Interesting post here I just read on one of the Droid forums about killing tasks/task killing apps etc, in order to 'attempt' to preserve battery life. It basically says you are better off WITHOUT a task killer and better off NOT force stopping all those previously opened apps that we/I think are still running and using up battery life....
In response to the vast amount of questions regarding Task Killers, I find this to be a valuable article/video in making a determination in whether or not to use a task killer on 'auto-kill' or manually killing apps just because they're open. A task killer is meant to shut down unresponsive apps, not EVERYTHING open.
Good explanation of how the Android OS is designed to handle applications.
Make your decision from there
SystemPanel Documentation | android.nextapp.com (smalltowngirl13 posted @ DxF, but I wanted to put it here as well)
*quick cut & paste from the link* from the developer who designed System Panel.
" Please read this section FIRST. There are a great many misconceptions about how Android works with regard to starting and stopping applications.
How to Use a Task Manager Android was designed from the ground up as an operating system (OS) for mobile devices. Its built-in application and memory-management systems were engineered with battery life as one of the most critical concerns. The Android OS does not work like a desktop operating system. On a desktop OS, like Windows, Mac OS X, or Ubuntu Linux, the user is responsible for closing programs in order to keep a reasonable amount of memory available. On Android, this is not the case. The OS itself automatically removes programs from memory as memory is needed. The OS may also preload applications into memory which it thinks might soon be needed. Having lots of available empty memory is not a good thing. It takes the same amount of power to hold "nothing" in memory as it does to hold actual data. So, like every other operating system in use today, Android does its best to keep as much important/likely-to-be-used information in memory as possible. As such, using the task manager feature of SystemPanel to constantly clear memory by killing all apps is strongly NOT RECOMMENDED. This also applies to any other task killer / management program. Generally speaking, you should only "End" applications if you see one which is not working correctly. The "End All" feature can be used if your phone/device is performing poorly and you are uncertain of the cause.
Process Types The SystemPanel process listing groups applications into three categories: "Active", "Inactive", and "Internal":
Active applications are actually running at the present time on the device. An active application may be running in the background and not have any information currently displayed on the screen. Inactive applications have been preloaded into memory, but are not actually using up any system resources. Such applications will not consume any battery power whatsoever. The memory used by these applications can be immediately reclaimed should other applications require it. As such, there is no need to manually remove these applications, as you will see no tangible benefit from doing so. Internal applications are those which are
part of the Android operating system itself. Some of these applications may be terminated manually, but they will be immediately restarted afterward by the OS."
Now the video from Google. * Originally posted by Renthor @ DxF *
I highly recommend people, especially those new to Android, watch the Androidology series of videos put out by Google themselves. In particular, part 2 does a great job of explaining how Android (and really Linux) is different then most people's OS experience.
Here's the link to part 2, "Application Lifecycle"
I've recently bought a HTC Android phone for the basic reason that the screen allows me to read sms messages when I'm out without my reading glasses but I've got another problem in that the on screen 'keys' are too small and it takes ten minutes to write a reply.
Is it possible to have a 12 key style onscreen keyboard like on a normal Nokia phone with the three letter combinations and predictive text input?
STEVE G wrote:Is it possible to have a 12 key style onscreen keyboard like on a normal Nokia phone with the three letter combinations and predictive text input?
There's a few Steve, search T9 Keyboard on the Play Store. There's 100s of keyboards, GO Keyboard has T9 input as an option, I've not used it but they're are a well known developer and the other Apps I've tried of theirs are decent.
Also, don't forget you'll get a bigger Keyboard if you view your phone in Landscape.
Thanks for that, I didn't know it was called a T9 keyboard and I see that there are plenty of them around. I want to try it as with a normal phone I can send a text message with one hand but you have no chance of doing that with those small qwerty 'keys'.
My stepsons want smarphone's can HTC's or similar from the UK change their language to Thai like an Iphone can basically i want to source two second hand phones from here as this will be the cheapest option.
They are both mad keen fisherman and they are forever loosing phones in the drink i am not prepared to purchase new one's.
Kendo.
Is Bangkok a place or a nasty injury.......Eric Morcombe.
