Ask Slashdot: Getting Apps To Use Phones' Full Power?

That phone has 2GB of RAM by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 03:05 · Score: 5, Informative

The 16GB Nexus 4 doesn't have 16GB of RAM. It has 2GB. Your post reads like you think it has 16GB of RAM.

Re:That phone has 2GB of RAM by adycarter · 2013-03-26 03:06 · Score: 3, Interesting

exactly what I was just about to say.
The 16gb in your 16gb Nexus 4 is internal storage memory.
It has 2gb of Ram

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Witty Comment Here
Re:That phone has 2GB of RAM by adycarter · 2013-03-26 03:07 · Score: 1

Also, my Nexus 7 certainly seems to download multiple files at once.

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Witty Comment Here
Re:That phone has 2GB of RAM by interkin3tic · 2013-03-26 03:16 · Score: 2

I disagree, I think it reads like he's simply specifying which exact model of phone he has.

He also points out that it rarely goes above 1 GB ram, so it would seem he was actually checking the ram and not storage capacity. And that screen would inform him he has 2 gb ram, not 16. And 2 or 16, it still evidently doesn't use most of it.
Re:That phone has 2GB of RAM by jeffmeden · 2013-03-26 03:17 · Score: 4, Interesting

Also, my Nexus 7 certainly seems to download multiple files at once.
This. Certain apps (like the play store) download one at a time because they are trying to be nice on your phone (since the time saved from multiple downloads is negligible anyway, unless you have a really good 4G signal). How much time do you spend waiting on play store app downloads anyway? The OS at large has no such restriction, you can download things from the play store while you are downloading things from a web page, or things from a Torrent, or whatever; it is all up to the app. I have run a Torrent client with 32 connections across 5 file downloads and Android had no problem with it (it did make video playback skip occasionally). I agree that phones are generally more powerful than the software expects at this point, but the way the question was worded, this is a problem looking for a solution.
How about this: How can I get my phone/tablet to do compute work (folding @home, whatever) when it's plugged in and fully charged (like, most of the night)? These devices have multiple GB of ram, 2 to 4 CPU cores, and 4 to 8 GPU cores, why not put them to work if they are on-charger and full of juice (when the charger's role is done)?
Re:That phone has 2GB of RAM by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 03:18 · Score: 0

So is there something preventing an app from storing user data in the internal storage memory?
My three year old Droid 1 has a 16GB flash card. It would be nice if it would store hidden browser tabs there instead of forcing a reload if I go more than 2 links deep.
Re:That phone has 2GB of RAM by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 03:29 · Score: 0

As another poster already pointed out, there is no need to mention the storage capacity. Both the 16GB and 32GB versions of the tablet have 2GB of RAM inside.
Based on your assessment comment (of the RAM screen showing 1GB of 2GB used, vs internal storage screen showing ??GB of 16GB used), it is even more so that the OP is confused between RAM and storage capacity. This is consistent with computer illiterate people who thinks the RAM and hard disk inside the computer are one and the same thing, or to interchange terminology when referring to the other.
Re:That phone has 2GB of RAM by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 03:32 · Score: 1

Unless the device is hooked up to a high current USB port (I'm referring to a 2A+ port) then there's a very real possibility that you'll actually end up discharging the battery. It's not difficult to have a phone draw more than the capacity of a USB port (the official spec limits power usage to 500mA/port).
I remember when you put the Google/HTC G1 in wifi hotspot mode it would drain the battery, even when plugged in. Tablets and cellphones are optimized for power efficiency, but can easily burn through juice given the opportunity.
There is also the problem of heat dissipation. I'm sure manufacturers pay attention to thermal requirements when they're designing them, but the fact of the matter is since it's a mobile device, they're not going to optimize the thermal profile to account for 100% utilization for hours on end.
Your desktop idling, with the CPU governor set to 'conservative,' even with an IGP, would probably skate circles around an ARM device.
Re:That phone has 2GB of RAM by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 04:10 · Score: 0

The fastest SD cards on the market can't write much faster than 20MB/sec, whereas the RAM on a Nexus 4 is something like 12GB/sec. Using an SD card for swap would be painful.
Re:That phone has 2GB of RAM by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 04:28 · Score: 0

That would not be memory swapping, but browser caching. Still, caching in available RAM instead of to the slower storage medium would be faster.
Re:That phone has 2GB of RAM by rjr162 · 2013-03-26 04:30 · Score: 1

If I use the 1.5A Samsung charger, or the 1.5A universal cigarette plug lighter, it holds well even under heavy load.
Now if I use say the iPad 2 USB adapter, even under modest load it will either just barely charge or slightly discharge.. you can tell that charger isn't putting out the 1 to 1.2 or whatever Amps it does if an iPad was plugged in.
Re:That phone has 2GB of RAM by jeffmeden · 2013-03-26 04:43 · Score: 1

It's not difficult to have a phone draw more than the capacity of a USB port (the official spec limits power usage to 500mA/port).
I remember when you put the Google/HTC G1 in wifi hotspot mode it would drain the battery, even when plugged in.

Most phones ship now with a 1000mA charger, which is enough to just about top out the CPU (the HTC G1 days are LONG gone). I suggested a safeguard anyway, that is to make sure the phone is done charging before starting an app like that. If the phone has to go back into charging mode (if it is outstripping the current limit on the charger) then the (currently just hypothetical) app will pause again while the battery charges. Same goes for heat, current phones all have temperature sensors to monitor for battery runaway, that could be used to keep the temperature at a reasonable level.

Your desktop idling, with the CPU governor set to 'conservative,' even with an IGP, would probably skate circles around an ARM device.
My desktop idling will still consume more than 10W, and no it won't outperform my phone (my phone is a lot newer than my desktop, I suspect the same goes for a lot of people).
Re:That phone has 2GB of RAM by SternisheFan · 2013-03-26 06:25 · Score: 1

Spend $20 on this 7 port 2.0, 3amp usb hub, I've been using it for a year now with no problems. It won't fully charge an iPad or kindle, not meant to, but it runs 7 external harddrives without a hiccup... http://www.amazon.com/Plugable-Port-Speed-Power-Adapter/dp/B003Z4G3I6/ref=pd_rhf_cr_p_t_1_BS8H
Re:That phone has 2GB of RAM by camelrider · 2013-03-26 06:49 · Score: 1

Overheating? Heavy battery use plus charging ...
Re:That phone has 2GB of RAM by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 06:53 · Score: 0

if its 1 or 1.2A, how do you know its not outputting that? you're comparing it to 1.5A which "holds well". i'd say if 1-1.2 can still "barely charge" under heavy load, its most likely outputting its fullest.
Re:That phone has 2GB of RAM by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 07:03 · Score: 0

Although he DOES have some of a point: apps not caching things, instead they just silently erase things.
All decently large apps by default should have options to allow using a memory stick or internal memory as cache. (with a warning on using internal as potentially worse than using a throw-away memory card since you cannot replace internal in either most or all devices depending on design)
Equally they should come with the ability to be able to use more RAM if the devs design it with a hard limit for memory to fit in as many hardware designs as possible.
Creating scalable code is pretty easy to do, so really there isn't many excuses for it. It is just bunch of extra addresses and file loads in the end.
It would save power in the long run as it would be loading a large amount of files at once. Most hardware uses a little extra juice to activate memory sections to get the absolute most out of the power.
I also hate the inability to be able to scale interfaces in general.
With Samsungs recent windowing system, it has one major drawback and that is it is only really for apps they have tested it with and added a support wrapper for if I remember correct. (I think devs will be able to add them as well as some point)
To be able to put any app under a window and move it around, it would really make Android on tablets feel less mobile-phoney.
Even minimal support for it on phones would go a long way, 2 windows beside each other in landscape or portrait, sorted.
All it needs are a few tweaks here and there to the finger / stylus detection code so that the first touchdown contact will decide WHERE the actions get sent to. Patch up some function calls to always return true to save devs rewriting some code, some to return "inactive" and Bob's your Uncle.
I really wish the windowing system would be added to Android in some form. Without it, it just feels like a toy OS. It saddens me.
Re:That phone has 2GB of RAM by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 07:52 · Score: 0

It would be shocking if your desktop CPU wasn't still an order of magnitude faster than your phone even if it doesn't feel like it due to software. I have an Athlon 64 dual core 2GHz that is about 10x faster than my dual core 1.5 GHz Snapdragon S4 phone
Re:That phone has 2GB of RAM by MurukeshM · 2013-03-26 20:20 · Score: 1

I mentioned the 16GB because apps can use the storage to save data to something like a page file, instead of discarding it. Especially browsers. I'm not a moron.

Summary a bit confusing... by bondsbw · 2013-03-26 03:06 · Score: 3, Insightful

Just a note for future articles:

I have a 16 GB Nexus 4. I rarely manage to push the RAM usage above 1 GB

There is no need to include "16 GB". Both devices have 2 GB of RAM. To someone who doesn't know this, the summary might imply that they have some awesome 16 GB RAM model.

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All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.

Re:Summary a bit confusing... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 04:19 · Score: 0

Indeed and then I was all WTF would a hand held need 16GB of RAM. I mean, a desktop does just fine with 4GB or even less.
Re:Summary a bit confusing... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 06:01 · Score: 1

"16 gb of ram should be enough for anybody"
by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 26, @12:19PM (#43281951)
Let's all come back and laugh at this in 10 years.
Re:Summary a bit confusing... by turkeyfeathers · 2013-03-26 08:00 · Score: 1

The prediction would be much funnier if Anonymous Coward went on to become one of the richest men in the world.
Re:Summary a bit confusing... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 08:33 · Score: 1

I already am.
Re:Summary a bit confusing... by MurukeshM · 2013-03-26 20:21 · Score: 1

Again, (see my comment above) apps can use both RAM and storage. And there's no reason why they should discard data. When running use as much RAM as you can, when not running, save everything to storage.

It's Probably Up to the OS to Manage Resources by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 03:07 · Score: 1

You are running a device capable of running many simultaneous tasks, you can't have all of them decide to use every bit of RAM or disk space. It's up to the OS to maximize resource allocation and minimize battery usage.

Re:It's Probably Up to the OS to Manage Resources by h4rr4r · 2013-03-26 03:28 · Score: 1

It does it poorly.
Android far too aggressively swaps apps out. It made sense when phones had 256MB of ram, it does not today.
Re:It's Probably Up to the OS to Manage Resources by TheRaven64 · 2013-03-26 03:43 · Score: 2

And it's up to well-written apps to provide hints. OS X / iOS has the NSCache interface, which allows you to store references to objects that may be destroyed in response to memory pressure (unless they are in use right now). This is important, because it allows an application to grow to use RAM when it's available, without dying horribly when it isn't.

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Re:It's Probably Up to the OS to Manage Resources by sarysa · 2013-03-26 03:57 · Score: 1

The os will do simple things like kill processes, but it is up to the software and most software is written conservatively so it can handle the crap devices. Low app prices means optimizations like OP is describing is not worth the effort.

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Charisma is the measure of someone's ability to lie with a straight face.
Re:It's Probably Up to the OS to Manage Resources by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 05:24 · Score: 0

No, it still makes perfect sense. If you don't have to energize an entire RAM bank or RAM chip then you can cut power consumption even further. I'm not saying that this is currently possible, but if you don't need the resource, why use it in the first place? The less resource a device is using the lower the power requirements can be, especially with adaptive clocking and the fine-grained level of control a manufacturer has over power usage in these devices.
Re:It's Probably Up to the OS to Manage Resources by h4rr4r · 2013-03-26 05:39 · Score: 1

Not worth the power gained. I would rather waste it than wait for the page to reload.

Wrong by egcagrac0 · 2013-03-26 03:07 · Score: 2

When connected to WiFi or 3G/LTE, there's no reason why multiple simultaneous downloads shouldn't be used

If bandwidth is finite, serializing downloads means one finishes first, and can be used while the others download.

You're right on the RAM usage, however - particularly with eBook readers. It's reasonable to keep them in-RAM, or at least keep enough in-RAM so you can turn a few pages forward or back without loading.

Re:Wrong by grantspassalan · 2013-03-26 03:31 · Score: 1

Since storage devices are now solid state and so much faster than the old mechanical disks, does it really matter for practical purposes, whether a few megabytes of data are kept in RAM or fetched from fast solid-state storage? I have recently upgraded my computer with an SSD. Loading massive multi megabyte files used to take a definitely span of time noticeable to the user, but is now loaded almost instantaneously. Since phones are small ultraportable computers, this applies to them as well. I used to put my laptop to sleep if I was not going to use it for a few hours, but now with the SSD it boots so fast, I simply shut it down and then reboot when I need it again. I think this article is splitting hairs.

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A sufficiently advanced simulation is indistinguishable from reality.
Re:Wrong by h4rr4r · 2013-03-26 03:34 · Score: 1

The problem is instead of swapping the application out to disk, Android kills it. This means the application has to be loaded back up and loses its state. This means the web browser will refresh a page, which it was just on if you switched to another memory intensive application since you last used the web browser.
Re:Wrong by egcagrac0 · 2013-03-26 03:40 · Score: 1

It's a less noticeable impact, but FLASH is still slower than RAM.
Re:Wrong by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 04:02 · Score: 0

The problem is instead of swapping the application out to disk, Android kills it. This means the application has to be loaded back up and loses its state.
If it's a garbage app, yes. If it's made RIGHT, Android tells the app that it's going to be stopped and gives it a last chance to save its state (or as much as is needed to recreate its state) to persistent storage before killing it. This is on a per-app basis, too; the app defines what it needs to do in such a situation. There's even callbacks the OS can call if RAM is running low so the app can try freeing up caches before Android makes the call to start killing.
Of course, in some cases, like web browsers, saving the entire state of every page in every tab could suck down the 8-16GB of persistent storage a Nexus 4 has, especially when you're talking about large, complicated webpages, pages with active JavaScript whose states become useless when frozen and serialized, stale pages whose information is misleading or invalid if not reloaded anyway, or the derpshits with a pathological need to keep eighty thousand tabs open at all times lest they start getting nervous shakes. So, in the absence of the potential for 16+GB of readily-accessible RAM, hundreds of gigs of swap space, and the presence of other apps and media that might want to use persistent storage for something other than holding onto an old, possibly useless webpage the user simply forgot they had in their bloated tab list, the web browser will play it safe and only stash away the current URLs and histories of each tab if it needs to be killed off.
So really, the problem is that, no matter what everyone's trying to tell you, phones and tablets are NOT full-on desktop PCs or laptops, and they in fact have a LOT more limitations than either. If you stop thinking that you're holding a portable desktop, the thing works a LOT better.
Re:Wrong by h4rr4r · 2013-03-26 04:06 · Score: 1

Then every android browser is a crap application.
All of them reload the page if they happen to get killed off.
The solution is to give me 128GB+ of storage and let me treat it like a full PC. That is what I want.
Re:Wrong by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 04:48 · Score: 0

> If bandwidth is finite, serializing downloads means one finishes first, and can be used while the others download.
Sometimes the bandwidth is limited by the server not the client. If downloading from different servers it makes sense to do both at once.
Re:Wrong by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 04:52 · Score: 0

Yes, because swapping an app out to Flash means you have to write to the Flash, which reduces its lifespan. It's more practical to kill the process and later reload the app, which is a read-only operation and doesn't age the Flash chip.
Re:Wrong by Tokerat · 2013-03-26 04:52 · Score: 1

Battery life is an issue. I'm sure there are optimizations, at least on some devices, which reduce power partially or completely to unused RAM to save on battery life...don't you need to send a refresh signal each clock pulse to keep RAM from losing what is currently stored? Seems like a waste to use the power on memory which isn't currently occupied, which in turn helps the phone operate longer. Also, minimizing bandwidth useage keeps your app (and your OS) in a favorable light with carriers. Of course, the solution is to run full tilt when on charger+WiFi, and leave the optimizations for when they're actually needed. The only difficulty I see with that scheme is end-user confusion and frustration ("it works from home but it's terrible when I am on the move. Must be my carrier's fault!") - might be worth it if it could somehow be effectively communicated to the users; and by user, I mean anyone, not just the tech savy.

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CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
Re:Wrong by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 05:24 · Score: 0

Reading FLASH uses much more power then RAM. If you want a long battery life you want to minimize your use of FLASH. Of course, RAM isn't free either. RAM will utilize power even when not in use. Purchase a phone with multiple gigs of RAM and the battery will die that much faster. Eventually, if they haven't done it already, operating systems will be smart enough to power down sections of RAM when not in use and only power them when required.
Re:Wrong by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 05:26 · Score: 0

not all solid state storage is the same. The flash chips in phones are SLOW. On my Motorolla Xoom (which was a flagship tablet when it came out,) I'm lucky if I can break 5MB/s r/w speeds. USB flash drives are solid state, and no one will claim that they're faster than hard drives unless you're comparing top of the line USB 3.0 drives against ancient 5,400 RPM cheap laptop drives.
Re:Wrong by shellbeach · 2013-03-26 06:09 · Score: 1

... would you prefer the full memory allocation of the browser to be swapped out to disk each time?? If you've got the number of tabs open that I normally have, that's a substantial amount of disk space being taken up (and free space on my phone is generally at a premium, it being one of the non-SD-card-compliant nexii ...)
I'm sure you could write a browser that would do this, but I doubt many people would want to use it ...
Re:Wrong by h4rr4r · 2013-03-26 06:15 · Score: 1

Yes, I would. At a bare minimum the current active tab.
The correct solution is to get a phone with 128GB of disk.
Re:Wrong by smallfries · 2013-03-26 06:49 · Score: 1

If bandwidth is finite, serializing downloads means one finishes first, and can be used while the others download.
No. If you run all of the downloads in parallel then one of them still finishes first and can be used while the others finish off.
Also, when the available bandwidth per-stream is lower than the available bandwidth per-link it is quicker to run the downloads in parallel. Lastly, when the total bandwidth across all the streams is still less than the link (which is frequently true) then the sequential time of each is unaffected by running them in parallel, but the total time is greatly reduced.

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Re:Wrong by Immerman · 2013-03-26 07:26 · Score: 1

Not only that, most flash is considerably slower than even a slow hard drive - SSDs get their performance by operating many flash chips in parallel. The seek time is usually incredible which is great for reading tiny files or searching through a database, but a "suspend to disk" on an app that's consuming 500MB of RAM could easily take the better part of a minute to "wake up", and even longer to suspend in the first place.
It would be nice to see the RAM getting more effectively used, but it's quite possible that it actually is getting used behind the scenes to improve performance, just as most modern desktop OSes will use all available RAM for caching and other purposes but not report it since it's strictly opportunistic usage that can be released by the OS at a moment's notice, unlike the memory allocated to a program which may take a considerable amount of time to safely release.
There might be potential for some new type of "cache allocation" though, something that would let an app release memory to the OS, but still reclaim it until that memory is actually reallocated for another purpose, allowing for, among other things, a more fine-grained memory release when an app is asked to free up memory. Say something like a
UID delayed_delete(memory_object, re_creation_cost) / undelete( UID )
function pair that allows memory to be released to the OS but still be reclaimed until it's actually reallocated to another purpose. Assuming low overhead and widespread adoption in memory intensive apps that might actually allow for a far more efficient cross-app caching mechanism.

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--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Re:Wrong by spire3661 · 2013-03-26 08:15 · Score: 1

I have been saying this for awhile. I want a mobile that remembers it is a badass piece of computing hardware and to stop ignoring use-cases that arent purely mobile oriented. I fully understand compromises had to made in bootstrapping mobile to where it is, that time is over. Give me POWER.

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Good-bye
Re:Wrong by TheCRAIGGERS · 2013-03-26 08:17 · Score: 1

I disagree. The browser is doing exactly what it should be- saving its state so it can be recreated upon relaunch.
Most people's phones do not have more than 16GB of storage. A few people on the cutting edge or that have too much money might have 64GB. Either way, you also have to account for pictures, music, vidoes, ebooks, apps, the OS itself, and all the other data that gets stored on these things. Sure, you could potentially create your own browser (and I encourage you to do this if you feel so strongly) that would go through the process of saving all your graphics, scripts, and HTML to disk when the OS demands you free up memory and load it all up again later when needed. You'd probably have to explain why the browser is "eating up all my phone memory" constantly. You could probably reduce the page-recreation time upon reopening that tab by a second or two compared to 4G or wifi if you're good.
Personally, I'm more than happy conserving what little space I have on my phone and waiting a whole five seconds for my pocket super computer to receive data through the goddamned ether at speeds that would have made our heads spin ten years ago.
Now, would I mind having a slider in my options to control this behavior? Not at all, I love options. I just think it would be mostly unused, which is apparently what all the browser coders thought too by not putting that in there.
Re:Wrong by h4rr4r · 2013-03-26 08:20 · Score: 1

It does not save its state, that would include the current open pages.
I have 32GB of storage, surely enough to show the last couple tabs, if I could buy a phone with 128GB of disk I would.
The issue is not 4G or wifi, the issue is when I have a recipe open in the grocery store and no service. If I leave the app I have to reload and can't.
I have no interest in waiting 5 seconds, nor 5 minutes when I am in a store.
Re:Wrong by shellbeach · 2013-03-26 12:00 · Score: 1

Oh, I'd take a phone with 128Gb storage, but I'm not sure it's going to happen any time soon. At least, not from Google while they're still pushing their stupid cloud storage concept ... :(
Re:Wrong by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 12:54 · Score: 0

Ok. You can have your POWER. For about 15 minutes. Now you get to go recharge the puny battery that actually makes your portable device PORTABLE.
Re:Wrong by perryizgr8 · 2013-03-26 14:14 · Score: 1

and besides all this, my old win xp desktop had 256MB ram. browsers running on it didnt forget all tabs when you started using the music player. the basic truth is that android is too aggressive with memory management. 2GB of ram should be enough to hold a couple of webpages.

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Re:Wrong by MurukeshM · 2013-03-26 20:27 · Score: 1

Thanks for not harping on the "N4 has 2GB RAM" thing. Waiting for one app to finish download first is agonizing if the app is huge (> 100 MB). And then this forces other smaller apps to wait for the large humongous app to finish installing. Even if each download proceeds slower, wouldn't the smaller apps be installed quicker?
Re:Wrong by egcagrac0 · 2013-03-27 16:29 · Score: 1

No. If you run all of the downloads in parallel then one of them still finishes first and can be used while the others finish off.
Great, assuming that I don't care which one I get first. Perhaps I started downloading a particular selection first, because I want it before the others. This also assumes that the storage isn't hindered by fragmentation (with modern systems, it probably isn't hindered much), or can handle such fragmentation in a good way.

Also, when the available bandwidth per-stream is lower than the available bandwidth per-link it is quicker to run the downloads in parallel.
While technically correct, this case hasn't been my usual experience.

Lastly, when the total bandwidth across all the streams is still less than the link (which is frequently true) then the sequential time of each is unaffected by running them in parallel, but the total time is greatly reduced.
It sounds like parallelization vs serialization of downloads should be a user selectable preference..
Re:Wrong by TheCRAIGGERS · 2013-03-28 02:16 · Score: 1

That's an unfair example, considering I often listen to music while using GPS navigation and browse webpages all at the same time, and that's on 1 GB of ram.
You sure you're not doing something else, say loading up some kind of game?

Read up on ARM by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 03:07 · Score: 0, Insightful

This is a platform that was not designed to have a scheduler carving up resources. If you want a mobile device that makes good use of the available resources (and somehow manages to try to conserve power while doing it) ARM isin't where you're looking. (ARM in clusters: awesome idea. great power efficiency at performing simple SINGLE tasks while other units perform simultaneous threads.)

And re, cell network: There's physical problems with trying to maintain high data rate, low latency, long range connections (especially at low power) It's a miracle it works at all in most cases. :P

Re:Read up on ARM by serviscope_minor · 2013-03-26 03:30 · Score: 2

This is a platform that was not designed to have a scheduler carving up resources.
What?
It's a genersl purpose CPU which supportes full memory paging. It is *exactly* designed to support multitasking and have a scheduler carve up resources.
Case in point: it runs Linux which on a GNU/Linux system does a very good job.
In fact given that Linux ran on some even pretty early Archimedes machines it seems that ARM has had the appropriate hardware to run proper operating systems since not all that long after its inception.
In other words: ARM and Linux are more than capable of it and are in fact very good at it. It's just that the android software is not great.

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SJW n. One who posts facts.
Re:Read up on ARM by TheRaven64 · 2013-03-26 03:56 · Score: 4, Informative
This is a platform that was not designed to have a scheduler carving up resources
Uh, what? The ARM architecture was designed for Acorn's line of 32-bit desktop computers, which shipped with a multitasking OS from the start. Now, it wasn't preemptively multitasking, but the only difference between cooperative multitasking and preemptive from a hardware perspective is that you need (relatively) cheap timer interrupts to enable preemptive multitasking, and ARM has always had this.
The cost of context switching boils down to a small number of things:
- The cost of delivering the timer interrupt (interrupts on ARM are cheap and have a small number of aliased registers to play with so the code in the interrupt handler can be simple)
- The size of the register set that needs to be saved (ARM is 15 32-bit GPRs, which can be saved and loaded in a single multi-cycle instruction, only x86 has a smaller register set)
- The cost of TLB flushes and refills required during the switch (ARM has a tagged TLB, so you only need to invalidate any TLB entries when you recycle an ASID)
In summary, the orifice that you are talking out of is not your mouth.
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I am TheRaven on Soylent News

On the other side by laing · 2013-03-26 03:08 · Score: 1

My poor old Nexus One struggles with memory usage. Every time some app is updated for Android 4 I lose more space (both storage and run-time).

I only use that phone about 9 days per month, but it is becoming less and less useful as time goes by because of this memory usage issue.

A few months ago I moved the Dalvik cache onto an Ext3 partition and it helped somewhat. I still have over half of my apps moved to the SD card because everything will not fit.

Developers, please continue to try to optimize your applications for older phones.

Thank you.

Re:On the other side by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 03:17 · Score: 0

As the owner of an old Motorola Cliq, i second that. I've managed to get it to run Android 2.3 via Cyanogenmod, but memory usage for apps such as Whatsapp is painful.
Re:On the other side by tlhIngan · 2013-03-26 03:36 · Score: 3, Interesting

Exactly. The problem with Android is that for every flagship nexus or SGS4 sold, dozens more crappy low end ones are sold.
The free phones. The ones with crap screens, crap processors, and/or diddly squat for RAM (though for Android these days, that applies for anything smaller than 4.5" screen, annoyingly). After all, Google claims about 1.3M daily Android activations, while the most popular Android flagship phone, the SGS3, has sold around 40M units in all its various combinations. That's barely a month's worth of Android phone sales.
And possibly, ancient OS versions (heads up - Gingerbread is no longer the majority! Though it is by far the largest slice). So you can have apps that use all the power of the device (I've seen special edition apps restricted to certain devices), but most devs don't have the resources to maintain and test two or three separate sets of code bases and/or assets. Especially as a lot of the exclusives are often comissioned by the manufacturer who just pays for the port and no maintenance.
So devs have to keep in mind the vast majority of phones out there don't have 2GB, or even 1GB of RAM, and have 1GHz processors if they're lucky. And maybe 320x480 screens. Or 5" 480x800 screens.
Yes, Android has basically wiped out featurephones (more profitable, and carriers get to sell a very profitable data plan to someone who probably will be lucky to use 1MB out of their 100MB). (And stats show this - despite Android outselling iOS 3+:1, iOS data usage still beats Android 2+:1).
It's like PCs these days - you can get a top notch PC with the latest graphics, but end up finding most PC games assume an Intel graphics accellerator or are ported from consoles. It just isn't that big a market.
Then again, there's something to be said that the people who buy the flagship phones tend to be the heavier users, so ignoring the low end isn't that bad a strategy either. Why go for the 80% market when fewer than 10% of those probably would even see your app, but go after the 20% when 50% or more will probably buy it? (Generally speaking, it's the reasoning behind developing for iOS first).
Re:On the other side by Dishwasha · 2013-03-26 03:42 · Score: 0

I that same vein, Android please stop removing my shortcut icons on the desktop every time an app updates. I put those shortcuts there so I wouldn't have to find them again and it is very annoying.
Re:On the other side by Ironhandx · 2013-03-26 04:02 · Score: 1

I think that will actually continue with the iOS trend. People that buy iPhones are buying appliances, appliances used mostly for media consumption on the move that also happen to be phones.
I bought a Samsung Note II because I needed to do work with it, and the stylus and large screen are bloody fantastic for my work.
Re:On the other side by drinkypoo · 2013-03-26 04:18 · Score: 1

Google claims about 1.3M daily Android activations
It's possible. While trying out different ROMs for my phone, I've connected it to google like eight times in one day...

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:On the other side by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 04:48 · Score: 0

People with much older phones don't purchase newer software. Optimization is not actually a benefit to them.
Re:On the other side by shellbeach · 2013-03-26 06:12 · Score: 1

A few months ago I moved the Dalvik cache onto an Ext3 partition and it helped somewhat. I still have over half of my apps moved to the SD card because everything will not fit.
That's storage space, not RAM. Your Nexus One may suffer from memory constraints as well, but they'll have nothing to do with the number of applications you store on your SD card, or where you put your Dalvik cache ...
Re:On the other side by jmnugent · 2013-03-26 12:44 · Score: 1

iOS users AREN'T the only users who "buy appliances". I know plenty of Android people who only use their phone for Pinterest or Angry Birds or ??. This stereotype that Apple users are dumb needs to die. Sure, some % of Apple users are dumb. Just like some % of Linux users are also dumb.. and some % of Windows users are dumb. Lets stop playing fanboy-favorites and at least TRY to be a little more platform-agnostic. iOS devices are perfectly capable of doing many non-appliance tasks. I use mine for many business-tasks such as managing Active Directory accounts, logging into VPN, testing ARCGis functionality (yes, there is an ARCGis app for iPhone). On a daily basis I carry around an iPhone5, Samsung Galaxy S3 and a Nokia 920 WP8. (I do mobile-device support/testing). They are all amazing devices, with different Pros/Cons and capable of a wide variety of tasks/use-scenarios.
Re:On the other side by YouWantFriesWithThat · 2013-03-27 00:35 · Score: 1

that is not an OS action, that is the result of a change made by the developer.

The problem with ram by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 03:09 · Score: 4, Insightful

The problem with ram is that you can't do that. Unfortunately traditional apps live in a world where memory can't be "taken back". By taken back I mean that precisely as you request, an app could have a minimum requirement of 10MB, but maybe it could cache stuff for 1GB. However, there is no easy way to the OS to tell the app politely "hey, may you please give back as much memory as you can because something else needs it?". The problem is two fold for mobile apps: they may be "thawed", so they are not really executing to save CPU, so they can only be asked if they are currently running. And second, the memory another app is asking, is it because it requires that memory to work, or it also wants to create a big cache of discardable stuff? You see, malloc et all don't have an option to say "I want this much memory but I don't really need it, so don't purge other processes form memory if there is none available".

The end result is OSes have to deal with killing apps to free memory because they end up over allocating memory. And especially if you consider all of the above to be for well behaved apps, you can surely understand apps could DOS your OS if they could get away with hogging available memory for themselves...

Re:The problem with ram by DoubleParadoxx · 2013-03-26 03:20 · Score: 0

Windows Mobile 6 had exactly this ability. Do Android and iOS seriously not have this crucial feature?
Re:The problem with ram by CastrTroy · 2013-03-26 03:22 · Score: 1

I think the main thing you could reasonably do is use the memory as a buffer for the SDCard/Internal storage. This is the one thing that makes Windows 7 so much better than Windows XP. It has much better caching, and your computer actually gets faster as you leave in on for longer, because it has most of the stuff you already need in cache. There's no reason why the Android OS couldn't copy an entire ebook file into memory when an application requested the file be opened. If the memory was needed later, it could take back the memory, and then re-open the file next time the ereader applications requests for the file to be read. Perhaps things like music players could make calls to the OS to put things into memory so that they would likely be in cache by the time they actually needed them. They could let the OS know what the next file was in the queue so that it would be in memory assuming there was some available.

--

Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Re:The problem with ram by h4rr4r · 2013-03-26 03:32 · Score: 1

This is why we have SWAP.
The OS should just swap the application out to disk and bring it back in when needed. Killing the app should only be done when you are out of SWAP and RAM.
Modern OS's figured this out long ago, why must we reinvent the computer with new hardware it runs on?
Re:The problem with ram by blueg3 · 2013-03-26 03:35 · Score: 1

That's just disk caching. I don't know to what extent Android does it, but most modern operating systems do as much disk caching as they can afford. It's often reported as free RAM, though, because it essentially is.
Re:The problem with ram by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 03:38 · Score: 0

Maybe I'm ignorant, but doesn't the Linux kernel already do RAM caching, and has been doing so since '91? So, if a file is read multiple times, it will remain in memory until some other task pushes it out.
Re:The problem with ram by Zan+Lynx · 2013-03-26 03:44 · Score: 1

Android does have this feature. It is part of ashmem (Android shared memory) which is a patch to the Linux kernel. Under memory pressure the kernel can discard the pages and when the application goes back for them it is notified that they are gone.
Re:The problem with ram by digitalvengeance · 2013-03-26 03:53 · Score: 2

In addition to the system-level stuff, Android's SDK also provides a callback that apps should implement for exactly that reason.
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/Activity.html#onLowMemory()
The system calls it when it needs to reclaim some memory and apps are supposed to discard whatever they can in order to return memory to the system.

--
How many roads must a man walk down? 42.
Re:The problem with ram by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 03:54 · Score: 0

Huh? iOS is set up to do exactly what you says it can't: If memory gets tight, it asks apps to give back memory for things that it doesn't need right now or can easily recreate. Now, this takes actual work from a developer and isn't automated in malloc/free, but that's perfectly reasonable.
Android really doesn't do anything similar?
Re:The problem with ram by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 04:04 · Score: 0

However, there is no easy way to the OS to tell the app politely "hey, may you please give back as much memory as you can because something else needs it?".
Activity.onLowMemory()
Since Android API version 1. You're welcome.
Re:The problem with ram by Andreas+Mayer · 2013-03-26 04:14 · Score: 1

However, there is no easy way to the OS to tell the app politely "hey, may you please give back as much memory as you can because something else needs it?".
Yes, there is. At least in iOS the system will send messages to the app to tell it to "please free up some memory". Of course, if it doesn't it may still be terminated.
Re:The problem with ram by michelcolman · 2013-03-26 04:41 · Score: 2

IOS does, through the NSCache interface. You can allocate as much as you like, and the OS will automatically get rid of it if it needs to. Also, your app can respond to low memory warnings so it can free up memory before being forced to quit completely.
Re:The problem with ram by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 04:55 · Score: 0

The problem with SWAP is that it writes to Flash, which has a finite number of write cycles, but a near-infinite number of read cycles. It's better to kill the app and just write a portion of its state out to Flash, which reduces the amount of writes and leverages Flash's near-limitless reads.
Re:The problem with ram by h4rr4r · 2013-03-26 05:01 · Score: 1

I am not keeping the device that long, feel free to kill the flash. I would rather replace it yearly than have to reload a webpage i was just looking at.
Re:The problem with ram by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 05:36 · Score: 0

NSCache. iOS.
Re:The problem with ram by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 08:29 · Score: 0

I heard iOS does not use swap. I don't understand why. I can't believe Apple and Samsung can't afford to put a decent flash controller with the ridiculous profits and overpriced NAND.
I have 1 GB of RAM and it seriously pisses me off when a tab reloads. My Windows 7 machine with 1.5 GB doesn't run out of RAM with 3 times the number of tabs. WTF!?!?!?
I never hear any iOS users complaining about this behaviour. Not even knowledgeable techies. I wonder if the RDF is that strong. This is the biggest flaw on my iPad and it happens every day.
Re:The problem with ram by BasilBrush · 2013-03-26 08:42 · Score: 1

Two reasons.
FIrst, because flash chips have a limited number of write cycles. Repeatedly writing to swap files kills them more rapidly. For sure more recently desktop OSs use swap on SSDs, But they are expensive, and large compared to the flash chips in mobiles. So whilst swap is slowly killing them too, their life expectancy is longer.
Secondly, desktop OSs have to keep many apps running, because of their multi-window nature, users can see multiple apps. Smartphones are essentially single app UI devices, so it's possible to kill off background apps without the user noticing. And that means that the desktop OSs use swap as a necessity to avoid OOM. And smartphones don't need to.
Re:The problem with ram by ChrisMaple · 2013-03-26 10:53 · Score: 1

Typical minimum is 100,000 write cycles. If each swap uses 1/3 of the flash and you swap 165 times a day, that's a minimum 5 year life.

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Re:The problem with ram by BasilBrush · 2013-03-26 11:08 · Score: 1

5 year lifespan. Funny how that's become acceptable.
And if it's more than 165 times? We've all experienced too many apps on a desktop OS, with the resultant slow down, and the hard disk being thrashed constantly. Hopefully that's mostly reads. But not necessarily.
And of course the no swap design for smartphones dates back years, to times when wear was more of a problem for flash.
Oh, and I thought of a 3rd reason. When the smartphone only has a few GB flash, a swap drive would take a big chunk out of it that couldn't be used for other purposes.
Re:The problem with ram by gshegosh · 2013-03-26 22:44 · Score: 1

Isn't this easy to solve -- just make an API in OS for requesting "temp" or "cache" memory. Apps using this memory have to be prepared that it no longer exists -- just like weak references in Java for instance.
Re:The problem with ram by h4rr4r · 2013-03-27 01:44 · Score: 1

No one keeps a smartphone that long.
1 GB of swap would easily hold all the browser tabs.
Re:The problem with ram by BasilBrush · 2013-03-27 02:17 · Score: 1

1 GB of swap would easily hold all the browser tabs.
That's not how a swap file works. It works at the level of memory requests. It has no idea of applications, let alone a specific app or purpose for the memory.
Besides, 1GB of storage can be an enormous amount for a smartphone. The Samsung Galaxy Ace is a still shipping Android smartphone with only 0.5GB of flash storage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_Ace
Of course it can get more storage with microSD. Which is far slower, allocated to Application storage, rather than system, and liable to be removed by the user at any moment. Disaster!
Anyhow, I've told you why smartphones don't use swap. Your objections are neither here nor there. If swap was a good idea on smartphones, then the engineers would have done it that way, given that both the Linux kernel and Darwin are capable of it.
Re:The problem with ram by h4rr4r · 2013-03-27 03:05 · Score: 1

Swap is a good idea on phones, I have used it on a Droid1. It is in fact a pretty common thing to do on old Android phones that are running community OS builds. I bet you were not aware of that.
I am well aware of how swap works, the point stands that 1-2GB of swap is enough to justify keeping the tabs live.
A user cannot generally remove the MicroSD card at anytime, they are often held in by the battery. Also Class 10 SD cards are plenty fast enough.
Not all phones need swap, obviously an ACE buyer does not care.
Re:The problem with ram by BasilBrush · 2013-03-27 06:08 · Score: 1

It is in fact a pretty common thing to do on old Android phones that are running community OS builds.
People do all sorts of irrational things. Tinkerer's like to tinker.Even when the results don't actually serve them well. You will notice though that most of the guides that tell you how to enable swap on Android come with warnings that you might damage your device. They aren't there for no reason.
The thing with flash wear is that it's not going to show up straight away. It's just going to cripple the life of your SD card (or worse, phone if you use the internal flash). And unlike with a desktop, it's not going to be immediately obvious if you're phone is thrashing the disk.
As I've already pointed out if swap files for smartphones were a good idea, manufacturers would be doing it already. They are competing with each other you know.
But you go ahead. I hope it makes you happy.
Re:The problem with ram by h4rr4r · 2013-03-27 06:12 · Score: 1

It is not irrational to use a class 10 card as a scratchpad, they are cheap enough.
No, you have pointed out that you think they know everything and you know very little. Like a good little consumer.
They are not willing to tell the consumer to replace the sd card every 6months to a year. I on the other hand think that is fine.
Re:The problem with ram by BasilBrush · 2013-03-27 11:05 · Score: 1

No, you have pointed out that you think they know everything and you know very little.
I used to be a software engineer at Symbian, where we dealt with this very issue, whereas you clearly have no professional knowledge of mobiles whatsoever, you ignorant fucker.
Your comment on the lifespan of SD cards indicates that NOW you appreciate the issue, whereas you previously did not. You should say thanks, not be a twat about it.
Goodbye, and good riddance.
Re:The problem with ram by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-27 12:17 · Score: 0

Symbian sucked and your involvement likely explains why.
Re:The problem with ram by h4rr4r · 2013-03-28 00:57 · Score: 1

No, I was well aware of the issue with SD cards. Flash used in phones has more write cycles and would be fine for two years that a user will keep one.
If I had worked on Symbian I would never mention it again. Go play with your iphone and leave slashdot to the geeks.

Nexus 4 is 2GB of RAM, not 16GB by EmagGeek · 2013-03-26 03:10 · Score: 0

Just so yo know...

What a stupid question by Goodl · 2013-03-26 03:13 · Score: 0

two minutes googling would tell you that the available RAM is only 2GB, what is this newbie crucifiction week?

--
I've got some photographs, I'd like to show them to you. Though you don't know the girls You'll recognise the view..

Re:What a stupid question by synapse7 · 2013-03-26 03:19 · Score: 1

Also, this is only an issue for the Nexus or custom roms, and what a problem to have, too much excess free ram! Phones running roms with carrier BS more "fully utilize" the phones ram.
Re:What a stupid question by p00kiethebear · 2013-03-26 03:28 · Score: 1

Hey, we were all young and dumb once. But not me. I was never dumb. This question at least is better than the 'I'm so new to linux and stuff and I have lots of time to spend on learning even if I have to dedicate months of time!'
He at least is asking a valid question about memory usage on cell phones. I had never really thought about memory allocation as a method of limiting power consumption for my phone before because I always have a laptop with me to plug in to. Learn something new every day.

--
The Blade Itself
Re:What a stupid question by Goodl · 2013-03-26 03:34 · Score: 1

I didnt mean any disrespect to the OP, I just meant he or she is being tossed to the lions asking a question that was very easily answered with a little googling.

--
I've got some photographs, I'd like to show them to you. Though you don't know the girls You'll recognise the view..
Re:What a stupid question by gstoddart · 2013-03-26 03:39 · Score: 1

two minutes googling would tell you that the available RAM is only 2GB, what is this newbie crucifiction week?
Or "ramifications of bad marketing week" -- because I wouldn't be surprised if those companies are advertising it as having 16GB of memory and not differentiating between 'storage' and 'RAM'.
A phone with 16GB of RAM would be kinda crazy just yet.

--
Lost at C:>. Found at C.

I'm pretty sure "it does" by earlzdotnet · 2013-03-26 03:14 · Score: 1

I recently upgraded from a very old Android(300M of RAM) phone to a Nexus 4 and it amazes me how long it will keep an application at the same point. On my old phone, it recycled memory so quickly that going from an app, to home, and then launching calculator or something and going back to the app, it would be a fresh session. On the Nexus though I've launched an app in the evening with it keeping the same state that it had in the morning when I launched it without reloading anything.

That being said, YES it is extremely annoying that it only downloads 1 thing at a time, despite clearly being capable of downloading many things at once. (oddly enough this rule is kept in place when downloading with Chrome as well)

Re:I'm pretty sure "it does" by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 03:36 · Score: 0

This must be something specific to the Nexus 4 build. Using the stock android browser (yes, the one everyone proclaims is such a huge stinking pile of manure) I can download files simultaneously. I'm running AOKP 4.2.2 on my HTC phone.

Development Issue by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 03:14 · Score: 0

This is a developer's issue here. The optimizations you talk about take a long time to implement and how would you determine these types of things on the fly? Minimizing ram usage is the regular method for programs. I don't know which programs you are using, but most of my phone's apps are 50mb or less. So I could basically open every app on my phone simultaneously and still have a bunch of that 1 GB memory left. As for multiple downloads, you could download two at 50kb/s or one at 100kb/s. Does it really even matter?

cyanogenmod by admdrew · 2013-03-26 03:18 · Score: 3, Interesting

I run Cyanogenmod on all of my Android devices (currently Galaxy Nexus for my main phone, Nexus 7 tablet, and an older HTC G2 phone for playing around with), and have never looked back.

As others have mentioned here, though, sounds like you may not fully understand what's going on, since the Nexus 4 doesn't have 16GB of RAM, and we all seem to be able to do multiple downloads at once.

--
LegendMUD

Re:cyanogenmod by Tiger_Storms · 2013-03-26 03:54 · Score: 1

There is an option under developers to tell it to cache 1-5 apps or for it to simply kill any background running processes in CyanogenMod. The biggest reason they all do this is to save on power. Yes you might have an awesome battery life but you don't want to wake your phone up 2-3 hours later after it's still running all of your apps the whole time and have a dead battery.

--
This is a Mac, what you have there is an embarrassment to your fellow computer users.

Program for LCD by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 03:20 · Score: 0

You suffer from a common issue, but simply put programmers tend to make apps for the lowest common denominator and its easier to operate under the assumption that a users device has limited resources for most apps than to manage RAM proactively.

Re:Confidant! Not Cosmonaut You Stupid Git! by geminidomino · 2013-03-26 03:21 · Score: 2

Two things:

1: The poster is fully aware of the proper lyrics. It's a copypasta troll, and you just swallowed the hook down to your kidneys.

2: Of course Betty's next. She's the last one.

Ferrari by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 03:21 · Score: 0

Dear Slashdot:

I bought this Ferrari and I live in a suburban part of the US. I can't drive it over 70mph on the highways and I'm constantly in stop and go traffic in the city. It's so frustrating!

Can anyone of you tell me how to get the most out of my car?

Re:Ferrari by Chrisq · 2013-03-26 03:27 · Score: 5, Funny

Dear Slashdot:
I bought this Ferrari and I live in a suburban part of the US. I can't drive it over 70mph on the highways and I'm constantly in stop and go traffic in the city. It's so frustrating!
Can anyone of you tell me how to get the most out of my car?
Sure, Dress in a flashy suit then drive slowly (20mph or less) past a hangout of hot babes. Then go in and ask "anyone fancy a ride?".
Re:Ferrari by chill · 2013-03-26 03:33 · Score: 1

Technically that'll be getting the most IN the car, not necessarily out of it -- especially if you have a shitty apartment. Blonde or not, they'll see thru the ruse.

--
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Re:Ferrari by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 03:36 · Score: 0

Do yourself and everybody else a favour: Take your Ferrari to the track.
Re:Ferrari by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 03:40 · Score: 0

Your Ferrari performs its primary function (looking cool) perfectly well. On those occasions when you actually need to utilise a high degree of sports car performance, such as when you take the car to a track day, you will be happy to find that the car is capable of delivering it. The rest of the time, it is true that you will not be pushing the car's capabilities, however this means that you will be maintaining a more practical level of fuel efficiency, and reducing heat stress on the engine, so it will last longer.
Re:Ferrari by Nidi62 · 2013-03-26 04:45 · Score: 2

You don't go to many lower income places, do you? I've seen sub $500 per month apartment complexes with Escalades, or cars with thousands of dollars worth of stereos and chrome parked in the parking lot.

--
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Re:Ferrari by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 04:47 · Score: 0

Technically that'll be getting the most IN the car, not necessarily out of it -- especially if you have a shitty apartment. Blonde or not, they'll see thru the ruse.
I'll fuck you if I get to ride in your car. ... 28 fat blond male babe
Re:Ferrari by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 05:34 · Score: 0

Idiot! You don't take them home. You never take them home!
Man, you're a rookie for sure.
Re:Ferrari by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 06:43 · Score: 0

You must be new here. People on Slashdot are all a bunch of java coders or web developers, so neither they could have earned enough money to buy a Ferrari, nor - should they have inherited such a car from a deceased uncle - they have any hope to succeed with babes.
Re:Ferrari by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 07:23 · Score: 0

You don't go to many lower income places, do you? I've seen sub $500 per month apartment complexes with Escalades, or cars with thousands of dollars worth of stereos and chrome parked in the parking lot.

I am willing to bet thay those guys are drug dealers.

Open several pages in tabs to read later by tepples · 2013-03-26 03:28 · Score: 1

Minimizing ram usage is the regular method for programs. I don't know which programs you are using, but most of my phone's apps are 50mb or less.

I want to open a bunch of web pages in tabs while connected to Wi-Fi, hit the road, and then being able to display each page without having the device purge the page from the cache and try to reload it from a data connection that doesn't exist. There's no Wi-Fi on city buses. One reason I carry a 10" laptop instead of a tablet is because web browsers designed for laptop operating systems are historically better at this use case.

As for multiple downloads, you could download two at 50kb/s or one at 100kb/s. Does it really even matter?

It does when the one download is failing to saturate your downstream because the server is limiting one to 50kb/s.

Re:Open several pages in tabs to read later by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 04:08 · Score: 0

"I want to open a bunch of web pages in tabs while connected to Wi-Fi, hit the road, and then being able to display each page without having the device purge the page from the cache and try to reload it from a data connection that doesn't exist."
There's an app for that.
Re:Open several pages in tabs to read later by Jmc23 · 2013-03-26 04:25 · Score: 1

menu->save page

--
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
Re:Open several pages in tabs to read later by tepples · 2013-03-26 05:28 · Score: 1

Offline Browser by NiKoDroid70
Thanks for the recommendation. I'll try it on my Nexus 7.

Go away... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 03:28 · Score: 0

Seriously.

Force stopping 'Running Apps' from 'Switch Apps' by SternisheFan · 2013-03-26 03:30 · Score: 5, Informative

A little OffTopic about Android's 'switch apps' feature (on ICS and higher) from a recent Slashdot discussion.

I've learned that swiping the app offscreen to the left doesn't 'force stop' it, it just removes the icon from the 'running apps' list.

Doing a 'long press' on the apps icon brings up a sub-menu of 2 options, "remove from list" and "app info". Tapping on the 'app info' shortcut brings you to the 'app info screen', from there the app can be 'force stopped'.

I'm posting this here in the hopes that it'll clear up any confusion caused by that previous discussion. :-)

I have better than 4G: I have Wi-Fi. by tepples · 2013-03-26 03:31 · Score: 1

Certain apps (like the play store) download one at a time because they are trying to be nice on your phone (since the time saved from multiple downloads is negligible anyway, unless you have a really good 4G signal).

When I'm downloading a bunch of applications to my tablet, I have better than 4G: I have Wi-Fi with a wired upstream.

Re:I have better than 4G: I have Wi-Fi. by jeffmeden · 2013-03-26 04:37 · Score: 1

You have 50 megabit wired service? That's good, but most people don't have anywhere near that for their home/office, but can get it through 4G. That's what I was suggesting, since to save any time you basically need to saturate the google server sending you the app but not saturate the internet uplink, which is pretty damn hard to do.
Re:I have better than 4G: I have Wi-Fi. by hawguy · 2013-03-26 04:44 · Score: 1

You have 50 megabit wired service? That's good, but most people don't have anywhere near that for their home/office, but can get it through 4G. That's what I was suggesting, since to save any time you basically need to saturate the google server sending you the app but not saturate the internet uplink, which is pretty damn hard to do.
Do you really get 50 mbit sustained through 4G? My downloads always start fast, then quickly drop down to a much slower speed - I've always assumed that my carrier is throttling me on big downloads... i.e. small 1MB things like web pages load fast, sustained downloads are throttled. Do people really get fast 4G speeds for tens or hundreds of megabytes?
Re:I have better than 4G: I have Wi-Fi. by jeffmeden · 2013-03-26 04:54 · Score: 2

Do you really get 50 mbit sustained through 4G? My downloads always start fast, then quickly drop down to a much slower speed - I've always assumed that my carrier is throttling me on big downloads... i.e. small 1MB things like web pages load fast, sustained downloads are throttled. Do people really get fast 4G speeds for tens or hundreds of megabytes?
I'm on Verizon and I have had a few sessions of 100MB+ downloads running at top speed all the way. Granted, I am not in a spot with a 10 Mbit+ signal very often but when I am, it is blazing. Of course take this with a grain of salt; Verizon is both creative and clandestine when it comes to service shaping, so they could very well use that tactic in certain congested areas.
Re:I have better than 4G: I have Wi-Fi. by hawguy · 2013-03-26 05:33 · Score: 1

I'm on Verizon and I have had a few sessions of 100MB+ downloads running at top speed all the way. Granted, I am not in a spot with a 10 Mbit+ signal very often but when I am, it is blazing. Of course take this with a grain of salt; Verizon is both creative and clandestine when it comes to service shaping, so they could very well use that tactic in certain congested areas.
Interesting, I'm on Verizon too, but I'm in a pretty busy urban area, so maybe the cell tower is over subscribed enough to make them throttle my big downloads.
Re:I have better than 4G: I have Wi-Fi. by batkiwi · 2013-03-26 11:02 · Score: 1

100/40 megabit fiber.

hysterical raisins by waddgodd · 2013-03-26 03:36 · Score: 1

The problem is that about Froyo, when app2sd functionality was rolled into the OS, onboard memory was EXPENSIVE and SD was cheap, so there was a deliberate design decision to avoid letting non-system apps take over program memory. Even back then, this was a less than acceptable idea, as there were different ROM and RAM totals (okay, onboard storage and program memory, yeah, the're not QUITE ROM/RAM) even then, so a given app could use all RAM when running and still have a very small footprint in ROM, putting all its storage on SD. Even now, with your 16 GB nexus that has 2 GB program memory, you see that issue, albeit not so much. Once upon a time, it used to be said that you had three things that could be traded for each other, storage, memory, and processor, and that still applies today. I just think Android is making a very bad choice in what to trade. The real thing that would help this issue is if someone went through all the android appstores and took a damn optimizing compiler to everything, if you look at what should be computationally easy things, they invariably want entirely too many resources for that they really do. It really wouldn't surprise me to see a "shopping list sorter" that took up 2GB of storage, for example (even a bogosort shouldn't take THAT much resource)

--
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you

Not all RAM is available by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 03:37 · Score: 0

An Android device may have 2GB of RAM, but each app is only given something like 24MB to 48MB dependent upon the device manufacturer. That is why it is so easy for a particular app to run out of memory if the developer doesn't manage allocation well.

Re:Confidant! Not Cosmonaut You Stupid Git! by SternisheFan · 2013-03-26 03:38 · Score: 1

It's like that line from Elton John's song "Tiny Dancer".

"Hold me closer, Tony Danza..."

- - -

There's a bathroom on the right.

Ask Slashdot? by Fnord666 · 2013-03-26 03:43 · Score: 2

Dear Editors,

There is an 'Ask Slashdot' section for a reason. Please use it!

Thanks.

Fnord666

--
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables

Coding getting worse by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 03:47 · Score: 0

I've been a programmer for a long time, and one thing that has always bothered me is the amount of crap programs put in memory. Years ago, it was a general rule to put only what was needed in memory, and write your code as efficiently as possible to increase the performance and allow your program to work on larger data sets than might normally be possible with the memory limitations at the time. Then computers got faster and had more memory available, and the old programming logic was thrown out the window and programs became too bulky and loaded with extra crap that eats up too many resources. I have checked the memory footprint of multiple programs on windows and have found that one of my chat programs uses roughly 10MB of memory while it is running, and another one uses roughly 130MB. The 130MB program is prone to crashing, is much much slower, and doesn't really offer any benefits over the program with the 10MB footprint.

So using more memory shouldn't be a measure of how well a program works, and I would argue the opposite in most cases! The 16GB of internal storage in the phone should be more than fast enough to read the data the user will be interacting with. Provided the program code is efficient and uses very little memory (which is should), accessing the data to display on the screen should be nearly instantaneous. If the ebook reader is that inefficient, don't blame the OS from trying to protect itself and other apps from garbage coding.

I bet if your ebook reader was written in assembler it would use barely a fraction of the memory it currently uses, and would be lightening fast. In that case though, it would also probably look like crap, would take a very long time to code, and an even longer time to fix bugs when/if they show up.

Who's the tool? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 03:53 · Score: 1

That even let this post through?

16GB of RAM? Who seriously thought that that phone had 16GB of RAM? My fucking developer workstation doesn't even have 16GB of RAM!

Sheesh.

Re:Who's the tool? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 04:56 · Score: 0

Memo to (blunt) "tool" AC:
You are inferring what the OP did no imply - please read prior comments above on this point.

Are you sure ? by obarthelemy · 2013-03-26 03:55 · Score: 1

I agree with you (and MS) that Free RAM is wasted RAM. Probably upcoming versions of apps will check if they need to swap/release before doing so ?

As for "When connected to WiFi or 3G/LTE, there's no reason why multiple simultaneous downloads shouldn't be used." Yes there is: whatever is limiting the speed of your download/install (it(s not instantaneous yet, is it) will also impact simultaneous downloads. Plus thrashing.

--
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.

It's slow. by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · 2013-03-26 04:04 · Score: 1

I have 384 MB of RAM on my Droid Charge. Task Manager reports 368 total, so some has disappeared.

Of that 368, 236 is taken up by the OS and Verizon bloatware which, if I kill it, gets restarted.

I don't need 30 things sucking up 5 meg each.

--
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.

Re:Force stopping 'Running Apps' from 'Switch Apps by godrik · 2013-03-26 04:09 · Score: 1

Oh that's good to know. I wish I had mod points. I always thought swiping the app away meant "I am not going to use that, you can unload it" which would be a nicer version of force stop.

What about OS for those apps by gmuslera · 2013-03-26 04:11 · Score: 1

If is specifically about android and dalvik apps you won't have available all hardware power for your app. I would go to native apps either in Android or some other linux based OS for that kind of things, and of course, native apps for those OSs (development could be done in QT/QML for most of them, porting between them should not be so hard)

Re:Force stopping 'Running Apps' from 'Switch Apps by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 04:17 · Score: 0

What does this have to do with anything at all?

Not the app, the OS is to blame by wvmarle · 2013-03-26 04:21 · Score: 1

In the mentioned situations I believe it's mostly the OS that's to blame, more so than the app.

If I were to develop an e-reader app, that reads a book from a file on disk, I would just open the file, and start reading the needed parts from it. Most modern OSes will then cache the file in RAM, or at least start reading ahead as much as possible, after all if the first bytes of a file are read, it's likely the following bytes will be read in the near future, and if not this memory can easily enough be overwritten by something else again. An app shouldn't even try to do this - it shouldn't try to fill up the memory - let the OS take care of that part. Resource management is an OS task, not a userland task.

An app should try to minimise direct resource use, that will generally speed up things overall. For example reading the whole e-book from disk and storing it in RAM will cause the process to grow big, and more likely to be killed to make space for other processes, so a next startup takes much longer. It growing so big also means more other processes have to get killed when the reader app is used, just to make space.

And yes I use "disk" here knowing full well that in a phone that's usually some kind of flash memory or SD card or whatever.

To get "full power"... by fahrbot-bot · 2013-03-26 04:33 · Score: 1

... you have to set your dilithium chambers to "maximum".

[ My vote for dumbest line in the last Star Trek movie. ]

--
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .

Cripe by darjen · 2013-03-26 04:40 · Score: 1

Could we just give the OP the benefit of the doubt that he simply just misspoke? It seems like he has a legitimate question, and instead the discussion is getting lost in a bunch of crap posts all saying the same thing about the 16GB. Jeebus, people.

And why do you think that is by SuperKendall · 2013-03-26 04:40 · Score: 2

you can tell that charger isn't putting out the 1 to 1.2 or whatever Amps it does if an iPad was plugged in.

And do you really think your Samsung charger would attempt to assassinate whatever was plugged into its USB port with way more amperage than the USB spec states will be delivered over the port?

This is exactly why I think it's so absurd that people complain about "custom" connectors (never mind USB itself has about five!), when in order to charge devices in a reasonable time over an ancient standard, we instead live in a world of custom chargers that just happen to PRETEND to use the same connector type when they really behave differently depending of what is plugged into them.

--
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley

Re:And why do you think that is by hawguy · 2013-03-26 05:29 · Score: 2

This is exactly why I think it's so absurd that people complain about "custom" connectors (never mind USB itself has about five!), when in order to charge devices in a reasonable time over an ancient standard, we instead live in a world of custom chargers that just happen to PRETEND to use the same connector type when they really behave differently depending of what is plugged into them.
As long as they all default to a least-common-denominator "safe mode" that's compatible with whatever happens to be be plugged in, even if it's just at the standard 500mA rate, then what's the problem?
I know I can plug my phone into any microUSB charger I can find and it will charge.
Re:And why do you think that is by SuperKendall · 2013-03-26 06:48 · Score: 1

I know I can plug my phone into any microUSB charger I can find and it will charge.
So can I (using an iPhone or an iPad) plug into any USB charger.
What you are saying is actually not true, in that if you plug into a standard USB port and have too many things going on with the device (like tethering or running a game or using a navigation app) the device may well still be losing power.
The problem, if there is one, is people claiming that the iPhone is any more proprietary than any other kind of device that charges over USB.
The iPhone is the only modern smartphone not lying to consumer by pretending to be something it's not really (a standard USB device).

--
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Re:And why do you think that is by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 06:55 · Score: 1

its not pretending anything. its the same connector, its just maxed out at 2A instead of 500mA. if you plug a 500mA device into a 2A charger, that 2A charger is only going to give it 500mA. thats how electricity works. the device DRAWS power from the charger, its not pushed to it from the charger.
Re:And why do you think that is by hawguy · 2013-03-26 07:12 · Score: 1

I know I can plug my phone into any microUSB charger I can find and it will charge.
So can I (using an iPhone or an iPad) plug into any USB charger.
What you are saying is actually not true, in that if you plug into a standard USB port and have too many things going on with the device (like tethering or running a game or using a navigation app) the device may well still be losing power.
The problem, if there is one, is people claiming that the iPhone is any more proprietary than any other kind of device that charges over USB.
The iPhone is the only modern smartphone not lying to consumer by pretending to be something it's not really (a standard USB device).
So you agree that having a standard connector that supports a special high-speed charge mode is not absurd after all as long as it defaults to something that anyone can use as long as they have a compatible cable that can plug in to it? Any random USB port may not be able to do fast charging (and may not be able to keep up with a busy device's power demands), but when you're on the go and have to charge up, you can count on any USB port being compatible with your device. When you're at home or the office you can enjoy fast charging on your device's own USB charger, but when your coworker needs to charge his phone to make a call, you can lend him the same charger.
The different between Apple's proprietary cable and a device that uses a generic Micro-USB cable is that I can buy a generic MicroUSB cable for 99 cents and have many of them - I have at least 5 - 1 in each of the cars, 1 one home, 1 at work, one in my backpack with an AC USB adapter. It only cost $5 for me to have all of those cables, but I would have paid $100 for the Apple equivalents (or around $60 for certified third party equivalents), so instead of having multiple cables, I'd probably have only one or two and carry it around with me.
Re:And why do you think that is by cbiltcliffe · 2013-03-26 12:07 · Score: 1

Thank you.
At least *somebody* realizes that. With all the other posts about "defaulting to a low power state" and crap like that, I was beginning to think that technological progress would have to stop, because nobody understands a simple formula like I=V/R anymore....

--
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
Re:And why do you think that is by TheSeatOfMyPants · 2013-03-26 15:31 · Score: 1

Almost all devices use 1 of 4 connectors, and it's standardized to the point that few people have to think about it, especially as devices tend to use the largest kind that will fit:
-- Old 'A' rectangle port: computers, power adapters, other things you plug a device into
-- Old 'A' rectangle plug: anything connecting without a cable (flash drive, card reader, etc.)
-- Old 'B' squarish port: printers, scanners, full-scale external drives
-- 'Mini B' wavy trapezoid port: older e-readers/mp3/cameras, similar-sized speakers, etc.
-- 'Micro B' super-narrow port: newer cells, e-readers, other tiny/skinny devices
If a USB cable breaks or we want an extra, we can easily just grab one of the same type from another device, left-overs from the past, or buy them quite cheaply. They were all designed to be sturdy, so unlike many of the proprietary connectors I've dealt with, and the plug won't wiggle around much or lose connection when plugged in. It also stays in place securely on its own without needing breakable latches like many proprietary connectors rely on.
In contrast, each proprietary connector is different, and many of them weren't designed to be durability. If we need a new proprietary cable, we're limited to buying a new one somewhere for substantially more than an equivalent USB of whatever kind. I've owned my share of devices with proprietary connectors over the years, so this is all based on extensive experience.

--
Now mostly at Usenet:comp.misc & SoylentNews.org (it's made of people!)
Re:And why do you think that is by SuperKendall · 2013-03-26 17:14 · Score: 1

If a USB cable breaks or we want an extra, we can easily just grab one of the same type from another device, left-overs from the past, or buy them quite cheaply.
All of those are MORE true of an iOS cable, especially the old style. It's easier to find a place that carries an iOS cable you need than one of the more obscure USB cable types. When I lost a MiniB cable I had no spares and had a hell of a time finding any shop that had one. This was for a modern camera that I had just bought, so it's not like it's that legacy.

--
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Re:And why do you think that is by AmiMoJo · 2013-03-27 01:39 · Score: 1

There is an unofficial 1A charging over USB mode that is detected by shorting the data pins together. Normal PCs don't do that and neither do 500mA chargers. Only chargers that support 1A do and Samsung phones, like most, will pull 1A from them.

--
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:And why do you think that is by godefroi · 2013-03-27 02:34 · Score: 1

It doesn't work like that. The charger doesn't "push" amperage into the connected device, the connected device "pulls" however much current it wants/needs. A high-powered charger won't "assassinate" a connected device, unless its voltage is out of spec.

--
Karma: Poor (Mostly affected by lame karma-joke sigs)
Re:And why do you think that is by godefroi · 2013-03-27 02:38 · Score: 1

Note that Mini-B is deprecated; anywhere it is/was used, Micro-B should be used instead. It was retired because of a design flaw that resulted in fewer connections-before-failure, and when it fails, it's usually the device-side connector instead of the cable-side connector. This was corrected in Micro-B, on top of the (slightly) reduced size.

--
Karma: Poor (Mostly affected by lame karma-joke sigs)

Memory cap by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 04:51 · Score: 0

The Dalvik Virtual Machine has a heap memory limit (dependent on various things) well below the maximum memory for your phone - one example of this problem is here: http://tordtech.blogspot.ca/2009/09/memory-limit-on-android.html

This article also contains a solution for your problem. I haven't tested it myself, so I'm really sorry if you brick your phone. If you don't know C++, try this:

1. Learn C++
2. Reread article.

All in all, I would rather live with the inconvenience than go to the trouble of recompiling Android, but if you really care, there you have it.

Chrome Android caching/reload by hawguy · 2013-03-26 04:52 · Score: 1

Maybe this is the right place to ask this question:

Is there any way to force Chrome on my Galaxy Nexus to either fully cache the current page so it can display it instantly upon browser startup, or to not reload it when I start the browser and show me a blank screen?

It's annoying to start up the browser when I last was viewing a large, complicated page, and then I have to wait while the browser tries to reload and display that page, even though I want to go to a new page. Even if I hit the stop button, I have to wait for the browser to finish up what it's doing before it will stop.

It's not that I'm memory constrained, even if I reboot the phone to get most apps out of memory, open the browser and go to a page, go back to the home screen, then back to the browser, the browser downloads and redisplays the current page.

Re:Confidant! Not Cosmonaut You Stupid Git! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 05:02 · Score: 0

Just gimme gimme gimme gimme fried chicken

April Fools by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 05:17 · Score: 0

It's not April 1st yet. What gives?

Single digit GB/mo cap by tepples · 2013-03-26 05:22 · Score: 3, Insightful

most people don't have anywhere near [50 megabit per second wired service] for their home/office, but can get it through 4G.

A 50 Mbps downstream is fine for the first 800 seconds, after which it drops to 0 Mbps for the rest of the month because the customer has hit the 5 GB/mo cap. The advantage of wired is that the cap is 50 times as high: 250 GB/mo, not 5 GB/mo.

you basically need to saturate the google server sending you the app

It's not just Google Play Store. If I'm downloading a bunch of files through Chrome, I want to saturate multiple servers, most of which are not operated by Google.

Re:Confidant! Not Cosmonaut You Stupid Git! by Samantha+Wright · 2013-03-26 05:33 · Score: 2

What if you're the one being trolled, and that was actually the same poster? (Dun, dun, dun....)

--
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!

Re:Force stopping 'Running Apps' from 'Switch Apps by amRadioHed · 2013-03-26 05:42 · Score: 1

As far as I can tell, swiping away does exactly that.

--
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace

Conserve battery life by gatkinso · 2013-03-26 05:47 · Score: 1

Is not much of what the OP complaining about an attempt to preserve the phones battery life?

--
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.

Re:Confidant! Not Cosmonaut You Stupid Git! by geminidomino · 2013-03-26 05:54 · Score: 1

Bad example. That's actually what Freddie sang.

Re:Force stopping 'Running Apps' from 'Switch Apps by charles2678 · 2013-03-26 05:58 · Score: 2

It lives on only as a cached process, not as a live one. Those are reaped whenever anything else would use the resources they're using -- it's not _truly_ stopped, but it's a functional equivalent for all reasons that matter (unless it's your intent that your application lose all its state -- this can be useful if you're trying to clear a bug, for instance, but will have no effect on performance on the rest of the phone).

Slashdot hits rock-bottom by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 06:30 · Score: 0

Now we have stories from dribblers who think the more RAM an app uses (like this idiot even knows what RAM means) the better. Oh, the pain, the pain!

Taking this cretin seriously, Android uses the RAM (although this cretin thinks the flash storage is the RAM) in various ways, like all modern OSes. Actually moreso, since the RAM also has to serve as dedicated storage for the GPU. On a 2GB RAM system, Android might only want to set aside 1GB for the apps themselves, although all this is controllable via deep configuration settings.

Now take the idiots specific complaint- tabs that need to be reloaded. The biggest problem with browsers on the desktop is run-away memory usage precisely because Google and Mozilla use the worst programming methods in Chrome and Firefox. The first thing any user does is install plug-ins that release memory from most of the tabs.

We want memory efficient apps. We need memory efficient apps. We should demand memory efficient apps. And when memory efficient apps are delivered, we should fall to our knees in praise.

Apps that use memory like crazy also use the worst approach to data-structures and algorithms. They are coded by the worst illiterate programmers, who get by on the fact that most computers have insane resources today. Not only do such bad programmers waste memory, but their apps will be buggy and very slow when used in anything but the simplest way.

Take the 'loaded tabs' problem. Obviously the tab being viewed by the user is active, and using RAM. However, how is the browser supposed to guess which of the other tabs is likely to be used by the user next, so that tab can be in RAM as well. The best method- never used- would allow the user to set a hard RAM limit for the browser, and have the browser implement state-of-the-art memory management. Then the user is given 'keep tab loaded in RAM' explicit controls.

The user that sez "please apps, automatically bloat into my entire RAM pool" needs shooting in the head.

Re:Slashdot hits rock-bottom by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 07:25 · Score: 0

Say I have a Wi-fi only tablet. I go to work on a bus/train/whatever which doesn't offer Wi-fi, but I want to be able to read a few pages. My first thought would be, preload those pages before going to work on the browser: then, I can read them all while I go to work. No current mobile browser does that satisfactorily. This is not "efficient RAM usage", it's "inability to use a disk cache" coupled with "unwillingness to have a pure offline mode".

THE SOLUTION by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 06:35 · Score: 0

Check our V6 Supercharger by zep. It is amazing, re-defines the way android manages memory to customize for you while being smarter and more efficient.

Sadly google hasn't changed the way android memory management and multitasking works since basically froyo, which makes no sense because now devices standard have at least double the RAM and cpu they did back then.

Part of the V6 Supercharger, is "Maximum Multitasking Mods" If you look into this, i think it will be exactly what you want.

I can keep 70 apps in memory, for 24 hours. Where google will cap it at 15, and not let them go back 30 min's or an hour if inactive.

Make sure to read the OP in the thread on XDA, can be a complicated process for new people, but i never had any trouble. Super quick once you get the hang of it.

Wrong question by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 07:39 · Score: 0

Why on earth do you want apps to use more resources than they need and drain the battery faster? If you have a specific request for a specific app, get in touch with the author and ask, otherwise your question is pointless.

I'd much rather flip this question around and ask why we can't have apps codes to more limited requirements. A benchmark for high, medium and low power usage would be genuinely useful. Knowing which apps are power hogs and will drain my battery would be great, and conversely knowing an app has minimal requirements will give me more confidence in letting it run in the background.

Wouldn't mind swapping to an external SD card by m.dillon · 2013-03-26 07:40 · Score: 1

On those Android phones which have user SD card slots, I wouldn't mind allowing the phone to page memory to the card at all if it saves on bandwidth. For internal flash... definitely not.

I already cycle about a gigabyte a day through my 16G microSD card just from DogCatcher. Another few hundred megabytes wouldn't make a dent and those cards are pretty cheap anyway.

However, allowing paging on any machine can lead to big trouble in the form of thrashing. It probably isn't reasonable to implement that sort of feature as a default on a consumer phone.

At least in the case of browsers the default memory limits can clearly be increased.

-Matt

Pathetically crippled. by spire3661 · 2013-03-26 08:11 · Score: 2

When i talk about using my mobile or tablet as a small server for books, audio etc, people think that is silly. My phone is more powerful then the computer i used to host my IRC node in college, yet the idea of it serving anything (besides all the personal data it generates about me) is completely ignored. The entirety of mobile right now is bent on knowing EVERYTHING that goes on in the device, and you have no access to it. I have an iphone 4S and an Ipad 2. One has cellular, one doesnt. There is NO NATIVE WAY to transfer data from one to another. If i want to pull something off my server with the cell connect, i cannot then view it on my ipad. I find this extraordinarily unacceptable at this stage in mobile.

--
Good-bye

Re:Pathetically crippled. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 19:33 · Score: 0

That's funny. You know, you can do whatever you want with your files on an Android device. You have file explorers, zip managers, you can open files with any application that has registered itself as a program for that type of file, etc. And it's implemented so well that usually the extra complexity doesn't even raise its head and you can go on about your day without having to think about it.
iOS is limited for certain.
Re:Pathetically crippled. by Sigg3.net · 2013-03-27 10:05 · Score: 1

You bought Apple devices. Rationality does not apply. Also, most of iFad's "missing features" are widely reported within the first week. Also, since the rise of touch and Android, every non-trivial functionality requires an app.
I miss my N95 too, but I can still get my work done today (except outside in real weather). Stop buying crippled devices and encourage open formats.

--
Defining Statistics and Social Research

Get an iOS device by maccodemonkey · 2013-03-26 08:19 · Score: 0

I know this is probably bound for Mod'ed-Trollville, but the in app memory management APIs are leagues better on iOS (for context, despite my nick, I write code for both Android and iOS).

iOS is much better about letting an application use memory heap without concern, and it has APIs to handle this exact situation. Applications on iOS manage caching (due to the Apple provided caching and memory APIs) based on the device running out of available memory over all processes, not arbitrary limits.

Re:Get an iOS device by perryizgr8 · 2013-03-26 14:21 · Score: 1

i dunno about iphone but this problem is extremely apparent on the 4g ipad. load up a couple of tabs, go to the music player, go back to safari. reload all webpages.

--
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.

Get people to use full power of brain first? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 09:24 · Score: 0

If we are too lazy to call software by the word application, then perhaps we should focus our technologies on fixing the retard in our brains?

Ffixed my issues with Android by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-26 09:25 · Score: 0

I'm getting a Blackberry Z10. Should be at my house in a few days.

It keeps the last 8 opened apps open. So problems with the web browser as stated by the OP are GONE.

FWIW: Droid 3 is going bye bye. I considered the GS4 and decided that for what i do (e-mail and web browsing mostly), the Z10 is a superior product.

Re:Ffixed my issues with Android by Spy+Handler · 2013-03-26 10:58 · Score: 1

no, the B10 with the physical keyboard is the superior product.

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