Please Read: Important Information Regarding Task Killers

[CarbonOak]

At the risk of appearing dense here over task killers............
what was the bottom line on them?
Use them?
Don't?
Use with Caution?
Sorry,,,that's a great article, and I'm sure it's in there, but I never found a final conclusion.
Thanks!

I think the bottom line is: Don't use them if you don't know what you're doing, and if you do use them, use with caution and common sense.

That wasn't one of your answer options, but I think it sums it up nicely, heh.

BTW the article is a great read and helped shed light on this issue, myself also coming from the Blackberry world. I never understood the task killers, but now that I do, I'll be using them wisely only when I absolutely need to. :thumbsup:

 

[rion_j]

What about battery life? Ive read that task killers will help save bettery, sometimes up to 50%. Thats my real concern. Especially with a device like the DX, im not concerned about memory or lag, but battery.

Will ATK set to Autokill do anything to help battery?

that's a great questions and i've been reading posts where people say ATK does help battery so, I'd like a confirmation on this as well. Battery on the X so far hasnt been stellar as I thought it would be.

 

[nox]

If set up the right way then yeah, it could help battery life, but most people just have set to kill off a whole bunch of tasks/processes that the system need to have running.

Trust us when we say this, task killers are not needed on Android OS.
Android has it's own 'task killer' of some sort installed and running.
So by you killing all these tasks that are running, you're only causing you're phone more trouble and causing it to use more CPU because it'll have to run again.
It'll be like an endless loop.

Trust me, just don't even look at the memory, you'll be perfectly fine.

 

[PainKiller]

All I will add is that since giving up task killers I absolutely do get more battery life and just not having the constant concern about it is great. I notice that most of my apps shut down within 5 min. or so if left alone.

~ Droid ~

 

[rion_j]

really good points....i tested this out, and removed the ATK cuz i was noticing some battery issues, and also wasn't receiving my Sessmic notifications....since removing ATK, and restarting my phone the funny thing is my battery actually went from 60% to 80%.

 

[thebizz]

I would say you can give spare parts a try uses the stock memory management and oom settings. But has the ability to change your process management to aggressive which should kill of unneeded task while letting those that are important run in the background. But as always if you have issues just set it back to normal and reboot.

 

[mnasholm]

I just removed ATK to let my phone do its thing and ill see how that goes

 

[Cory Streater]

I really hate to use this thread as an example, because it gets nasty after post #27, but the first 1-27 posts are an excellent reason why you should avoid task killers.

 

[droidntn]

Ok, I feel like I'm gonna get trampled here for asking this but please be nice.

If we DON'T use task managers, HOW do we keep the CPU/RAM useage down?
I mean, I just downloaded an app, Android System manager (like a lot) and I have only about 18% cpu left. I haven't killed anything and haven't downloaded a task manager after reading how it could screw up the X.
And, I notice my X is running slowly.
I have rebooted several times over the past few days.
So....without task managers, how is the safest way to kill off these things that hog the resources when your not even using them? An example was a Yellow page app I downloaded and opened once. It was still running.

 

[nox]

Re: Task Manager/Killer Discussion

Android has a way of killing of apps/services on its own. Just because it shows up, doesn't mean it's being used. Android puts a halt to tasks not being used, and 'keeps' them in the memory in case you open them again, after a while though it just terminates it.
I say 'keep' because it doesn't keep it running, but rather it basically idles the app but keeps it's 'cache' there.

If an app is still running then go to:
Menu > Settings > Applications > Running Services
And end them from there
or
Menu > Settings >Applications > Manage Applications > Press Menu > Filter > Running
And end it there.

Advice is to just stay away from task killers. Android is not WinMo or BlackberryOS.
No real need for memory management.

- Jorge

 

[droidntn]

Android has a way of killing of apps/services on its own. Just because it shows up, doesn't mean it's being used. Android puts a halt to tasks not being used, and 'keeps' them in the memory in case you open them again, after a while though it just terminates it.

Advice is to just stay away from task killers.
No real need for memory management.

- Jorge

THANK YOU! It's nice to get a final word of advice.

 

[Bond32]

Ok its nice to get solid advice, but ill tell you from first hand experience my phone got bogged down good today. I don't have any social widgets or news running, however the moto refresh service constantly runs. So why can't i use atk to end it?

 

[nox]

Thats where a task manager will be handy. But im sure it'll just pop right back up. I don't have an X but, im pretty sure there's a way to disable it. Unless, of course, you're usin it, then you usually wouldn't want it ended.

You can do the same using the services menu also. But if it isn't in the services window or the running one I wouldn't recommend ending it. Just remember, don't have too many apps installed.

Some guy here had like 90 apps installed. Is that many really necessary? If it starts slowing down just use the menu's I suggested, they're a lot less harmful.

- Jorge

 

[Bond32]

Thanks. No I dont have any apps installed. The only thing I have/want updating is fancy widgets. The rest are moto services I dont even use. I am using the atk now, and it seems to be running a lot better than without it. I gave it a solid day of use without, maybe I should test again and go longer.

 

[ceriem]

I find that alot of tasks that I constantly kill keep restarting themselves automatically (like Music, Skype, or CityID). Would it make sense to just leave these apps alone then and not keep them on my auto task manager list since they will probably eat more memory trying to restart constantly?

 

[Yogi#AC]

To expand on Ceriem's question, those app's (Skype, CityID, Social Networking etc) that keep restarting themselves, are they using more battery by running?

 

[cajunbeast]

I had one on my droid and it helped tremendously but I set it to only kill the random junk I never used or ran without me running out. But when I got my x it made it run terrible. It will kill the blur ui! Which I dislike already. So to fix both my issues i went with launcher pro plus and task manager. Smooth and fast!

 

[Bond32]

Agreed. After a few days of testing without, I have determined that the phone runs smoother and battery lasts much better with ATK installed and running auto kill.

 

[berny26]

When I was using a Task Killer my DX would automatically reboot itself two or three times during the day (usually after sending a text). Last night I uninstalled ATK and fully charged it overnight and today my phone did not restart itself at all today, so i'm thinking the ATK obviously had something to do with that. After uninstalling ATK I did however notice that the phone is much more laggy when switching screens. The battery life also seemed to be a little bit shorter than usual. The battery is at 30% after 12 hours, however the battery use meter claims that over 50% of the life was used on 30 minutes worth of voice calls. I also had background data disabled all day.

I'm beginning to wonder whether its worth going on without ATK and sacrificing some battery life and background data for the purpose of not having the phone reboot itself, and hoping maybe Froyo would solve the problem, or to just deal with the reboots for the sake of longer battery life, background data and smooth transitioning.

Tomorrow Im going to try the phone out with ATK installed and uncheck certain applications in the hopes that maybe the ATK was killing certain vital apps.

Has anybody else dealt with a similar problem, or have any recommendations?

 

[carolina gamecock]

I got my x last thursday and installed atk per the sales guys recommendation. Monday I noticed my phone was slowing down and eating up my battery, so I uninstalled atk and it runs better now than before!