VLC Blacklists Newer Huawei Devices To Combat Negative App Reviews (theverge.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Some newer Huawei phones are actively being blocked from installing the open-source VLC media player app from Google Play. VLC's developers announced today that they're blacklisting some of Huawei's devices after unhappy users left too many one-star reviews for the app. But the negative reviews stem from a decision on Huawei's part and has nothing to do with VLC. The negative reviews are a result of Huawei's aggressive battery management and tendency to kill background apps, which directly affects VLC's background audio playback feature. Huawei users on VLC's forums are well aware of the issue. It's possible to manually disable these battery optimizations and have the app function properly in the background, but VLC claims that people often don't know how to do that, so they blame the app instead. The devices being blacklisted are the Huawei P8, P10, and P20. Users can still manually download the APK from VLC's website if they're interested in using the player.

Comments

Smart Decision

[DatbeDank]

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

The smart users will go to Google and learn how to download the separate APK while also disabling the power saving features.

Re: Smart Decision

[Anonymous Coward]

The smart users won't have Huawei devices.

Re:Smart Decision

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it physically hurt being so fucking retarded?

Re:Smart Decision

[Anonymous Coward]

Think of the dishonor you're causing your family doing this.

Re:Smart Decision

[Anonymous Coward]

He's only able to sleep 2 hours a night, so I'd say that's a strong possibility. Plus the Mueller-ulcers... and his illegally imported whore wife hates his ass and watches CNN, talk about soul killing. You tell me, what do you think? All gud?

Re:Smart Decision

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump : Dishonor? Is this some kind of made up media word? I have no idea what you're talking about, I'm the most honorable guy the likes of which Putin has never seen naked, except that once.

Re: Smart Decision

[ras]

In that case the smart users won't have Samsung phones either, as the S8 does exactly the same thing. I installed Google SMS app, replacing Samsung's. It took me ages to figure out why SMS's were going missing. Turned out Samsung was killing it. They whitelist their own SMS app, of course.

Re: Smart Decision

[Anonymous Coward]

Switching to Xiaomi Mi Mix 2 from Samsung was the best thing I've done cell-phone wise.

Re: Smart Decision

[Anonymous Coward]

The smartest users avoid Android altogether.

Re: Smart Decision

[thegarbz]

Turned out Samsung was killing it. They whitelist their own SMS app, of course.

Samsung doesn't kill any app without telling you it did so, and giving you the option to white list it. Let me guess, you saw a notification and blocked it straight away so your phone wouldn't bug you with such pesky things?

Re: Smart Decision

[ras]

Let me guess, you saw a notification and blocked it straight away so your phone wouldn't bug you with such pesky things?

nope.

Re: Smart Decision

[thegarbz]

Cool a link to instructions to add exceptions manually. That doesn't change the fact that the OS gives you a notification the first time it wants to kill the app AND the opportunity to blacklist it before it happens.

Or maybe I just have the special non buggy version given only to shills on Slashdot S8. In which case you should get onboard since we clearly have much better phones.

Re: Smart Decision

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, they use Apple's OS!

Re: Smart Decision

[bytestorm]

I have the same experience; the battery utility tells you which apps it wants to "optimize," but in no way does it (or can it) tell you what that will do to app functionality, so it's extremely easy to click through and "optimize all" without thinking about it. This list-based power management probably needs to be done at the Android platform level, not through separate OEM applications, so user applications can report what functionality they'll lose if you disable background operation.

But once I figured out what it was doing, I became extremely happy with how easy it was to work with.

Re: Smart Decision

[squiggleslash]

Did the notification say:

To extend the life of your battery, we will now prevent this application from running in the background. This means it will be unable to function properly if it does anything in the background, such as checking for new messages or playing music. You should only enable this feature for games and other apps that only do useful thing when you're actively interacting with them, and not with, say, music or messaging/email apps. Do you want to disable this feature?

or did it say

To extend the life of your battery, we have optimized this app. To unoptimize, hit "Whitelist" below

It is the app’s fault

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does the user need to know about these configuration settings? If the app developers know what needs to happen but the app doesn’t do it, it sounds like a missing piece of functionality.

Re: It is the app’s fault

[Anonymous Coward]

Because they need to use them.
No it sounds like lusers being lusers.

Don't leave reviews if you are uninformed. Or do and get banned. Either way it's your problem.

Re: It is the app’s fault

[Anonymous Coward]

The app is published on the Play store where literally anyone with twenty bucks can buy a phone and download the thing. If the app is getting bad reviews, itâ(TM)s because there is an expectation that it works without twiddling settings. I mean, I guess not fixing the issue and simply declaring that youâ(TM)re not compatible is one way of handling it. I canâ(TM)t stand vendors that pull that shit, but I understand not having unlimited resources to chase device compatibility issues.

Re:It is the app’s fault

[Anonymous Coward]

Because if the device itself it set to close background tasks, there is nothing an app developer can do. The OS will always have a higher level of run time then the apps, in other words.. the OS will always win.

Re: It is the app’s fault

[Anonymous Coward]

The devs blacklisted the devices doing it on the store. I assume you can still detect a device model on Android. Use the knowledge that permitted you to blacklist the devices and maybe adjust the default state of this feature. Or just disable it by default, since it seems there might be other ways the OS may break the feature, and let your advanced users adjust advanced settings. Users are scared of advanced options and they leave feedback when things work badly.

Re: It is the app’s fault

[Shikaku]

You can't fix the issue if the OS is doing it without forcefully editing the OS. Huawei phones have a built in "background app killer" app that is enabled by default. You'd have to have the right permissions and possibly be root to force an exception on your own, and any app that gets around it is basically acting like a virus.

Re: It is the app’s fault

[Shikaku]

Actually, the second sentence should be part of the summary. This one:

Huawei phones have a built in "background app killer" app that is enabled by default.

Re: It is the app’s fault

[youngone]

Don't leave reviews if you are uninformed.

I am not disagreeing with you, but go and have a look at one star reviews on Google Play, a whole bunch of them consist of "Does not work. Help".
People are idiots.

Re: It is the app’s fault

[Shikaku]

Except play music. I think some people install and use it for that feature alone.

Re: It is the app’s fault

[Anonymous Coward]

Claiming incompatibility with that device is their only recourse.

As you say, it's the apps fault there are no OS APIs to run in the background, or to ask the OS not to force terminate the app.

It's the apps fault that the OS force quits the app, because we always assign fault to things that have no control over their situation.

That's why they are banning their app from installing on those devices, now the app isn't at fault for the OS terminating it anymore.

Re: It is the app’s fault

[ras]

It has zero reason to do anything in background.

And this is slashdot, whose summaries are always complete, concise and accurate. There is zero reason to read the article.

Speaking of the article, it said this:

The negative reviews are a result of Huawei’s aggressive battery management and tendency to kill background apps, which directly affects VLC’s background audio playback feature.

Re: It is the app’s fault

[sjames]

What makes you assume there's any way to do that programmatically? This is something being done by a pre-installed app on those phones. If it presents any sort of API, it's not documented.

All they know is the specific models with that mis-feature, so they blacklisted them.

Re: It is the app’s fault

[hairyfeet]

Sure you can and its easy, watch..../user tries to install VLC, gets pop up message/ "Hi, VLC here, did you know that (insert phone) that you are trying to install VLC on has a "feature" that will ruin your experience using VLC? If you wish to continue using VLC here is how to disable it, if you would prefer to keep this feature please press the cancel button to stop installing VLC"....TADA!

This will protect their rep and let the user know its NOT the fault of VLC, its the phone. It will even tell the user in simple language how to fix it if they would rather have VLC than this aggressive battery crapware. Give the user the information and let them choose which they would prefer...user choice...its a good thing.

Re: It is the app’s fault

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously don't know users... They will just ignore it, either to lazy to read or to lazy to bother and will conveniently forget about it when they encounter the issue. vlc blocking installing is a perfectly valid response to deal with the issue for a small usergroup especially since there still a workaround. Anyone smart enough to mess with the phone configuration is smart enough to manual install the app as well.

Re: It is the app’s fault

[Anonymous Coward]

And that is why I give that advice.

Well that and I solved a lot of my own tech related issues by googling...

Re: It is the app’s fault

[thegarbz]

VLC is a media player. And I like listening to my phone without draining battery by keeping the screen on.

Re: It is the app’s fault

[Anonymous Coward]

So instead of just putting a notification in saying "This app needs to be able to run in the background, please enable it's ability to do so" on the first run after checking permissions, they instead blacklist a whole manufacturer causing god knows how many users to just not be able to install to begin with?

That could be a candidate for "overreaction of the year."

Re: It is the app’s fault

[MachineShedFred]

They can't query the OS to see what it is running on launch, and if it's Huawei's EMUI thing or whatever then show a box to the user saying that background playback won't work unless they do ${action}?

You're saying that just isn't possible? I have a feeling you're an idiot and haven't thought this through.

Re: It is the app’s fault

[Anonymous Coward]

VLC devs are some of the nicest hardest working folks I know. Several months back when I bought my Essential there were some severe issues with video playback in VLC. Instead of leaving a bad review, I notified VLC of my issue. In less than 48 hours they had released an update and emailed me personally to let me know the app was fixed for my phone.

Haven't had an issue since. Been using VLC well over a decade now on phone/pc and is easily the best media player I've ever used.

This issue is 100% on Huawei's end anyways.

Re: It is the app’s fault

[MachineShedFred]

And they can't display dialogs with hyperlinks any more?

"We see you're running on a device model where a setting will need to be changed in order to enable background playback. More information about how to enable this can be found at [link] [X] don't show this again"

Oh hey look, problem solved without being draconian and boorishly stupid.

Re: It is the app’s fault

[sjames]

The people complaining are exactly the ones that typically install software with OK,OK,OK,agree,OK,OK and don't even read the dialogs.

If you're not that sort of user, you can still sideload the APK directly from VLC's site and make the necessary change.

Re: It is the app’s fault

[Anonymous Coward]

Its possible the app is sandboxed and cannot query the OS for a list of running processes.

Clearly you didn't think this through, but I will refrain from calling you any names, even if you deserve it.

Not the only devices that kills background audio

[Anonymous Coward]

My Nokia phone also kills background process after a couple minutes, but it does that on Google Play music as well as VLC, so I can't just blame VLC for it.

I have similar issues.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly I have similar issues with PC software I write. The code works great, but the moron owning the computer doesn't know how to maintain their machine. Typically this is an issue with Windows users, but some OSX and noobie Linux users as well. In the end they hurt sales and fill customer support tickets. Yes "Dillon" I know you "have all the antivirus, windows, everything else updated", but Intel is still showing a video driver 7 years newer than the one currently on your shitty laptop. Please download and install it from them like I asked you to do 4 times...

It's just the way computing is these days. We let dumb asses access the network. You live with it. Lucky for VLC they have a way to block idiots.

Love my Mate 9

[ArhcAngel]

While I love my Mate 9 I did have to fiddle with the battery saving settings to get the right balance for me. VLC works fine for me though.

Re:Love my Mate 9

[Anonymous Coward]

While I love my Mate 9 I did have to fiddle with the battery saving settings to get the right balance for me. VLC works fine for me though.

I also love having to be a Systems Administrator for my garbage fucking phone!

Re:Love my Mate 9

[Anonymous Coward]

Better than having how you use it be dictated by the manufacturer.

Not just Huawei

[Anonymous Coward]

My OnePlus 3T on the latest Android 8.1 does this too.
Android is over aggressive with sleeping. Dropbox stopped syncing my photos until I realized that and had to add it to the exception list.
I nearly complained to Dropbox.

This isn't really correct.

[Anonymous Coward]

They're "blacklisting" these devices because they don't perform well on them and users are disappointed. I don't see a problem.

Re:This isn't really correct.

[BeanThere]

No, it has nothing to do with performance, here it is straight from the developer's mouth:

https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=145236

Huawei devices are now forbidden to download VLC. We're fed up with their OS breaking VLC all the time.

Huawei basically kills VLC when the screen is shutting down. So that kills VLC when it plays audio in background.

This is childish behavior as a developer; there are many other (better-for-users) ways to deal with - including, if you detect those devices, show a message explaining that background audio won't work on this device for reason X. I am affected by this issue; I used to like VLC and actually would have wanted to use it to play videos (I don't care about background audio), but this petty behavior - randomly blocking long-time VLC fans like me from using it (for no reason as I don't even use the background audio feature) by banning entire ranges of devices. They're basically 'attacking' their own users just to spite a particular vendor.

They're actually good phones, really fast, perform well, there is no 'performance problem' - this is a very specific issue and behavior that isn't a performance issue. Other developers seem to manage to release Apps that work for these phones without mass-blocking them.

Developing for a broad variety of platforms means encountering issues with specific platforms, and dealing with it in a reasonable way; if you're a developer you have to expect that.

Re:This isn't really correct.

[drinkypoo]

but this petty behavior - randomly blocking long-time VLC fans like me from using it

They aren't doing that. They are blocking you from installing it from Google Play. If you download the APK, you can still install it.

With that said, I agree that a better solution would be to disable the feature in question on those devices until the user disables the killer.

Re:This isn't really correct.

[MachineShedFred]

Oh, so I only have to go around the security protections that come from getting signed code from a trusted source, and instead sideload a package that could have been fucked with by unknown actors because the VLC team are being petty and petulant about this, and adopted a user-surly "solution" to the problem instead of documenting and taking 30 seconds to add a dialog on launch of the app on a device which exhibits this behavior.

What a wonderful app development team that in no way is overreacting to an external problem.

Re:This isn't really correct.

[BeanThere]

If you download the APK

So I must jump through extra hoops, for no reason, because the developer wants to spite the vendor, due to an issue over a feature I don't even use ... no thank you, I don't jump through hoops for nobody. I'm a software developer and I don't make my users jump through unnecessary extra hoops on my own emotional wims. I'll just use alternatives.

As I said, I used to be a VLC fan, but this grates me.

Re:This isn't really correct.

[drinkypoo]

So I must jump through extra hoops, for no reason, because the developer wants to spite the vendor, due to an issue over a feature I don't even use ... no thank you, I don't jump through hoops for nobody.

Nonsense. You jump through hoops every day. If you didn't, you'd be in prison already. Government is quite intolerant of people who refuse hoop-jumping.

I'll just use alternatives.

Good luck finding an alternative which is anywhere near as good as VLC at doing what it does. I don't think there is one. You could use Kodi, and it would do all the same stuff, but it also has some liabilities like increased load time, resource consumption, and attack surface.

As I said, I used to be a VLC fan, but this grates me.

So you have one of the three affected devices? You know the affected devices behave in a non-standard fashion, right? Therefore, using them correctly involves jumping through hoops, to make them behave normally. You literally cannot avoid jumping through hoops here if you want things to work the way they are expected to work. Or are you just virtue signaling?

Exactly why APK Hosts File Engine isn't for Androi

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why APK probably will never release his hosts file engine for Android. You jealous bastards will spam him with bad ratings despite being the best security software available, free or otherwise. It's just like how you fools modbomb APK constantly and attack him.

Horrible approach to a resolution

[Anonymous Coward]

VLC should release, in the next build, a watchdog timer to detect this specific problem.

Should it happen, it should trip a flag that displays a pop up, on, every, action, the, user, does, until, they, disable, the offending setting.

OKay that's too intrusive. So how about a warning box that appears for 30 seconds which doubles every time the issue occurs. Or, if the VLC app launches and it detects a banned device, it disables background audio and only allows you to enable it after going through the many hoops of the OS setting (VLC could launch the settings intent to further appease the user).

There are so many solutions to this problem, but they decided to blacklist the device all together. Methinks there is a greater evil at work here.

Re:Horrible approach to a resolution

[piojo]

There is no on device solution to the problem, though. When I had a Huawei, you could start by setting the device to use max power all the time, but that would only solve problems related to background services like reminders and other notifications. There was no way to prevent backgrounded apps from being killed.

Re:Horrible approach to a resolution

[MachineShedFred]

Then just say that to the user. "Your device doesn't support background playback due to a software decision made by Huawei. If this feature is important to you, contact them about supporting background media playback on their devices, and we'll happily enable support in a future version. [Got it]"

Just a quick reminder...

[hyades1]

VideoLAN's VLC player is the best media player around. Period. Nothing is even close. If you have a media file and want to play it, VLC Player does it well with a minimum of drama...and it's free.

I'm glad they're doing this. All they have is their reputation. They don't need it tarnished by malware-infested Chinese crap-phones running an OS designed to make personal privacy a quaint historical footnote.

Re:Just a quick reminder...

[Anonymous Coward]

VLC is a piece of shit.

Yes, my business selling virus infected binary codecs to porn addicts has also suffered greatly because of their shitty project. Tell it like it is brother!

Re:Just a quick reminder...

[herve_masson]

100% agreed. VLC is by far the best media player for what i'm concerned. It just lack a decent UI.

Why not simply show a message "You are installing VLC on device XYZ; there are a few things you should know before using it on this specific device" ?
People are not always playing morons when they get the proper info.

Re:Just a quick reminder...

[SuiteSisterMary]

Because people will blindly hit the 'OK' button, have problems, and blame the software.

Re:Just a quick reminder...

[JackieBrown]

Did they try that and people blindly hit the ok button? Or are they just deciding that people are stupid?

Can't they just add a notification feature to the program so it stays active? I have had a few apps tell me I need to set that so it stays running. It's more clutter but it works.

Re:Just a quick reminder...

[thegarbz]

Opinion. VLC is far from the best media player.

It may be the player capable of playing the most formats independent of system codecs.
It may be the player with support for extensible features and filters
It may be the best player for transmitting video over the network.

I have it installed for those reasons alone, but I for one use it as a backup.
IMO the interface is crap, the file handling is crap, using it is infuriating, seeking accurately is a PITA, and I prefer MPC-HC in every way.

Though maybe once in a blue moon I find a file that doesn't play properly in MPC-HC, then I open it in VLC and usually find it broken enough to not continue trying with VLC as well.

Re:Just a quick reminder...

[mujadaddy]

I agree with everything you said and would only add that for 4GB+ files, VLCs tearing is awful.

Actually, from my own Eye Tests (long-time video editing background), VLC's *screenshots* of identical frames appear better than MPC-HCs, but of course, you may only get 1 frame in 30 in VLC while playing...

Re:Just a quick reminder...

[drinkypoo]

Because people will blindly hit the 'OK' button, have problems, and blame the software.

Why not just disable the feature that doesn't work properly on these phones, instead? Next to the disabled (greyed) option, print a message about a) how to fix it and b) who to complain to about it being a problem in the first place. (or just put a link to such info, of course.) TFS claims the problem is with the "background audio playback feature", not that the whole app doesn't work.

Re:Just a quick reminder...

[drinkypoo]

VideoLAN's VLC player is the best media player around. Period. Nothing is even close.

Kodi. Kodi is close. It does have a [much, much] longer load time, but that's because it has a lot more functionality. And in my experience, it plays more stuff successfully than VLC does.

Re:Just a quick reminder...

[Anonymous Coward]

SMplayer works great on windows, give it a shot. Been using it for years. All the features of mplayer/mpv with a good interface.

Re:Just a quick reminder...

[Anonymous Coward]

I second this post. I have been playing all my video with MPC pretty much exclusively for over a decade and I haven't found a file yet it wouldn't play. Sometimes I'm forced to use VLC though, usually because of social reasons,* and the interface is a user-hostile mess and its surprising how often VLC plays video noticeably choppily even on relatively modern hardware.

* Since this is /. people will no doubt just cry out: ‘Why don't you just use MPC then if you think VLC is so bad?’
Sometimes you want to watch a video together with someone who insists on using VLC. If you use VLC you might get slightly choppy video and an infuriating few minutes wrestling with the interface. If you use MPC the video will be smooth but drowned out by a constant litany on how it might fail to play any moment and how it would have been better to use VLC and how we should switch to VLC just to make sure. I'm not willing to kill an otherwise decent friendship over my choice of media player.
Some other times you might need to play a video on someone else's computer. Most people don't like it when you start to install random software on it and if VLC is the owner's preferred media player then so be it.
And sometimes you want to play video on a computer that as it turns out has no decent video player or codecs installed. VLC has much better word-of-mouth name recognition going on and it's much easier to convince people to install it, especially if you're in a group.

Re:Just a quick reminder...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have ever done support, you'd would know people are stupid, and there is a significant subset that won't read error messages clearly telling them what the problem is, those same people are also often to type to complain about it not working. I would love to live in a world without stupid people, but unfortunately that isn't an option.

I would assume if VLC was playing media, it would already be showing a notification and that isn't sufficient to stop it getting killed on Huawei phones.

Sounds reasonable

[piojo]

I had a Huawei and I experienced endless problems with background apps. I also develop mobile games.

If a device doesn't have enough RAM to run your program, you must block installation. If a device doesn't have the needed processing power to give a decent user experience, you should either rewrite the app to use different resources and lighter logic on low-end devices, or block those devices.

If the OS causes your users to have a bad experience, you should work around it or stop development and distribution for that OS. All the better of the app is open source, so someone else could pick up development targeting that platform without directly hurting your brand if their users have a bad experience.

Re:Sounds reasonable

[thegarbz]

If a device doesn't have enough RAM to run your program, you must block installation.

Last time I wrote a program for a device that didn't have enough RAM I took a long hard look in the mirror rather than complaining about the device.

Re:Sounds reasonable

[Anonymous Coward]

VLC is really bloated and does not work on older phones. Also it is always possible to recover after Android kills the app - the application life cycle is actually documented in Android's API documentation. Yes, really. Huawei does not control which apps are killed or not. Android does.

Re:Sounds reasonable

[piojo]

the application life cycle is actually documented in Android's API documentation. Yes, really. Huawei does not control which apps are killed or not. Android does.

I don't think you checked the facts. Huawei's application background persistence logic so aggressive that I'm tempted to say the OS isn't even Android, strictly speaking. However, I checked the docs and it appears that although the OS shall kill apps when memory is needed, there is nothing that says the OS can't also kill an app for fun. But does any other Android variant kill background processes that are still in use when there's no memory shortage and no battery stress? None that I've tried.

Android OS broken by battery saving

[Anonymous Coward]

Any OS that will just randomly kill your tasks in the name of battery saving is a broken OS. And this is getting common on new Android phones.

Sadly there is no real free market. Only viable competitor is basically a jail (iOS).

In other terms

[hcs_$reboot]

Users to blacklist Huawei.

A Chinese thing

[Artem S. Tashkinov]

Chinese users are obsessed with installing dozens if not hundreds apps some of which love to stay in background, wake your phone every 10 seconds or even prevent it from going to deep sleep at all, which is why almost all Chinese OEMs implement various measures to keep battery usage within sane limits and as a result Android from China will prevent many "normal" (properly coded) apps from working correctly. In this case I fully support VLC developers.

Thanks but I do well via registered /.ers

[Anonymous Coward]

Your software is just fine - well written, functional... I'm going to continue using the Host File Engine by mmell February 17, 2017

Your premise that hostfiles are a good way to deal with advertising and malvertising is quite valid - by JazzLad April 20, 2016

his hosts program is actually pretty good by xenotransplant August 10 2015

his hosts tool is actually useful for those cases in which one does indeed want to locally block stuff outright while consuming minimum system resources by alexgieg September 25 2015

I like your host file system by Karmashock September 09 2015

that APK guy, I use his host file by rogoshen1 Tuesday March 03, 2015

I personally use a HOSTS file blocker produced from a genius called APK by 110010001000 October 27 2017

* Want more? Ask!

APK

P.S.=> Those who DO attack me are webmasters & advertisers (as I block ads) & inferior competitors (possibly malware makers too)... apk

Seriously? Immature response.

[Fencepost]

Just tell people in-app on likely impacted devices "Your phone has power management that keeps VLC from playing in the background. Please ((go here)) and exempt it if you want to use background audio." Depending on how Android kills background processes it's probably also feasible to detect if this is happening and present that alert in that case - or I guess they can just continue blacklisting manufacturers as more and more of them do similar things to extend battery life. "VLC: The best background player you can have on your phone we haven't blacklisted yet."

Heck, is the power management they're talking about a Huawei thing or an Oreo thing?

On my phone (slightly older, so not yet on Oreo) I get a notification that "App X is consuming power in the background" and can kill it or ignore the warning. I can disable that power management on a per-app basis pretty easily - in settings I just type "power" in the search box and select the "Power-intensive apps" result. Within that, I have several options for how aggressive the phone will be on power saving, including a list of "Apps that will be closed after the screen is locked" and a separate list of "Power-intensive apps" that also shows why they're classified that way. Reasons I see seem to be limited to "High Location Frequency" and "Keep Awake" on my phone. Selecting any app gives me quite a bit more detail on its power use and control over whether to close it, etc.

What I like about my phone is that even though it's closing in on 2 years old I got the latest security patches for it just a few days ago and despite having shipped with Marshmallow (6) it got an OTA upgrade to Nougat (7) and is due for an upgrade to Oreo (8) likely within the next month (already released for some international models). I sure didn't get updates like that on my Samsung or HTC phones, nice as they might have been.