First time Android user

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Ekstasis

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How do you know if an app actually closed? I was used to having an option to "exit". On this Samsung phone when you press the "back" button the app seems to close, but did it really?
 
Ekstasis said:
How do you know if an app actually closed? I was used to having an option to "exit". On this Samsung phone when you press the "back" button the app seems to close, but did it really?
Click to expand...
Hold down the home button and swipe the application to the left or right to take it off memory. Go to Settings--->Applications--->Running Applications to kill the entire process tree if you want to (rather not close the cell phone application, or the android application... you'll need to restart your phone to get it to work again if you kill those).
 
Or... just leave Android to manage the apps' state, as it has been designed to do. An app being in memory isn't necessarily doing anything, and force-closing it will often just see Android reopen it 30 seconds later.
 
HapticSimian said:
Or... just leave Android to manage the apps' state, as it has been designed to do. An app being in memory isn't necessarily doing anything, and force-closing it will often just see Android reopen it 30 seconds later.
Click to expand...
So it's fine the way I'm doing it? How do I exit Whatsapp for instance?
 
Ekstasis said:
So it's fine the way I'm doing it? How do I exit Whatsapp for instance?
Click to expand...

You don't exit apps per se; just press Back until you reach the home screen again, or press Home to go there directly. Whatsapp will tootle along in the background, which it needs to do if you're hoping to actually receive any Whatsapp messages.

Here and there you'll find apps which need to be explicitly closed, but they'll present you with a dialogue box when you press Back to go back to your home screen. The only app like that I have on my phone, if I recall, is my satnav. It'll keep the GPS awake even if it's in the background so it has to be closed to avoid 3 hour battery life.
 
HapticSimian said:
You don't exit apps per se; just press Back until you reach the home screen again, or press Home to go there directly. Whatsapp will tootle along in the background, which it needs to do if you're hoping to actually receive any Whatsapp messages.

Here and there you'll find apps which need to be explicitly closed, but they'll present you with a dialogue box when you press Back to go back to your home screen. The only app like that I have on my phone, if I recall, is my satnav. It'll keep the GPS awake even if it's in the background so it has to be closed to avoid 3 hour battery life.
Click to expand...
Of course :D. Thx
What about automatic updates? Is there a way to force manual instead of automatic?
 
mercurial said:
You shouldn't really do that, because whatsapp should be running in the background, so that you can receive messages as soon as it comes through.
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You're right, but the only way to get back to the home screen seems to be the back button/home button, yes?
 
You dont even need to press the back button. Just the home button. Android from ICS manages its memory very well. So dont worry about it, unless you feel its extremely sluggish... then kill an app or two...
 
For automatic updates, open the play store app, go to settings, turn automatic updates off. While you there, you might want to select the update over wifi only option.

Some apps have an auto update option within their own settings, so you might want to check individual app settings for auto update options.

For the closing apps issue, android was designed to handle memory allocation efficiently, unused ram is wasted ram so there's no real need to close apps manually (unless the phone is sluggish)
 
The more apps running the better your phone will perform, Android doesn't need lots of extra RAM like windows, when it runs out of RAM it will kill the oldest app in the memory to free up RAM for newer apps. Having apps in your memory means they load faster (hence why i said your phone will perform better) but only on phones with low amounts of RAM (256) might you expect to see a performance hit
 
Nduimiso said:
The more apps running the better your phone will perform, Android doesn't need lots of extra RAM like windows, when it runs out of RAM it will kill the oldest app in the memory to free up RAM for newer apps. Having apps in your memory means they load faster (hence why i said your phone will perform better) but only on phones with low amounts of RAM (256) might you expect to see a performance hit
Click to expand...
like a "first in first out" scenario?

Thanx for the explanations guys :)
 
Volkyrie said:
For automatic updates, open the play store app, go to settings, turn automatic updates off. While you there, you might want to select the update over wifi only option.

Some apps have an auto update option within their own settings, so you might want to check individual app settings for auto update options.

For the closing apps issue, android was designed to handle memory allocation efficiently, unused ram is wasted ram so there's no real need to close apps manually (unless the phone is sluggish)
Click to expand...
Will check these settings tomorrow, thx :)
 
agentrfr said:
Hold down the home button and swipe the application to the left or right to take it off memory. Go to Settings--->Applications--->Running Applications to kill the entire process tree if you want to (rather not close the cell phone application, or the android application... you'll need to restart your phone to get it to work again if you kill those).
Click to expand...

You can actually kill system apps in android? That's a bit disturbing. I'm expecting my android phone this week I must remember that tip
 
I have never been able to kill the phone system app on any of my phones, Just had a look and I don't see it under running applications. Probably depends on your version of Android and if you are rooted or not.
 
Park@82 said:
I have never been able to kill the phone system app on any of my phones, Just had a look and I don't see it under running applications. Probably depends on your version of Android and if you are rooted or not.
Click to expand...

Think the reference is to Samsung's Active Applications widget which allows you to clear memory.
 
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