Comments

• user389

  ✭✭✭✭  /  September 2019

  The dontkillmyapp website is mostly about having legacy Android apps and new apps targeting obsolete API's (for compatibility with old Android versions) run in the latest Android version, and/or have apps do more than the latest versions of Android allows.
  Google is building a wall around the garden to compete with Apple for business and government use. There will be further restrictions what indie developers (sic) are allowed to do in future Android versions.
  
  Serious developers make sure their stuff works in Samsung phones, despite the poor ranking of Samsung on the dontkillmyapp website. Hopefully without breaking the compatibility with stock Android phones.
  
  -- 
  Hans

  1
• madbilly

  ✭✭✭✭  /  September 2019

  Hi @user389,

  It doesn't really matter what the website is for, I'm highlighting the fact that the CPO can spin 7th worst in the world as "top ranking". Truly world class at something, that's for certain.

  Cheers
  

  2
• singhnsk

  ✭✭✭✭  /  September 2019

  Am I the only one who wants a much stronger background app activity manager?
  

  All I want is it to be manageable and not be forced. When I enable it, kill all apps by default when I quit em EXCEPT those I manually whitelist. Since apps have auto wake methods, there's a need for a method to bypass it let them not wake up or work in the background.
  

  I still keep missing the options from their Chinese ROM. Got easy whitelist there with choice for background activity and auto-wake.

  
  

  Ah yeah for the real topic, no, the 7th rank is not an achievement but that's a big improvement. Won't applause because they fixed something they were doing wrong, so, it is them fixing their mess, not them giving something new. Unfortunately the most affected phones (Nokia's Meditatek lineup) still remains the same. The DuraSpeed killer has been annoying people who try to add functionality using non-system apps, such as an App Locker. The app locker gets killed by the DuraSpeed. A good conclusion is that even if an App Killer is included by default, there needs to be a user-manageable whitelist and a chapter in the user-guide about that.
  

  
  

  After this is done, I don't care what score the OEM gets on that website. That website is all about getting a better experience for users and app developers. And a whitelist will be a manageable solution between battery consuming apps and important apps which are expected to run in the background.
  

  3
• user389

  ✭✭✭✭  /  September 2019

  madbilly said:

  [ . . . ]
  

  It doesn't really matter what the website is for, I'm highlighting the fact that the CPO can spin 7th worst in the world as "top ranking". Truly world class at something, that's for certain.

  [ . . . ]
  

  "You find us near the bottom on the dontkillmyapp website!"
  

  - Is that better?

  Denmark is half Apple, 40something% Samsung, with Huawei currently marketing their phones aggressively to try combat both. Others are single-digit percentages or less.

  It's a fresh initiative to put Samsung and Huawei at the top of a hall of shame website. They are among the few Android phone vendors that make real money and in a position to influence future development of Android outside Google and the USA.

  I'm not overly impressed by Android's adaptive stuff but it's Google's take on a worry-free Android experience. The days when a random third-party app could drain the battery flat in the background without doing something useful is over, fortunately (Android's battery and background activity settings works for me).
  

  It can't be a goal in itself to avoid vendor specific power management. There's vendor specific hardware and software that Android does not know about - for example camera and audio technology - running with system privileges and maybe needing custom idle modes.

  That reminds me, I still haven't checked how long the battery lasts when using augmented reality in pedestrian navigation in Google Maps...

  --
  Hans
  

  4
• madbilly

  ✭✭✭✭  /  September 2019

  Hi @user389,

  Yes I prefer your version! Still, @singhnsk is right, it is a significant improvement but they've still got some work to do.

  I find that the Android 9 adaptive battery thing struggles when a new app is installed and used intensively for a period of time (as one often does with a new app) then not used for a while. The adaptive battery seems to think that because we used it intensively earlier it needs to keep it ready to open again at a moment's notice. I noticed significant battery drain recently from two apps which I used like this - one I wasn't surprised about as it has been around a long time but doesn't have a large user base, so feedback on battery usage on Android 9 may not be easy to get. However the other was the Nokia Tribe app - you would expect that to not drink the battery on a Nokia phone, wouldn't you?!

  A better background activity manager would be nice. But it wouldn't be beige Android then would it?

  Cheers
  

  1
• user389

  ✭✭✭✭  /  September 2019 edited September 2019

  @madbilly ,

  Curious as always I decided to give an Android 4 compatible app a spin:
  https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.atrainingtracker
  

  The installation defaults to allow background activity and optimize battery use.

  It kept recording in the background on my Nokia 8 for more than 3 hours, also when minimized and when swiped up to not appear in the recent app list, both with and without a Bluetooth heart rate strap connected. It does not provide notifications, the only indication something is running is the GPS icon.
  It does use battery but there was no warning from the adaptive battery thing.
  EDIT: App info > battery has it listed as running in the foreground all the time despite being minimized or closed when recording.
  

  Maybe @juho is more trustworthy than the dontkillmyapp website since the latest updates for Nokia 8? ;-)

  --
  Hans
  

  1
• madbilly

  ✭✭✭✭  /  September 2019

  Hi @user389,

  You might be right that the don'tkillmyapp website is a bit out of date - I doubt that after the initial outrage people update the performance scores.

  I would be interested to know if you find that that app will keep running if you load it up now. My experience is that a newly installed app will be allowed to run continuously but an older one will not run so well in the background if it is a while since it was last run.

  Cheers
  

  0
• user389

  ✭✭✭✭  /  September 2019 edited September 2019

  @madbilly ,
  

  It keeps recording the track and heart rate after being installed for some days, with an estimated 12-15 hours battery life on Nokia 8. It's similar to the battery performance of the SportsTracker app that currently needs Android 6 or higher.
  

  I don't know how the particular app behaved previously and it's not a general conclusion for all old apps.
  Rooting and messing with the system is not an option on my phone, so I don't know if the app is particularly well behaving, or if Google (or HMD) has tweaked the system to allow some Android 4 apps and their API's to run with foreground privileges in the background.

  --
  Hans
  

  0
• madbilly

  ✭✭✭✭  /  September 2019

  Hi @user389,

  Good to know, thanks. I don't know about the various APIs and privileges etc so you could be right about that. On my phone if I have to reboot it often some background apps take some time to restart, or don't restart at all. This could be a problem with the apps as they had the same behaviour in Android 8.1.

  Cheers
  

  0