Nexus 7 - Close Applications Using Battery Power

[Sunpower]

Hi,

I notice that after I swipe an application to the left (or right) to close it, when I check the battery, the application is still running. For instance, I was in a meeting today and used Smart Voice Recorder app. Then, after I was finished, I swiped it to the right to close it. I also used Skype to talk to someone.

However, when I checked my battery info, both the voice recorder app and Skype still appeared to be using battery power. I clicked on the icon that says, "Force Stop" and yet the apps still show as using battery power.

The list looks like this:

Maps - 3%

Mediaserver - 3%

Google Services - 10%

Smart Voice Recorder - 4%​

So, how can I turn these off to preserve my batter power and battery life?

Thank you!

 

[npark2012]

Hi,

I notice that after I swipe an application to the left (or right) to close it, when I check the battery, the application is still running. For instance, I was in a meeting today and used Smart Voice Recorder app. Then, after I was finished, I swiped it to the right to close it. I also used Skype to talk to someone.

However, when I checked my battery info, both the voice recorder app and Skype still appeared to be using battery power. I clicked on the icon that says, "Force Stop" and yet the apps still show as using battery power.

The list looks like this:

Maps - 3%

Mediaserver - 3%

Google Services - 10%

Smart Voice Recorder - 4%​

So, how can I turn these off to preserve my batter power and battery life?

Thank you!

Maps is probably being used in the background for google now or something like that and you have to turn of location services

Mediaserver is anything that fetches your storage like playing music you uploaded to your nexus 7 etc.

And I believe that this info is only how much battery they have used. It doesn't mean they are currently using battery.

 

[Sunpower]

Thanks.

 

[jerrykur]

Some of these seem to part of Google Now and/or the media player. Do you have those installed and running?

For me, the big power drain when not using the unit is TabletTalk.

 

[Sunpower]

Thank you. Yes, I think it's pre-installed.

I'd love to get rid of some of these pre-installed progams and e-books - I have two: Alice in Wonderland and another one. I can't delete them at all. It's quite frustrating.

 

[B. Diddy]

Hi,

I notice that after I swipe an application to the left (or right) to close it, when I check the battery, the application is still running. For instance, I was in a meeting today and used Smart Voice Recorder app. Then, after I was finished, I swiped it to the right to close it. I also used Skype to talk to someone.

However, when I checked my battery info, both the voice recorder app and Skype still appeared to be using battery power. I clicked on the icon that says, "Force Stop" and yet the apps still show as using battery power.

The list looks like this:

Maps - 3%

Mediaserver - 3%

Google Services - 10%

Smart Voice Recorder - 4%​

So, how can I turn these off to preserve my batter power and battery life?

Thank you!

First off, when you bring up the Recent Apps list, swiping away an app DOES NOT CLOSE IT. It just removes it from the Recent Apps list. Remember that the Recent Apps list is not an app manager--it's there for your convenience if you want to switch quickly to a recently used app.

Second, the battery stats will show what percent of battery has been used by an app since the battery was charged; it is not an indicator of what is using battery at that very moment. So if an app has been responsible for 20% of your total battery usage over 4 hours, for example, and then you stop or close the app, it will still read 20% immediately after, because it was still responsible for 5% of the total battery usage. Over the next several hours, though, that percentage should slowly drop, since the denominator (the total battery usage) has been getting larger while the numerator (the total amount of time the app was actively using battery) stays the same.

Third, with Android, try not to think about closing apps to save battery, because on the whole, it won't save battery, because the way Android is designed, it will probably restart that app soon afterwards. Remember that Android wants to keep its system RAM fairly full of active processes to allow quick and efficient startup of apps and switching between apps. It tries to figure out what apps will be used commonly and keeps them in RAM. If you open another app and RAM becomes too full, then Android will automatically close one of the processes that you haven't been using.

Here are some tips to save battery:

1. Keep the screen brightness set manually to the minimum level needed.
2. Use static wallpapers instead of live ones.
3. Keep wifi, Bluetooth, and mobile data off unless you need them. Install a good toggle app like Power Toggles to make it easy to turn these off or on.
4. If you don't need constant web updates for your various apps, set all of the data refresh intervals for your apps (like Facebook, weather apps, news apps, etc.) to manual or to the least frequent interval available. Frequent data refreshes eat battery.
5. Turn off Location Reporting in Google Maps by opening Maps, tapping the menu button and then Settings/Location Settings, and then turning off Location Reporting. This is used primarily for Latitude, and causes Maps to execute partial wake locks many times during the day, which can drain battery.
6. Install Wake Lock Detector and wait about a day before running it to find out which apps are causing the phone to wake up, either fully or partially, to do some kind of process. This is how I found out about #5.
7. If you don't use Google Currents, disable it. If you do, change the refresh interval to manual. Currents has been identified as a big battery hog.
8. Some antivirus/security apps use more power than others. I found that Avast used significantly more battery than Lookout.

 

[jpash549]

Thank you. Yes, I think it's pre-installed.

I'd love to get rid of some of these pre-installed progams and e-books - I have two: Alice in Wonderland and another one. I can't delete them at all. It's quite frustrating.

You can install apps such as Advanced Task Manager which allows you to kill apps selectively. Battery Doctor also has this function. Generally it is best to let the system control most apps. Don't force close anything which is in the basic system just to save a tiny bit of power. Try and keep notifications to what you really want from apps by going into app settings and adjusting the check boxes.

Have you used a file manager such as Ghost Commander when trying to delete books? File Expert is also useful. And ther are several others. You need to pick one you are comfortable with and use it.

From my N7 or BBPB or HPTP or HP Laptop

 

[B. Diddy]

Thank you. Yes, I think it's pre-installed.

I'd love to get rid of some of these pre-installed progams and e-books - I have two: Alice in Wonderland and another one. I can't delete them at all. It's quite frustrating.

Alice in Wonderland is a free eBook from Google Play Books that is automatically in your Google Play library. It's in the Google cloud, so it doesn't really take up any space on your device unless you actively download it to read, and it doesn't eat up battery. If you want to get rid of it, open Google Play Books, go to "My Library," tap the 3 vertical dot icon right next to the title of the book you want to delete, and then tap "Delete from library."

 

[B. Diddy]

Also keep in mind that although you can't completely get rid of preinstalled apps, you can disable a lot of them, which prevents them from being active at all. So if you never use Google Play Books, then go to Settings/Apps/All, scroll down and tap Google Play Books, then tap Disable.

 

[anon(847090)]

Android Multi-Tasking - EXPLAINED - HD - YouTube

 

[mr_nobody]

First off, when you bring up the Recent Apps list, swiping away an app DOES NOT CLOSE IT. It just removes it from the Recent Apps list. Remember that the Recent Apps list is not an app manager--it's there for your convenience if you want to switch quickly to a recently used app.

Honestly, I personally have gotten really tired of having to point this out. It's really sad how many people believe this. :'(

 

[B. Diddy]

It's only natural. Maybe I'll work on a sticky discussing Android myths.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Android Central Forums

 

[retsaw]

Perhaps people believe that swiping apps away closes them because it does, sometimes. It really depends on the app. I used to play a game that would sometimes keep playing its music in the background after I exit back to the home screen, but swiping the app away would actually stop the music.

 

[mr_nobody]

Yeah I've heard that too but it seems to be the vast minority of apps. Mostly apps made by google I thought.

 

[gusar2000]

Decided to share my experience with the battery drain.
I got my Nexus 7 about a month ago. At that time in average battery drain was about 11-12% per day (24 Hrs) in sleeping mode (I didn't keep it idle for 24 Hrs, but easy to calculate it after a night sleep). It wasn't great (not the promised 300 Hrs, but acceptable).
Then I installed some applications, accounts, etc. The daily drain in sleep mode raised to 16-17%. Not great.
After installing Skype (it runs even if you try to exit it, until you kill it as a process) the drain increased to 24%!!! Which was totally unacceptable.
Switching off Wi-Fi, GPS didn't help. Even when sleeping Wi-Fi still was ON (in spite of the option to shut it of when sleeping) - I had solid Wi-Fi bar in the battery chart.
I started searching forums (especially this one) and decided to follow some advises.

After disabling all possible Google services (like Books, Movies, Magazines, Music, Current, etc.), deleting weather widget, switching off location reporting in Maps, disabling all possible syncs and notifications I've got 4% battery drain per day (24 Hrs)!
Now I use the battery, but not some Google apps.

Well, it's time to switch ON some notifications or services which I really need, but the bottom line is this - it's achievable to significantly reduce the battery drain. I think the main culprits were Google services (Magazines, movies, etc., which I anyway replaced with another apps I liked more).

Hope it will help someone.

P.S. Did the same to my new Nexus 4. It definitely allowed it to go to deep sleep (and save battery). Before it didn't do it.