Background Data and Battery Usage of Facebook’s iOS App • Hacker News Board

Re: Background Data and Battery Usage of Facebook’s iOS App

#11

Post by digi_owl » Wed, Oct 14, 2015, 7:36 PM UTC

famousactress wrote: post #4

I did notice recently that if you launch Facebook and put your ear to the bottom of your iPhone you can hear that the audio is on (white noise like when turning volume way up on a stereo that isn't playing. Just now I confirmed that's happening and then home-screened to bail out, and after a second or two the white noise stops. Seems like it should be pretty easy to do similar experiments aimed at proving the OP's hy…

I think you will find many a device with this. I recall my Nokia N800 had a sharp snap after having played any kind of sound in a quiet environment.

Re: Background Data and Battery Usage of Facebook’s iOS App

#12

Post by digi_owl » Wed, Oct 14, 2015, 7:40 PM UTC

Wonder how long before we get some stern words from Google about Facebook abusing priority messages to circumvent Doze.

Re: Background Data and Battery Usage of Facebook’s iOS App

#13

Post by ejdyksen » Wed, Oct 14, 2015, 7:42 PM UTC

Facebook pushes an update to their iOS app once every two weeks (I think). I wonder how much review scrutiny it really gets.

Anyone with experience on an iOS app like that have insight into what the App Store review process looks like when you're that big and ship that often?

Re: Background Data and Battery Usage of Facebook’s iOS App

#14

Post by dmitrygr » Wed, Oct 14, 2015, 7:42 PM UTC

Facebook doing something user-hostile? Say it ain't so!

Re: Background Data and Battery Usage of Facebook’s iOS App

#15

Post by tomtang0514 » Wed, Oct 14, 2015, 8:02 PM UTC

ejdyksen wrote: post #13

Facebook pushes an update to their iOS app once every two weeks (I think). I wonder how much review scrutiny it really gets. Anyone with experience on an iOS app like that have insight into what the App Store review process looks like when you're that big and ship that often?

App Store review can only do minimum security level check in reality. And actually there's not much they can do either. Let me give you 3 examples:

1) Hybrid apps that most contents are actually webpage, such as the tripadvisor app and at&t app at some point (not sure if it's still hybrid today)

2) Games. You can load new code as static files or contents, then the app parse and execute the code as a new update. This is quite common in mobile games. As games require frequent update like once or more per week, it's really an unwanted workaround to fulfill the update frequency requirement.

3) Do you remember/know the case recently that some hacker released a "poisoned" version of xcode and apps written by that xcode "automatically" contains code sending user info to that hacker?

Re: Background Data and Battery Usage of Facebook’s iOS App

#16

Post by rancur » Wed, Oct 14, 2015, 8:11 PM UTC

tobias3 wrote: post #10

ju-st wrote: post #2

I removed the Facebook Android app because everytime I opened it it used 1MB of data.

I had to remove the Facebook messenger app because it makes my Android phone swap. It's an old one with only 1GB RAM, but still...

I use App Quarantine to open/lock it down when done.

Re: Background Data and Battery Usage of Facebook’s iOS App

#17

Post by Abundnce10 » Wed, Oct 14, 2015, 8:23 PM UTC

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #6

ju-st wrote: post #2

I removed the Facebook Android app because everytime I opened it it used 1MB of data.

Try Facebook Lite. It's designed for low powered phones.

I tried installing Facebook Lite in the Google Play store but it says "This item isn't available in your country". I live in the US.

Re: Background Data and Battery Usage of Facebook’s iOS App

#18

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 14, 2015, 8:49 PM UTC

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #5

I'm not saying this to start a war, but I don't use an iPhone. I use an Android phone. I have found the Facebook Lite app on Android to use virtually no battery when idle. I know that this app was pretty much designed for low power phones. It's odd that on the one hand, they are thinking about low powered phones and using less data while on the other hand, as with iOS, they aren't.

[deleted]

Re: Background Data and Battery Usage of Facebook’s iOS App

#19

Post by steen_anderson » Wed, Oct 14, 2015, 8:51 PM UTC

This is the same kind of deceptive thing as VW.

Re: Background Data and Battery Usage of Facebook’s iOS App

#20

Post by mccoolman » Wed, Oct 14, 2015, 9:08 PM UTC

Last week my SO was freaking out because she kept getting ads for things she had conversations about in person, but never looked up on her phone. A few days ago I asked her why we had a plastic bag from Games Workshop (we've never shopped there and the bag came from a Craigslist purchase we had made). Her phone was sitting on the table, and a few hours later she showed me an ad for Games Workshop on her news feed. This was on Android, and the Messenger app includes permission to use the mic at any time.

It might be audio being always on, or it might be more than that. They aren't above it.