Common questions

[gogoalshop]

Hi all,

I am currently a Blackberry User thinking about buying an HTC Hero from Sprint. I have some basic questions that will probably seem dumb to most of you.

1 - What is the difference between a Gadget and an application?
2 - If you are running an application, how do you close / quit is so that it is not running and taking up memory anymore?

Thanks ahead!!!

 

[Golfdriver97]

I think the Gadget is like a Widget, which is a placeholder for an application that shows you basic info for that app. A good example would be a weather widget. In the space you set, it will show you temp, conditions, like rain or snow, etc. This gives you the info you probably want without fully opening the application.

As for closing an app, you should only need to click back out of the application.

Are you really going to buy a 10 year old phone?

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Hang on -- are you seriously asking about this phone? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_Hero

I had to double-check the date of your post to make sure this wasn't a question from 2009 or 2010 ...

 

[belodion]

Wonderful though they were in their day, any device of that age from any manufacturer would, for the average user, be a pretty miserable experience.

 

[Mooncatt]

2 - If you are running an application, how do you close / quit is so that it is not running and taking up memory anymore?

Thanks ahead!!!

In a word? Fughettaboutit.

Android is designed to keep RAM full. The way modern RAM works is it uses the same amount of power no matter if it's all 0's or all 1's. In the developer world, empty RAM is wasted RAM when it comes to Android. Since you'll use the same amount of power no matter what, Android will keep apps alive but dormant in the background. In this state, they use no processing power, but are ready to be brought to the foreground instantly. Because you're not always initializing the app from scratch, this speeds up multitasking and reduces battery consumption.

Simply pressing the home button without actually closing out the app is good enough 99.9% of the time. If an app not currently in memory is called upon, Android will dump one or more dormant apps to make room on its own, and does so rather effectively by learning your usage habits.

There are memory booster/optimizer apps in the app store that will arbitrarily kill apps, but avoid them like the plague. When an app is killed by them, Android sees the free memory and will initialize apps to fill it again. The booster kills the apps again, and Android brings them back. Lather, rinse, repeat. This only serves to drain your battery faster, and some (especially from Cheetah Mobile) will data mine you and sell that info on the dark web.