Android News
Google and Cyanogen comments imply task killer/manager apps are pointless
May 7, 2010 | by Andrew Kameka
Android OS, Featured post
There’s a great deal of confusion about the way Android handles multitasking, says Android Software Engineer Dianne Hackborn. In a recent blog post, Hackborn clarifies that Android doesn’t require apps to close when users are “done” with them; however, that doesn’t mean apps running in the background negatively affect performance. Look at this particular excerpt from Hackborn’s article:
Applications may seem present to the user without an actual process currently running the app; multiple applications may share processes, or one application may make use of multiple processes depending on its needs; the process(es) of an application may be kept around by Android even when that application is not actively doing something.
What exactly does this mean? You don’t need to kill an app just because a task manager says it’s running. Android automatically closes apps if the phone requires RAM or if that app remains inactive too long.
In 2009, HTC Dream users noticed sluggishness in their phones and searched for a way to speed up the device. Apps like Advance Task Manager and Taskiller Pro emerged as tools to quickly see what was running and kill everything as a means of speeding up the phone. It seemed like a godsend to users but some argue that the apps are not as valuable as once thought.
Days after I read Hackborn’s post, a reader sent me a tip about comments from Cyanogen, a well-known Android modder who also feels task managers have minimal use. After fielding complaints from users experiencing problems on his CyanogenMod version of Android, he posted the following tweets:
TASK MANAGER DEVELOPERS RESPOND
However, developers of task killing apps are of a different opinion. Arron La, developer of Advance Task Manager, suggests that task killers are more important for legacy devices like the G1 and phones running older versions of Android.
“Task Managers were absolutely needed in the past before the new services UI came out in Android 2.0 or 2.1,” La said in an e-mail. “Task Managers had a niche of allowing users to quickly kill services associated with apps – including all the other stuff as well, such as alarms – but that was the only way to do it before the introduction of the new services UI.”
La contends that task managers may someday fall out of favo , but believes Advance Task Manager still has value because it provides a quicker end-all strategy. But should Android users interfere with Android’s inherent ability to end processes and services?
Of the dozens of task apps in the Android Market, several include “auto-kill” functions that will periodically kill apps. In certain apps, this can interfere with sync or background services, even if those apps have been whitelisted. An errant auto-kill can mess with your calendar or email, prevent an alarm from ringing, or even create problems for playing music in the background. Imagine my surprise when I saw a Last.fm dev team member say that task killers complicate background music of the Last.fm app
GREAT APP OR GOOSE CHASE?
Even the developer of TaskOS concurs, though he makes it a point to say that TaskOS is more about task switching and ending apps only when absolutely necessary.
“It’s very bad to kill services on Android because those services are loaded with a lot of information and are ‘sleeping’ without using battery usage,” says Christophe. “That’s why TaskOS doesn’t show services…Killing one application when you know what to do is [beneficial]. Killing mass applications is bad.”
I’ve long been a fan of task killers because they helped me free up RAM when my G1 was acting sluggish. I’m not so sure that it is beneficial to continue using it. Is my phone really seeing an uptick in performance or is it all just the placebo effect of an unnecessary product?
“The question is meaningless as long as there are many users to use the task manager,” argues Xiao of Estrongs Task Manager. “Where there are requirements, there are applications.”
FINAL CONCLUSION
The Android Market has dozens, possibly hundreds, of task killer apps all vying for attention. I’m sure some people may argue that there’s some short-term value to these apps; however, it appears that task killers are not necessary and in some cases do more harm than good. An additional 20 minutes of use or short bursts of freed RAM can be great, but users shouldn’t compromise experience and overall health of their device for that extra time.
Let me be clear in stating that apps like Advance Task Manager or TaskOS have great virtues like batch uninstall and app switching that many people can still benefit from using. With that said, it seems that constantly killing tasks, apps, and processes is not in the best interest of your phone. Android already has the natural ability to do this effectively, so let the phone do its job.
[Many thanks to Don for inspiring this post!]
So….what about killing apps and services to conserve battery?
killing apps and services to conserve battery is a fallacy…
Please elaborate.
I have seen first hand, that if I have my phone at full battery, and leave all startup apps running, it will die in a few hours. While if I kill all apps and then leave only the basics running, I can get 6-8 hours out of it, sometimes even more.
Dude charge your phone while the phone is shut off (power off the phone). If you turn the phone off and charge it you will get a full day of battery!!!
If I do that, my phone will last for more than 2 days (if conencted to WiFi). Factory default your phone, login to Google stuff (calendar, gmail, gtalk, latitude), don't install anything else, and test again.
to you, perhaps, but killing apps that aren't being used actively ensured that my battery was at 60% after 14 hours of moderate usage. Without that, it dies in about 6. -ASB: http://xeesm.com/AndrewBaker
“overall health of their device” Because it physically HURTS your phone?
Health as in smooth operation not as in brick.
I sometimes have to kill last.fm because it otherwise seems to get stuck in a state where it is still displaying a notification but the UI does not respond. This happens on my droid. I think with certainty that this is something a task killer is useful for.
I prefer to use the killer that already there in Settings > Apps
What about wasted cpu cycles when you keep apps you no longer need running in the background? Obviously that’s going to drain your battery a lot faster…
This is all well and good /in theory/. The reality is that my phone will be sluggish, I’ll hit ATK’s “kill all” widget and, tada!, now my phone is snappy. So if ATK isn’t needed, why does it work to make my phone snappy again?
I'm going to preface this by saying I'm not an Android dev so I don't know the ins and outs of the system, but here is my take: If your phone is sluggish and you kill all with ATK and things are snappier, that is because they are definitely snappier. What it does not mean is that it is just as good as if you had done a restart on your phone. You might be snappier, but it may have only gotten you 75% of the way to where you could have been. I am still hoping to hear more from devs about why or why not this is good/bad for the phone, but I assume the conjecture about task managers not being the best solution is correct at least in part My recent post The Power of a Printer
ICS has resident task killer.
Obviously you do not know how to read. Please read the post again before putting something so stupid.
Good for you to Mike! Put him in his place hahahaha. He not read good!
Ahhh…sooo helpful. Thanks for that kernel of knowledge…oh knowledge master. OR you could have been helpful. As a brand new Android user I am completely confused by this app discussion. Read other forums and postings on other sites and this one and you will understand. I think the question is legit. But, you must feel better when you call someone stupid.
With the new Android OS versions, I don't think task killers are necessary. On my N1 I notice no difference in speed when killing tasks; however, on my Hero running 1.5 there was a noticeable difference after killing some apps (like Google Maps). My recent post CoryThomas: I like
RT @manup456: Did noy make this but chrome users must havehttp://bit.ly/cJzob5 =)
With the new Android OS versions, I don't think task killers are necessary. On my N1 I notice no difference in speed when killing tasks; however, on my Hero running 1.5 there was a noticeable difference after killing some apps (like Google Maps). My recent post CoryThomas: I like
RT @manup456: Did noy make this but chrome users must havehttp://bit.ly/cJzob5 =)
so we err…. just put up with a slow sluggish phone then?
This is complete crap. It is absolutely essential to kill tasks so your phone runs fast and smooth, as well as keeping your battery life longer. I can't believe people are so stupid as to believe this. http://www.droidforums.net/forum/tech-issues-bug-…
No need to be so harsh, the fact remains that a true "multi-tasking" phone should be able to manage the apps on its own and not need to have some other program handle it for you. It should be automatic. Now I understand that these programs can be useful to kill a app that is acting up but its not necessary, especially with the newer OS's and hardware. I, like you have the Droid, running stock, and find that it ran SLOWER when i had and was using ATK, compared to now with it NOT using any task killer app. So, its a matter of opinion and I run tons of apps through out the day for work and play and everything in between. So it comes down to if people want to use task killers, go ahead theres no problem with it, if other believe that its not needed, then that's awesome too. But dont stress about it. Lets face it, that's the beauty of Android, we have the freedom to choose how we want to customize OUR own phones.
Who is to say your buying into the bullshit that you need a task killer. Your phone is probably slow because you use one and you have damaged a lot of the programming.
Don’t forget that they can also be used to quickly kill misbehaving apps. I have had a number of apps malfunction, but Android doesn’t kill them and my phone freezes up. Killing the app obviously fixes this problem.
I guess depending on your phone, you don't need an ATK for that. For the Incredible, you can go into menu-settings-applications-manage applications-"running" tab at the top, select the app or service, and click on "force stop".
My experience after uninstalling the task killer is that the phone is no slower than before in general. Sure, you can kill off everything running in the background for a burst of speed, but I ended up putting so many apps on the task killer whitelist that the program was pointless.
I’ve tried this out by using the phone (version 1.6) in the same place, the same sequence of apps, for the same period of time (about six hours), with and without task killer and with and without that battery saver app that shuts down the radio nd enables it only periodically. To my surprise, neither improved my battery life at all, and the battery saver app actually worsened it slightly.
I would not believe one word that anyone from google says about anything related to either Android or the Nexus One. Both in my opinion are a complete failure. Android won't exist 3 years from know. It will go down in smart phone history as a failed experiment. Don't even get me started on the Nexus One's short comings.
You're right… why believe Google about the products they created. Then we'd be just like the, Apple worshiping sheep. I'd love to hear a few of these short comings on the Nexus One. I can name so many. It muti-tasks, has expandable storage, flash for the camera, user swappable battery, noise cancelling mic, free turn by turn GPS… Ugh! What a completely useless phone amirite?
Crack Corn, can you support what you just said with logical arguments? If yes, then we would all like to hear them. If not, then keep your opinion to your self!!! Can all those millions of satisfied android users be wrong? Tell us why, please tell us why….
Jimmy, you're wasting our oxygen. Unless you have something intelligent to say, and not a factless rant, go back and play in the iSandbox.
Crack corn just keep puffing off that Apple crack pipe (and stay over on the Apple fanboy sites where you belong).
misbehaving apps from misbehaving code. bad apps from bad coder.
for my n1, i kill apps whenever the phone feels laggy & sluggish & everything is back to normal fast speed
Thanks for this article! I'll be more wary of killing apps for the sake of increased performance/battery life now. My recent post Craniopharyngioma Resection
Thanks for this article! I'll be more wary of killing apps for the sake of increased performance/battery life now. My recent post Craniopharyngioma Resection
I'm also convinced that using the Task Manager to kill certain processes in fact restores some speed to my occasionally sluggish MyTouch 3G original. But just because I kill all and things seem better doesn't mean I haven't done something unneeded for many of the processes killed. It may have been a single app that was causing the problem. Kondik's statement on twitter (and I would think that his voice is the voice of someone, just like google engineers, who has some basis in fact and engineering for what he's saying) was that, not withstanding a rougue application misbehaving, use of the Task Manager to kill all apps was a placebo. Perhaps what I'm experiencing on my phone is that, with as little memory as the phone has, apps that are badly behaved can bring things down more easily. And with no operating system aid as Andrew reports in 2.1 we're left with little choice but to try to use the Task Manager wisely and sparingly, rather than blasting everything in sight. I would love to figure out which app(s) in my list (http://www.appbrain.com/user/wickenden/apps-on-th… ) are causing my grief. Thanks for the article Andrew. don
I missed a call on my Hero (1.5) twice, because low memory caused the drag-to-answer bar not to respond fast enough. Nowadays I keep running TasKiller whenever I notice any sluggishness of the UI. Haven’t had this problem since.
Android as the System is great.. its mostly people who are creating Apps for it are not doing their job right. They are lazy to optimize performance and save battery life by auto killing any processing of the app if its not in foreground and only push a tasks to cpu if its needed. if the app is in background and not run the entire app for a small thing and keep it running after its done the task. I think Android notification system is one of the best inventions. To make it more better for the battery I think should needs to be a Universal system for App notification. Certain app well most apps needs to update their contain like Twitter, RSS feeds, IM chat clients, new apps, etc.. There need to be a universal notification system where the system fach everything for the apps and not each app running in background to update and remains running after the notification is given. I think this is where Task Killer are benefited. The most sluggish comes from apps running in background doing update or sync with the servers. If there is a way to build a universal system or rebuild the Android task system to kill the app right after its update is shown in the notification. Killing meaning no CPU cycle or processes even shown if running a task killer app. I know there is nothing similar already there but trust me on this it needs more attention and work. Why u ask… once the update for App2SD comes up officially. Android user wont just download few apps they will download hundreds and hundreds. Just imagine u have 100 apps and 60-80 needs to be updates daily by sync. now image all 60 try to update at once or being fair only 6 app running at time to update this will take too long and it will slow down ur other apps if ur running them in the foreground. I think Google some put more emphasis on the apps multi tasking and background processes. I think they need to make a universal mechanism for apps to get permission to run in background and it should be a user choice not the OS. As similar how we give permission to apps when installing. But it should be somewhere in menu "Enable Running Background: ON/OFF". This way when you watch playing a game then jump to youtube to watch a video but forgot u left the game on and in 30 min ur battery died ur not left to wonder why. Games for example should not run in background instead they should be paused and not be anywhere near cpu processes. This would be helpful for Apps like IM client.. for example many people just go for a quick check for buddy who is online or just need to send 1 line to a friend. Their are others who like to be online 24/7. Since there is no close button in Android at least it should be a choice somewhere. I think this will make it easy for the User and the App developer. for every app u dont have to worry is it running in back or not because you should know you want to let it run or not. Google need to understand all Developer are not professional programers most of them are student or people are building apps as they are learning Android. To make things worse there is no revision process as Apple iPhone app goes thur. Any one can build a simple or most complicated app while not having it working properly can just post it in the Market for any one to download. You have to understand not every are technical or smart to know what are good professinal apps to some one just test out android sdk. I think this is a good thing to have a revision for apps. I know its an open source but there need to be some short of Approval seal for good apps. I think Google need to do this Quick if they want quality apps to show up in Android. Apple iPhone apps is not only credit goes to app developer but too apple as well for pushing Dev to make the best app they can. Google need to heir or buy another company or what ever they need to do.. to get the feature done please do it quick. Having a approval Seal like Approved via Google (meaning the app was review and checks to be optimized and preform good on your Android headset.) this will boost the market place with Good quality apps. more people will go with Approved apps over suspicious apps. To be approved there should be some standers as how well app preform how it effect system performance and how well it excite background processes and finally must have a good UI.
I agree with Dylan Bennett. Maybe they aren’t needed in 2.1, but I have 1.5, and task manager is definitely needed. If my Eris ever gets 2.1, maybe I’ll consider not using it. Until then I’ll keep using it, since android is designed to multitask. Why would it kill apps on it’s own when it’s designed to allow them to run in the background?
I think Task Manager is still needed. But I don’t agree if Task Manager will automatically kill process that unused again or in sleep process. Because some time that application sleep because is design to wake up only if have task.
They need a system that take que of task so it automatically launch that app the task is associated with. Even app put on sleep eats too much memory and can slow you phone down if you have too many apps sleeping and waiting for the next task. If there was a universal task system where u can que the task like twitter update.. example it put it check every 30 min. Instead of having twitter app putting to sleep that task can be que to a task manager where it know in every 30 min open twitter let it update then send the notifications to user and kill the process of twitter. this way u have only 1 app just running instead of each app running to do their equaling.
My app Killed my phone now it is for repair so watch out- This is not s joke
if you have a rooted phone try AutoKiller, it does it in the good way by tweaking system's inner minfree values letting the system decide what to kill, but make it happen earlier, so you will have a good chance that you will not feel the sluggishness again.
I have been running my N1 w/ the latest Cyanogen mod for well over a month now w/o running a task killer. The phone never slows down. I use an app called "System" which has a "kill all" to use when an app has gone bad. If your "modern" Android phone is acting sluggish, don't blame Android – blame one of your apps that is poorly made and leaking memory causing your phone to be sluggish.
Great to know ! I just uninstalled Advanced Task Killer on my Desire ! Thanks for the great blog !
Without my Task Killer, I would have chucked my Samsung Moment out the window within the first week. It shuts down apps that I don't use that randomly start up. Why does Moxier Mail need to run in the background when I've NEVER used it. Then Sprint makes it uninstallable so I'm stuck with it unless I root my phone.
I have found on my Motorola Droid that killing apps has no real advantages as far as battery life goes but as others have mentioned it will speed things up if you kill tasks that aren't being used. I have found that as one would expect the fewer tasks one has running the faster and more stable you phone becomes.
Task Killers are not necessary if you don't have any missbehaving apps installed.
The problem is that it is very hard for a user to find those missbehaving apps. So either you use a task killer or you look at the result from adb bugreport and other debug tools to find the culprit. Anyone want to guess what most users find is easier? 
And if you have a HTC Hero a lot of time the culprit is in the HTC stuff you can't uninstall. ;(
i am very happy to read your article post. thanks for it.
Verizon is pushing Advanced Task Killer on every customer that buys an Android devices from them. It's ridiculous. My recent post geeknik: Valve Giving Portal Away FREE
My Hero was sluggish so I tried something different – Startup Auditor. I disabled many apps that I never use, and keep others from auto starting at boot up. Since then I stopped using a task killer as the system seems to handle this fine now. Then I flashed 2.1 (Damageless ROM) and all lag is gone. I like that in 2.1 you can easily see which precesses are running via Settings>Applications>Running Services. When I buy new apps I can see whether or not they hang and can close them if needed. I’ve weeded out a couple of trouble makers this way. Root and flash – you won’t be sorry!
Ever since the latest update my battery drains in half the time. So whatever anyone says, I believe it is because the task killer is now disabled. There really needs to be a way to disable programs from running in the background on a case-by-case basis.
Does it logically follow, then, that Startup managers are also pretty useless, perhaps even counterproductive?
for me i think people shouldn't even be bother whether they need to kill apps or not. it is so much an IT function for users not familar with this domain. Here's why u should not use task killers>> http://www.productiveorganizer.com/android-produc… My recent post How to get refunds from Apple’s App Store when you make a wrong purchase
What about not watching my 3G Bars' upload/download icon work, indicating that it is using my precious 3G data bytes for an app I'm no longer using and then I kill it, and the 3G upload/download bar stops, indicating that I am now in control of when my 3G data is used? I mainly use those "terrible" app killers for this.
Conclusion: Task Killers are not necessary for those with Android 2.2 Froyo but if you have an OS older than that, then by all means, use a task killer. Read here so you may be enlightened and not be one of those miserable weeds who think all Operating Systems are like Windows with the whole "more free memory=better performance" concept: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=…
I hate when people said, if people programmed everything right, there would be no need for a task killer. That is a moot point becase there currently ARE and always will be applications that will be programmed incorrrectly, hog memory, drain your battery, and will be difficult to close down. If applications misbehave (which for many users, applications will), a task killer will never be pointless and is definitely not a placebo. Ever try doing a BG memory check or sync with a full 16 gb micro card on a G1? What about an exchange sync to a business e-mail account when someone sends a couple of 10 mb files? Try receiving a call while using Google Nav to go somewhere. I could go on and on. I'd be curious to know what phone the author of this post has. I doubt it's one of the old school phones with android 1.6 that actually sees performance and battery boosts for using a task killer. Rather than just saying there is no performance boost, how about backing the article up with some benchmarks on Youtube? Link them here.
Don't forget that they can also be used to quickly kill misbehaving apps. I have had a number of apps malfunction, but Android doesn't kill them and my phone freezes up
Well, you don't need to kill an application just because a task manager says it's running. Android, as we all know, automatically closes apps if the phone requires RAM or if that app remains inactive too long. Android already has the natural ability to do this effectively, so let the phone do its job. Right?!
Have not seen Android kill running apps.
Dont agree at all. In fact the latest ics has a resident task killer. Where one gets that apps can suck processor/ram without effect is beyond me. Someone said phone ram is different but could not explain how. Most developers with an eye toward battery conservation include task killers. Why app makers insist on running their apps when there is no need is also a mystery. Sure when the app needs to track something or to alert the user but otherwise stop it.
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