Multitasking on the HTC One

There is no true multitasking on any Android devices.

This is true multitasking.



More on Android "multitasking"

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;)

Actually, you are misinformed, or misunderstand. Just because it has that functionality you quoted (which is great for battery life, and is partly why the new Blackberry suffers in that department), does not mean it is incapable of true multitasking.

Android has a tiered system for applications:

1. Foreground app (the app you're currently using)
2. Persistent apps (usually your launcher, as you never want that to get killed, as well as Google services)
3. Visible services (apps that keep an icon in the notification tray)
4. Background services (apps that have asked to stay active to perform services, but not in the notification tray, such as Dropbox's Camera Upload feature).
5. Normal applications.

Android as default will keep as many apps as it can in its memory. Normal apps do not use any CPU (none at all, not even a little) when they are stored in RAM without being used. This isn't multitasking, but then again, those apps have told Android they don't want to be or need to be multitasked. Good examples are apps like Angry Birds. There's no reason for it to stay active in the background, so it suspends it in RAM until you need it again. Once you bring it to the foreground again, it resumes instantly, so there's no reason to keep it running.

However, no phone has infinite RAM, so Android has to make tough choices. This means, as RAM fills up, it is forced to kill off apps to make room for new ones. Android uses the above tiered system to decide what is killed off. It starts from the bottom, and goes up until it has the RAM it needs. Under severe RAM shortages, Android will even kill off your launcher to get more RAM (common when playing graphically intensive games on older devices), if it has to.

Android isn't stupid though, it knows that services should be kept running, so it keeps track of what it killed, and can restart them when RAM is available. This functionality is up to the app, some apps don't care about being relaunched.

Now, what does this mean for "multitasking"? See that list up there? 1-4 are ALL multitasking applications. True multitasking, not the iOS style. This is how Android has functioned pretty much from the beginning. Those apps are capable, and do perform functions at will. As long as there's RAM available to run them (which applies to ANY OS), they'll run. Android 4.0 didn't change this, it just works more aggressively to page non-service programs out when they're not needed (since if they're not services, they have no business running anyway).

This is good summary of differences between android and qnx

" Android does multi-task but it puts the control out of the user's hands. It's difficult to figure out whether something is actually running. For instance, Skype video call can run in the background if there's enough RAM, but if you start doing other stuff, Android will shut the app down. That's the biggest advantage the BB10 over Android."

So no it is not the same. Android "Multitasking" is not true multitasking

I'd also like to go further into this, since this is the basis of your misunderstanding:

Android AND QNX cannot perform miracles. If there isn't enough RAM to run an application, it's not going to run. This holds true for any OS since the dawn of time.

Android will kill off Skype in the background if it doesn't have enough RAM to run the app you're currently using. However, as my tiered explanation above states, while it will kill it if it has to, it's one of the last things it will attempt to kill.

You say QNX doesn't do this, but here's the problem. QNX only has two options:

1. Kill off Skype to run the app you're using.
2. Refuse to run your app and maintain your background services (Skype).

#2 is a really, really bad idea, because it confuses the user. The average user doesn't understand how memory works, so they're not going to know they need to kill off apps to make room. Even more importantly, they're not going to know what app(s) to kill. Finally, unlike Android, the user will have to manually reopen those apps to restore their functionality.

It's a really terrible idea (and there's more reasons than those I listed), and although I don't know enough about QNX to be sure, I can say I would be surprised if they would go that route. It's far more likely that they would use a system similar to Android, iOS, and others. Based on the fact that I haven't seen many complaints about "out of memory errors" on BB10, I am willing to bet they use a system similar to Android.
 
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I preferred the WebOS "out of memory, please close something to open this" message to Android's just killing something, often something I didn't want killed.

ymmv.
 
I preferred the WebOS "out of memory, please close something to open this" message to Android's just killing something, often something I didn't want killed.

ymmv.

In webOS, closing an application was more devastating than Android killing an app off. When Android kills an app, it's suspended, so as long as it follows standard development guidelines, it should resume right where it left off (just some loading time). And like I said, Android also has the capability to restart services that were killed, if the RAM becomes available again.

It's not a perfect system, but there's no such thing as such. webOS also had the downside that due to it maintaining most applications actively, it meant that it couldn't actually run as many applications at once, and running multiple apps simultaneously could dramatically reduce performance. I loved webOS as well, but it did have flaws.
 
there is no such thing as multitasking on android phones. this is just glorified version of app switching. if you want true multitasking i would recommend to go with the only phones that can do that. Blackberry Z10 or Q10. This is true multitasking. I bought Z10 few weeks ago and multitasking on Z10 is just priceless. I can browse the internet, listen to the music, download torrent and post comments on forums etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. all at the same time.

Actually, you're thinking of iOS which doesn't have true multitasking. Android does.
 
I preferred the WebOS "out of memory, please close something to open this" message to Android's just killing something, often something I didn't want killed.

ymmv.

It also ran contrary to how Linux was designed to do it. webOS my have been cool for the user, but it technically broke functionality that was baked in by Linux. No wonder it ran terrible lol.
 
Haven't seen a proper response on this yet on any thread. Has anyone seen video of the multitasking in action - not just the recent apps grid but actually switching between apps. For example: Twitter on the One X would always have to reload when switching to it from the recent apps screen.

To answer your question, when I select twitter from the recent apps menu in Sense 5 it does not reload it, but brings it to the same spot I was in.
 
It's unlikely that the HTC One will work much differently than previous HTC phones, Teletraan1. Here's why:

1. HTC isn't doing anything out of the ordinary. They do set the system to allow for a bit more free RAM, but the reason apps end up "reloading", is because you've simply ran out of RAM. You'll see this far more often on 1GB RAM devices (like the EVO 4G LTE).
2. HTC's devices use up more RAM for the Sense UI and related services, so it will run out of RAM more quickly than other comparable devices (like a Nexus).
3. That said, the HTC One has 2GB of RAM, so it will be far more difficult to run it out of RAM. I believe the only other HTC Android device so far with 2GB of RAM is the Droid DNA (someone correct me if I'm wrong).

All in all, you shouldn't see it happen much, but it will happen more often than an ASOP device. If that's a concern, then make sure only to buy stock Android devices.
 
The multitasking on my droid DNA is perfect. I hated the one x multitasking and the multitasking on the DNA 100% better. So yes I'd say the htc one will not have to reload pages constantly.

Sent from my HTC6435LVW using Android Central Forums
 
It's unlikely that the HTC One will work much differently than previous HTC phones, Teletraan1. Here's why:

1. HTC isn't doing anything out of the ordinary. They do set the system to allow for a bit more free RAM, but the reason apps end up "reloading", is because you've simply ran out of RAM. You'll see this far more often on 1GB RAM devices (like the EVO 4G LTE).
2. HTC's devices use up more RAM for the Sense UI and related services, so it will run out of RAM more quickly than other comparable devices (like a Nexus).
3. That said, the HTC One has 2GB of RAM, so it will be far more difficult to run it out of RAM. I believe the only other HTC Android device so far with 2GB of RAM is the Droid DNA (someone correct me if I'm wrong).

All in all, you shouldn't see it happen much, but it will happen more often than an ASOP device. If that's a concern, then make sure only to buy stock Android devices.

I don't think this is correct because with the One X the multi tasking would kill apps when there was plenty of ram available. There were mods that could be flashed to change the behavior of the way Sense kills the app. If it really was just killing the app when it ran out of RAM then nothing you flash could fix that because its just a hardware issue. However, the some of these multi tasking mods you can flash would change the values in the software that was telling Sense to kill the app. So it isn't simply just running out of ram, the way sense was set was to kill the task even when there was RAM left.
 
I don't think this is correct because with the One X the multi tasking would kill apps when there was plenty of ram available. There were mods that could be flashed to change the behavior of the way Sense kills the app. If it really was just killing the app when it ran out of RAM then nothing you flash could fix that because its just a hardware issue. However, the some of these multi tasking mods you can flash would change the values in the software that was telling Sense to kill the app. So it isn't simply just running out of ram, the way sense was set was to kill the task even when there was RAM left.

As I said, HTC set it so that it tries to keep more free RAM than usual. Otherwise it's unchanged, and that's why those flash fixes are almost entirely snake oil (I can cause the same app killing issue consistently with or without the "fix).
 
In webOS, closing an application was more devastating than Android killing an app off. When Android kills an app, it's suspended, so as long as it follows standard development guidelines, it should resume right where it left off (just some loading time). And like I said, Android also has the capability to restart services that were killed, if the RAM becomes available again.

It's not a perfect system, but there's no such thing as such. webOS also had the downside that due to it maintaining most applications actively, it meant that it couldn't actually run as many applications at once, and running multiple apps simultaneously could dramatically reduce performance. I loved webOS as well, but it did have flaws.

I guess it depends what sort of apps you use. If a game is suspended, no big deal, you pick it up again and it just works. It's not like you really wanted it to be doing something in the background. But if I wanted that webpage to load in background because the connection sucks and it's loading slowly, it's a huge drag if the app is killed. And Android really doesn't have a very good idea of what I want open and what I don't care about.

I suppose the thing I miss most about WebOS isn't how it killed (or didn't kill) apps, though. What I miss most is how interconnected stuff was, and how I could have several pages of email all open at once, and copy and paste from one to another. Sigh. Of course, what I miss least is that it wouldn't show you the calendar until it synced it, and if the connection was really bad, trying to open the calendar froze the whole machine. :) Lots of nice stuff, but some really poorly thought out stuff, too.
 
I guess it depends what sort of apps you use. If a game is suspended, no big deal, you pick it up again and it just works. It's not like you really wanted it to be doing something in the background. But if I wanted that webpage to load in background because the connection sucks and it's loading slowly, it's a huge drag if the app is killed. And Android really doesn't have a very good idea of what I want open and what I don't care about.

Well to be fair, webOS would push websites out of RAM to make room for other apps. It was one of the few things it actually WOULD push out of RAM. The original Palm Pre had real trouble with that.

A browser could be written to function as you like it to, but it's just a matter of no one doing it. They're all written so that when they're backgrounded, they get suspended.

That said, webOS's card system was clearly the best multitasking UI available (as your email example shows), but we can't have everything.
 
Hi Chalvy,
First of all this was one of my biggest worry, i simply hated multitasking on my one X..the reload bit any way.
And to answer your question...MULTITASKING is perfect ! I've played with a unit that is on display on a Phones4u shop in UK ( the same place where it was launched in London)
It's beautiful mate, it works flawlessly. I've pre-ordered mine already.
But again stay relax Multitasking is perfect !
and again I know it;s offtopic but the phone is crazy fast ! I have a one X and a nexus 4 and they don;t even compare..
i hope it helps.
Regards,
 
there is no such thing as multitasking on android phones. this is just glorified version of app switching. if you want true multitasking i would recommend to go with the only phones that can do that. Blackberry Z10 or Q10. This is true multitasking. I bought Z10 few weeks ago and multitasking on Z10 is just priceless. I can browse the internet, listen to the music, download torrent and post comments on forums etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. all at the same time.

why is this guy here? You have clearly never owned an android phone. (unless it was a one x, cause nothing stays open in it) go back to crackberry and tell Kevin hi for me... And please come back if you would like to ask questions about android instead of misinforming others on here.

Multitasking back in the day with android was nice. Nothing would really close... But that was the problem. It would make the phone way to slow.

Now it's fine... Except for what HTC started with the one X... They set the cap on the ram way too low. Which ends up with nothing staying open.. it's a miracle when one does and I do a happy dance.

Hopefully with 2 gigs of ram there won't be this problem. I can't wait to get this One... (see what I did there) :p
 
Unfortunately the htc one still does not multitask correctly. I work with att and have had the phone for over two weeks now and it refreshes apps after just 10 seconds or so. Very annoying and the main reason that although I prefer sense and htc phones will once again have to recommend the galaxy phones.
 
Unfortunately the htc one still does not multitask correctly. I work with att and have had the phone for over two weeks now and it refreshes apps after just 10 seconds or so. Very annoying and the main reason that although I prefer sense and htc phones will once again have to recommend the galaxy phones.

Yeah i can't believe this. Its why mine is boxed up right now and iam back on my gs3 and pre ordered a gs4. Sad cause its a really nice phone

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 2
 
there is no such thing as multitasking on android phones. this is just glorified version of app switching. if you want true multitasking i would recommend to go with the only phones that can do that. Blackberry Z10 or Q10. This is true multitasking. I bought Z10 few weeks ago and multitasking on Z10 is just priceless. I can browse the internet, listen to the music, download torrent and post comments on forums etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. all at the same time.

Actually, it's iOS that doesn't have multitasking. Android does.

Sent from my pure Google Nexus 4 using Android Central Forums
 
I have had no multi tasking issues with mine. All apps stay open and no refreshing when I go back in one.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Android Central Forums
 
I have had no multi tasking issues with mine. All apps stay open and no refreshing when I go back in one.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Android Central Forums

Really? No refreshing? Mine did with tapatalk and browser almost every time although it would go back to the point I was at. Just something not right for me

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 2
 

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