Am I doing something wrong with my new Incredible?

[kelbell8564]

I have looked at several of the threads about battery life being pretty bad on the Dinc, and I have done what is suggested.  I have the Advance Ap Killer...go in often and kill the apps, rarely have WiFi on, don't turn on GPS unless I actually need it. My battery life is horrible.  It doesn't even last a day, I am not texting constantly during the day nor am I talking for hours on end.  When I check to see what % of battery is being used I am seeing phone idol in the double digit percentages, Android system is on a regular basis 40-55%.  I have seen an increase in this since 2.2 install, but the percentage being used by the Android system was consistantly at around 45% prior to 2.2

Any suggestions?

[AZSALUKI]

my android system is never that high? mine is typically at "standby" in the 30's, "idle" in the 30's, "android system" around 20, and then the rest are all usually under 10% each. i don't know much about all of this stuff. i'd say i'm a moderate user. i actually am using the device for 2-3 hours a day and just barely get a full day off of a full charge. my average up time is 20+ hours and awake time of right around 3 hours, before i go to bed and have to charge. once i get to 20+ hours of up time and 2-3 hours of awake time i am in the orange.

[AZSALUKI]

oh yeah....uninstall the app killer. it is useless with 2.2. you will use more resources constantly killing them off (only to have them start back up) than if you just let them sit idle in the background and end themselves. i was killing 15-24 apps evry hour or so. i finally took google's advice and uninstalled the killer. now, a day later, i have an average of 4 apps actually running (that i did not start) at any given time.

[w40d1n1]

ATK is a must have if you use apps (i.e. Internet browser) that do things (i.e load heavy flash ridden pages from a twitter bit.ly URL).  Without ATK to kill the browser, the browser will consume CPU cycles (and therefore battery life) in the background.   Those few that argue against auto task killers are really not mobile power users, mostly isolated developers with test systems that rarely see the usage us experienced users see.

[JoeBobHarris]

And so I enter the religious debate of task killers

I wonder if constantly looking at your task killer and killing apps could be the cause for the OS to have such high percentages? These are not free activities.

Re: "Those few that argue against ATK"

http://wickenden.livejournal.com/940848.html

...

"But Task Manager have been called out by Google and by the army of technically informed developers like Cyanogen Mod’s Steve Kondic, as something quite the opposite of what they claim: they are both unneeded and create more problems than they solve.  This is because Google’s android system has been designed for multi-tasking in ways that allow programs to be ready to respond to a changed environmental condition instantly (an alarm to wake you, a notification that you have arrived at your destination and so forth) as well as actually “running” and consuming resources when needed.  Additionally the android system itself is smart about how it deals with low memory conditions and is capable of completely blowing away applications in such a way that their state is remembered and can be restored when there is more memory."

...

Unplugged my phone at 11 a.m. this morning and Cell standby is at 37%, Phone idle is at 32% and Android OS is at 21%.

Just use the phone. If it starts lagging and slowing down due to low memory start worrying. Until then just use it. Oh and "shut-down" once a week or so to get a new memory footprint.

[Jeff1953]

The android system should not be that high.  Maybe you have a lot of things constantly updating?

Otherwise, something is running in the backgound.  I have caught 'Maps' running in the backgound after heavy use and it wasn't showing up in ATK...this was with 2.1 though.  I also had some app..which I can't remember now that did the same.  If you go to Market and get Spare Parts, you can do a bit more investigation into what is chewing up the battery. It give you the option of seeing "Partial Wake Usage".  I also had me email server down once and my phone constantly was trying to update...that was a big drain.  If you haven't, turn it off, and then on, that would stop something like "Maps" running in the background.

[w40d1n1]

So its bad for ATK to kill an app, but it's acceptable for the OS to kill the app but *only* after the system's resources are already constrained?!? I, a 20+ year app and systems, and recent blackberry, software developer, call **bleep** on that (obviously written by inexperienced ppl) article. Don't forget, Google once wrote that Wave was the future.

[AZSALUKI]

w40d.....why don't you just run it w/o an app killer for 2 days? if the end of the world comes, then reinstall it. but if there is no difference in performance, you can quit worrying so much about what's in the background. i don't know anything about this stuff. but this much i do know....when i was constantly killing apps, they just started right back up. now they i'm not killing them, they have ended on their own and have not started back up. with app killer=15-25 apps to be killed (EVERY time i checked...i'm talking minutes after i killed all of them)....without app killer=4-5 running in the background.

[JoeBobHarris]

Fair enough. But didn't 2.2 change the game a little? Have the task killers / users accounted for these differences?

w40d1n1 wrote:

So its bad for ATK to kill an app, but it's acceptable for the OS to kill the app but *only* after the system's resources are already constrained?!? I, a 20+ year app and systems, and recent blackberry, software developer, call **bleep** on that (obviously written by inexperienced ppl) article. Don't forget, Google once wrote that Wave was the future.

---

[JoeBobHarris]

This quote from an Android software engineer might apply here. 

Found under "When does an application stop?". Here > http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/04/multitasking-android-way.html

A common misunderstanding about Android multitasking is the difference between a process and an application. In Android these are not tightly coupled entities: 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.

In this same article it says that Android may leave processes running in the background if the device is not memory constrained. Do we want to go back to a single-tasking OS to conserve battery power? I thought multi-tasking was a feature. Think I'm going to the V store today to get an extra battery. 

[drum_thumper]

I know that since Froyo was installed on my Dinc, my battery life was way down.  I unistalled my ATK last night but had to turn off my phone (had it in the other room and did not want notifications waking my in-laws all night long).  My phone has been up now fpr 37 minutes and awake for 17.  By this point in the last two days my battery meter had already gone down a little.  Today, it has not moved yet.

As for apps and processes, look at it this way.  This phne is a computer.  If you go into your computer and hit "ctrl/alt/delete" and go to Task manager, one tab will have all the programs running and their status and then there is another tab called "processes".  If you open that tab, you will see all sorts of stuff running.  This is the stuff that is running to keep your computer performing correctly so that you will not feel like throwing it out the window.  It is much like that on your Inc.

As for the ATK, since they were designed for 2.1 they worked much better.  But now we have 2.2 and it is like trying to run a software program that was made for Windows XP on Windows 7.  The possibility of a problem with that software is really high.  It is like this with the ATK's and some of the apps that are available.  I am guessing that most of the developers are now in the process of trying to work around the 2.2 platform to update their apps (if not already done).

[w40d1n1]

I've been running w/o ATK for the past 12 or so hours. Last reboot was 6 hours ago. I can see 65+ procs running (Settings, Applications, Manage.., Running...) No improved use, in fact browsing (this forum no less) is slower and somewhat sluggish when scrolling up/down.

[AZSALUKI]

lol....i call **bleep**!!! seriously....if you have 65 running then something is WRONG with your device. i've NEVER had more than 25...with or without a killer. i think something is faulty with your inc???? i'd take that in and show vzn...get a replacement.

[AZSALUKI]

ok...hold up. i've been checking "running services." and only about 6 show up. but if i go to apps...running...then there are A TON OF THEM. however, there are 3 times more than my app killer EVER showed? why is this. this shows com.htc.dcs.service.stock, contacts storage, dialer storage, download manager, etc., etc. it even lists htc sense???? lol....i obviously don't understand this because NONE of all this ever showed up when i'd open a task killer???? and about half of this stuff appears to me to be necessary for it to function (android system shows up...and clock, dialer, contacts storage)??? isn't a lot of this stuff necessary? 

[AZSALUKI]

i give up trying to figure out how it works. i know this....since i uninstalled it yesterday, i haven't noticed any difference in performance and right now i'm at up time of 13:01 and awake time of 1:48. it just went from 60% to 50%. so it will easily get me to my normal full day of being on with about 3 hours of actual use. the day before my battery was draining faster than normal (that was the day after i got froyo and was killing apps all morning). i've also seen other tonight report that thier battery got better after uninstalling and someone said his music quit canstantly skipping after uninstalling....so i'm leaving it off an i'll just quit trying to figure it out!!!! every time i think i've learned how it works, i realize i have no idea how it works!!! but it works so i'll ignore it.

[AZSALUKI]

if i get real bored this weekend maybe i'll reinstall it and open it just to see what it shows compared to the setting...apps....manage apps....running list. task killer NEVER showed most of these....but they had to be running right? 

[w40d1n1]

Go to Settings.....Applications....Running and count the nunber of items your dinc says are running.

[w40d1n1]

Sure, a lot of those are necessary. But all of them?

[w40d1n1]

Thumper, task killer apps arent written just for the dinc, they are written for the OS. Froyo has already been available for months, esp to app devs. I believe that froyo devs didn't want android to be known for needing task killers, so they spent time (coding and blogging) making sure task killers would not work with froyo.