Task Manager/Killer Discussion

Cory Streater

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Sep 21, 2009
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Without a doubt, this is one of the most discussed topics in the Android Central forums. Understandably, having come from various other Smartphone platforms (Blackberry, Windows Mobile, etc.), where task management is crucial for optimal performance and battery life, most new Android Smartphone owners have 2 basic questions:

1.) Should I use a task manager?
2.) Which application does the best job at task management?

After digging and digging for answers to these questions, users sometimes end up frustrated and confused by conflicting information from a wide variety of sources. This usually results in a new thread on task management.

To help answer these questions (and avoid all those duplicate threads), Android Central's contributing writer and technical guru, Jerry Hildenbrand, has written this article. Please take a few minutes to read and educate yourself.

If you do choose to use a task manager, and your Galaxy S starts acting wonky, please uninstall the task manager to see if the problem goes away.

If you still have questions, or if you'd like to chime in with your own opinion and/or experiences with task managers, please post in this thread.

Cory
 
Just read that entire article. Very informative. Jerry did a great job. I understand task manager/killer it a little better now.
 
This is the one issue which drives me nuts about this phone. I'm a new Android and while there is much to love about the OS navigating through applications and killing apps makes me want to fruit punch my phone in the receiver with my mouth.

My last phone was a Palm Pre+ and multitasking could be done with a few quick gestures of your thumb. The downside, of course, was that there were scarcely any apps worth running. (At least WebOS ahd angry birds though... goddammit! I want my birds!)

Anyway, still happy since I could be on an episode of Next Generation and have the most advanced looking piece of hardware of anyone. Ha!
 
I can't for the life of me figure out how to set up Blacklists in task killer. I wish someone knew what the tabs on top do...
 
Would there be any explanation why the tw launcher would have problems after killing apps with a task killer
Launcher pro and adw don't have the issue but touch wiz always does
 
When I got my phone 2 weeks ago i was told I would want to download a task killer as you needed them with Android phones. So I dutifully did as I was told and downloaded Advanced Task Killer but have never really needed to use it.

So, what is the consensus here...are they needed or not? Now I see on here where they can cause problems so wondering if I should just uninstall mine?
 
just to be sure if youre process has green checkmark does that mean its killing it? or ignoreing it? thanks :p
 
just to be sure if youre process has green checkmark does that mean its killing it? or ignoreing it? thanks :p

It would be killing it if you have it set to auto kill. You would have to add to the ignored list to not kill it. Just don't go crazy killing apps. Your best off using it as little as possible.
 
I'ed be totally against task killers if I found some place that explains the nature of how the OS builds and manages the list of apps to auto-load/reload. So that I could teach/tell it what to never run. But even on the Android site in the Dev info I can't find anything on it...

My other take on it is to look at 2.2, Google took it upon themselves to stop these apps from being able to mess with how they designed the OS to "know" what you wanna run and to have it waiting for you.