Sense 4.0 multitasking - hands on impressions?

[chaso]

Multitasking on sense is garbage. Not sure if I should try and defend my opinion on that lol.

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

 

[Sh3ngLong]

Besides some of the annoyances that has already been mentioned here, one thing that annoys me is that when I try to swipe left or right to the next "card", it's like I get denied and I just go back to the same card I was just on. Happens a lot to me. I think it's because I don't lift my finger fast enough when I swipe. I'm sure I'll get it down someday.

I kinda wished they replaced the Recent Apps button with Menu or Search, and have the Recent Apps screen come up by swiping from the bottom of the screen upwards (similar to the way you bring down the Notification screen, but the opposite). Maybe a custom ROM can do this.

 

[kbp08tls]

Okay, this is definitely something that's going to have to be fixed. Playing a game, I get a text - handcent shows the pop-up over the game. Reply, exit the pop-up, and the game completely reloads. My old Optimus (which is now my daughters) would just continue the game right where I left off.
I could just disable handcent pop-ups, but why should I have to with a "bleeding edge" device with the latest hardware/software when my lowly entry-level two year old phone that Sprint is practically giving away handles it just fine?
Has anyone tried the method in the XDA thread? I'm going to give it a shot today.

Sent from my E4GLTE using Android Central Forums

 

[RG129]

All the articles saying that it's not broken and HTC just did multi-tasking in a different way are completely wrong! HTC broke multi-tasking and in my opinion it's unacceptable. It's definitely a deal breaker and the only reason why I'm sticking it out is because reports on the xda HOX forums say the leaked RUU fixes the issue.

Here's what I've encountered in the 2 days I've had this phone:

- Pause Pandora, open another app, go back to Pandora and it restarts not leaving you at the song that you paused on.

- As other people have indicated, lots of games don't let you switch and return where you left off.

- Went for a run and I use SportyPal Pro. This app leaves an on-going icon in the notification bar with "Workout in Progress" so I thought I was good. During my run I missed a call and then I get a text message (I use GoSMS with the pop-up). I check my phone and Sense tried to close out SportyPal even though it had an on-going process and GPS was still on and tracking! It restarted the app but didn't work properly because Sense killed the app, but the gps tracking continued. I couldn't even kill the app with Advanced Task Killer because there was some weird disconnect with the on-going gps tracking and the app that Sense killed and restarted. I had to reboot my phone.

- 3rd party IM apps don't stay online when you multi-task. Sometimes even if you just close the app and go to the home screen and return a little later, the entire app restarts. I tried to close out all the other apps using Sense's "multi-tasking" feature and just leave open my IM app. Just reading an e-mail will cause the app to restart when I returned.

- I did a little experiment with one of my IM apps: I closed out all the other apps with the "multi-tasking" feature. I killed all apps using Advanced Task Killer as well. I opened up the IM app and left it open and just locked my phone. The next morning when I unlocked my phone, the IM app was still open so I thought it worked. When I went to tap on the screen a system pop up showed up and said "This Application has Stopped".

HTC/Sprint needs to hurry up and push out the OTA that fixes this ASAP. I don't even feel like my phone functions as an Android phone anymore...it's more along the lines of an iPhone the way it multi-tasks. In a way, the iPhone probably multi-tasks better because their app developers were aware of the faux multi-tasking and developed accordingly.

 

[Crispy]

Does the OTA update for the international One X fix this issue? This is something that's unacceptable to me.

 

[samid]

This multitasking is horrible! I didn't realize how important this is until this phone...

Sent from my EVO using Android Central Forums

 

[TraderGary]

I do think that HTC will fix this with an OTA here in the next week or so. Most new gadgets tend to have updates pretty quick after release.

They should also include an update for the camera shutter button. To make it auto focus when holding it down half way.

A half press on the shutter button should freeze focus and aperture so you can reframe your shot while maintaining the half press. Otherwise the focus and aperture can change as you try different subject framing. The half press is functioning exactly as it should on my E4VOLTE.

 

[PookiePrancer]

You guys do know that HTC has said there's nothing to "fix" As far as multitasking is concerned, right? Now, they'll hopefully change their mind, but it doesn't look good right now.

 

[RG129]

Here's a link to the xda forum. They're discussing hacks to better manage memory and towards the end, they indicate that the international OTA and the leaked AT&T RUU seem to fix (or improve) it quite a bit.

Multitasking is a joke on the One X! - xda-developers

 

[shadowhawk2020]

The worst thing for me so far is the dropbox. Since using the phone as usb storage wasn't working I decided to transfer some music through dropbox. I clicked export on a bunch of files and like normal switched over to do something else. Problem is, when I went back all the exporting had stopped. Basically if you are going to export files from dropbox, you have to sit on the dropbox screen and wait for it to completely finish.

I am going to test this method and see if helps fix the issue until we et something more official or a Rom that fixes it.

I think I have found a fix for the multitasking! (Video inside) - xda-developers

For those of you that rooted, this has worked well for me for the past couple of hours. Dropbox can now export in the background and Chrome doesn't refresh nearly as much. So far so good.

edit, well dropbox did finally stop transferring, but I was moving a large file and it had taken 20+ minutes. So not perfect, but at least it can do it now.

 

[cloak.n.dagger]

You guys do know that HTC has said there's nothing to "fix" As far as multitasking is concerned, right? Now, they'll hopefully change their mind, but it doesn't look good right now.

This is why we need to raise the issue to HTC via every social media app available. This is how they designed multitasking to work on this phone. If it's unacceptable then we (consumers) need to make them aware of the problem so they can fix it. Otherwise, it's working as designed in their eyes.

 

[Jackson Galaxy]

Those of you who have been able to play with it for a day or so...what are your thoughts on how the phone handles multitasking?

I haven't had any issues with it. I've been using to switch between Google Maps, various settings and basic applications like Loot. I've had no problems with it so far and I actually kind of like it compared to the old "recent apps" list. However, I don't play any games with the phone and that's where I see lots of complaints.

 

[midmofan]

Also not in love with how the multitasking does/doesn't work . It is true it is most notable with games which makes it silly how the reviewers state that this is only an issue for "power users." Does not take much of a power user to be playing a game, get an email alert, go to it, hit a link in the email to go to the browser, make a call then want to go back to the game.

 

[svargas05]

I like it. It works great, keeps apps open where you left them.

Like someone mentioned above, it does reload some webpages, but it reloads exactly where they were.

 

[Clocks]

Does anyone use Trillian as an IM client? I use it for work and if I get the evo lte will need it to be able to run in the background and alert me of new IMs.

 

[KoukiFC3S]

Apps that put an icon in the notification bar do not get killed as easily. So if the app allows it, enable that option.

(ex: tasker, system panel, avast)

 

[crxssi]

OK, I have the phone now. Multitasking is most certainly "broken". One of the first things I did was go into marketplace and download an app. After it started a VERY slow download, I decided to test the camera while it was working on that. Went to the camera app, took a few pictures. Went back to Google Play and it was as if I had never been there before. It apparently totally aborted my download, even.

I am *NOT* impressed. I can't even use just TWO APPS at the same time now?

 

[Clocks]

OK, I have the phone now. Multitasking is most certainly "broken". One of the first things I did was go into marketplace and download an app. After it started a VERY slow download, I decided to test the camera while it was working on that. Went to the camera app, took a few pictures. Went back to Google Play and it was as if I had never been there before. It apparently totally aborted my download, even.

I am *NOT* impressed. I can't even use just TWO APPS at the same time now?

It's frustrating to read stories like yours and then hear other people say "works perfectly, best phone ever, only someone looking for a problem would notice this". Do most people sit and watch their app download so they don't think there's a problem?

 

[KoukiFC3S]

OK, I have the phone now. Multitasking is most certainly "broken". One of the first things I did was go into marketplace and download an app. After it started a VERY slow download, I decided to test the camera while it was working on that. Went to the camera app, took a few pictures. Went back to Google Play and it was as if I had never been there before. It apparently totally aborted my download, even.

I am *NOT* impressed. I can't even use just TWO APPS at the same time now?

I don't think this is due to Sense killing the download. When you download an app, it shows in the notification bar. This tells android that this process is high priority, and it will not be killed.
I would bet it was a network error or something.

 

[IneffableCause]

HTC has said that this is how they want multi-tasking to work across all Sense devices. Looks like your options are install a ROM or get a different phone.

I really like HTC hardware but Sense is beyond annoying and I prefer to not use ROMs. Hopefully Google will get Motorola steered in the right direction and we can see stock Android on high quality hardware.