Is closing apps generally unnecessary in UT like in Android?

Opolork

Hi.

I got thinking about this when I read this article this morn: Stop Closing Apps on Your Android Phone https://www.howtogeek.com/771413/stop-closing-apps-on-your-android-phone

arubislander

@Opolork

Generally UTouch apps suspend when not in the foreground. They get resumed when they receive focus again.
If the system is low on RAM apps in the background will be killed, and will need to be started up again by the system when they receive focus.

When Lomiri is rendering in windowed mode, then the apps are not suspended when their window loses focus.

AppLee

@opolork
This article is not incorrect but depending on your phone usage it is best to close android apps.
First because more and more apps are behaving like thugs (to be fair he pointed out there are other methods to deal with it but closing the app is the simplest way and might be the only way in case of Whatsapp for example)
Then because if you don't use apps often, the gain at startup is not worth the loss of battery.
No android is not optimized to reduce RAM or CPU usage and the garbage collector is garbage.
Java is not a technology to be used in embedded software as the battery life is impacted.

Sorry I hate Android for many reasons. And when I think that before the launch I thought Google bringing Linux to smartphones was a good way to redeem themselves. How foolish was I.

kugiigi

Ideally yes. The system should be able to handle managing apps lifecycle but of course, UT isn't as good as Android yet in this regard. Sometimes the current app gets killed or crashes because there are apps in the background that consume memory. This is ususally more noticeable in the browser or webapps. So in general, it'll be good to kill apps you don't use. Also, multitasking is so much better in UT in my opinion so you'd want to keep the app spread/switcher as clean as possible. On Android, I barely use the app switcher. I only use it mostly for switching betwen 2 apps. In UT, I'd use it to switch between multiple apps.

domubpkm

@kugiigi said in Is closing apps generally unnecessary in UT like in Android?:

multitasking is so much better in UT...

Multi-tasking is unfortunately not efficient on some UT devices including the Volla for me. And you are also aware of the problem. https://gitlab.com/ubports/core/morph-browser/-/issues/495

Opolork

@arubislander said in Is closing apps generally unnecessary in UT like in Android?:

When Lomiri is rendering in windowed mode

Could you elaborate on that? How does that differ from normal mode?

AppLee

@opolork It is a convergence thing.

When docked it is assumed that the need is for a desktop-ish experience.
So we switch to windows mode enabling having multiple windows rendered on the same screen (mosaic).
Thus we should have multiple apps running at the same time in foreground (but only one having focus).

The UT Tweak Tool allows you to manually switch to windows mode (IIRC, I'm not sure if it's part of the system but I doubt it) hence allowing multiple apps to run simultaneously.
BTW this windows mode is more battery consuming, so use it accordingly.

Opolork

@applee So by default, I'm only using non-windowed mode?

AppLee

@opolork That's correct

Keneda

@applee said in Is closing apps generally unnecessary in UT like in Android?:

The UT Tweak Tool allows you to manually switch to windows mode (IIRC, I'm not sure if it's part of the system but I doubt it)

Don't you have this setting "mode ordinateur" (desktop mode) ?

AppLee

@keneda
You proved me wrong. Thanks.
At least I didn't make a plain assumption :beaming_face_with_smiling_eyes:

Keneda

@applee
I was not sure you have it because the "system" part of the drop down menu only appears on my phone since i scalled down grid size (same thing for text on the left of the menu, "navigateur" on the screenshot).

AppLee

@keneda Sadly I'm back to android until I receive my Pro1 X (hopefully in few weeks now)

Keneda

@applee
Ah ok, that'd sad indeed.
Hope you'll enjoy your pro1 the sooner

kugiigi

@domubpkm Sadly that is true. What I meant more is how you multitask. I think Lomiri encourages you more to multitask than Android. Hopefully, we can have a more optimized memory management especially with web views because when it works well, it is a joy to use

Opolork

Thanks, all, for the feedback.