resources it uses. Running the Dalvik
Debug Monitor Service (DDMS) Tool would produce a ton of messages
similar to this:
"D/dalvikvm( 1837): GC freed 2006 objects / 127768 bytes in 109ms"
This line meats - "garbage collector is cleaning up unused resources"
Once you send an application to the background dalvikvm would keep it
there for a bit and then remove it soon after - no sense of running
it if you are not using it. As this is a 'new' way of doing things in
the mobile app industry, developers now have to use services instead
if they want their apps to stay dormant in the background.
And it's a different battle when it comes to services. Perhaps an
application to show running services and allow you to 'kill' them
would be a plus for android... But not really - a 'service killer'
is not needed! Any service that needs to be killed at some point
means that it is of low code quality and should be un-installed from
your phone. Well written services are lean, mean and efficient. They
also offer the user exit doors.
Look at a great example - the media player (or 'Music' as it appears
on your phone). Play a song and then send the player to the
background - a service is launched and the [>] (play) symbol appears
in the notification area. If you go back to the player you can stop
the song and thus kill the service.
In other words - when you put low octane gas in your BMW and it
refuses to run well - that is no proof that the BMW is a bad
engineered vehicle.
As the android developers become more and more familiar with the
environment the applications will become better and better. These are
growing pains and they only make us better!
Del
On Dec 4, 10:50 am, roninracer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Using the netmeter app it shows kernel vs. app cpu utilization.
> When you're kernel's at 3% and your apps are at 90% and you can't
> switch to another task using taskswitcher, I would say that there's
> stuff actively running in the background. Basic user interface stuff
> is affected (like scrolling) at that point. The back of the phone gets
> pretty hot as well. Only a reboot resolves it.
>
> I would know more if I had a process list command (like ps) and I
> could manage it if I had a kill command.
>
> All in all it's just the annoyance of a reboot that is the biggest
> thing, but it sure makes me curious about what is actually going on.
>
> Back on subject, one app I would like is a pandora client and
> bluetooth headphone support.
>
> I would also like a larger capacity battery along with better power
> management so it doesn't die as fast.
>
> On Dec 3, 11:17 am, Michael <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > Are you sure these applications are actually *running* in the
> > background? Generally they aren't, unless they were specifically
> > designed to ignore sleep/wakeup requests by the OS.
>
> > Most people think that this is a huge deal on Android, when really,
> > it's usually not.
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