Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Don't kill my app

dontkillmyapp.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 84 posts

Re: Don't kill my app

#31

Post by kqr »

Semaphor wrote: post #10

While nothing affects me personally (always been an AOSP user via Lineage/Cyanogen), I know that at least some apps struggle with vendor "enhancements" that go counter to what users want. DAVx5 (CalDAV/CardDAV sync) is one I remember having warnings about OnePlus (2nd worst here) during setup and how you need to take extra steps to ensure syncing actually works, which is pretty important for such an app. On vanilla,…

I'm a happy user of DAVx5 and my employer just recently issued one of the more aggressive killing phones.

I followed the steps suggested in the setup and it works just fine now. I'd much rather have a complicated opt-in to background activity than any form of opt-out.

Re: Don't kill my app

#32

Post by toast0 »

ClassyJacket wrote: post #24
sebtron wrote: post #17

I think many commenters supporting the "kill my app" behavior do not understand how bad using the affected devices can be. The reason I first discovered "don't kill my app" is that my apps would close as soon as I switched to another one, in most cases. For example if I used maps and switched to a call / browser tab / Telegram chat, when I got back to the map the app would reload. My search would be gone, and I would…

I despise that this still happens today on a phone with 8GB of RAM. EIGHT GIGABYTES. That's what they sell the MacBook Pro with, but Android, built for low memory devices from the ground up, can't consistently keep a single application in memory in the background for just a few seconds. You can literally switch for five seconds and the last app has to reload. This drives me absolutely nuts.

What's worse is when the task switching app and/or the home screen app have to be restarted. My phone only has 4 GB ram, cause it's nearly 3 years old and low cost, but still... I feel like windows 95 could run (poorly) on 4 MB and the start button and the task bar never swapped out. (Well explorer.exe did crash from time to time)

Re: Don't kill my app

#33

Post by masklinn »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #19
sebtron wrote: post #17

I think many commenters supporting the "kill my app" behavior do not understand how bad using the affected devices can be. The reason I first discovered "don't kill my app" is that my apps would close as soon as I switched to another one, in most cases. For example if I used maps and switched to a call / browser tab / Telegram chat, when I got back to the map the app would reload. My search would be gone, and I would…

Why can't the app save its state to storage and restore the saved state when it's started again?

Because it costs resources the developers are unwilling or unable to spend.

They might also be lacking competence. My local bus authority’s application is barely able to keep track of its state while it’s running.

An other common situation is an applications getting in an irrecoverably broken running state. If the application preserves state on shutdown you might not be able to get it out of the broken state.

Re: Don't kill my app

#36

Post by Semaphor »

kqr wrote: post #31
Semaphor wrote: post #10

While nothing affects me personally (always been an AOSP user via Lineage/Cyanogen), I know that at least some apps struggle with vendor "enhancements" that go counter to what users want. DAVx5 (CalDAV/CardDAV sync) is one I remember having warnings about OnePlus (2nd worst here) during setup and how you need to take extra steps to ensure syncing actually works, which is pretty important for such an app. On vanilla,…

I'm a happy user of DAVx5 and my employer just recently issued one of the more aggressive killing phones. I followed the steps suggested in the setup and it works just fine now. I'd much rather have a complicated opt-in to background activity than any form of opt-out.

It’s still opt-in in vanilla. But it’s a simple toggle.

Re: Don't kill my app

#37

Post by circularfoyers »

arp242 wrote: post #3

Previous: Android vendors, don’t kill my app - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18901006 - Jan 2019 (407 comments) I'm not sure if it's been updated since then. Still lists Sony as "toxic" for having an opt-in battery extension feature which warns you of the trade-offs (which I've found very useful when I really wanted to, well, extend battery life, e.g. when hiking or travelling). I told them this back in 2019,…

Where did you bring this up? It would be interesting to read their response. If you hadn't, I imagine their Github repo would be the best place to do so https://github.com/urbandroid-team/dont-kill-my-app

Re: Don't kill my app

#38

Post by j16sdiz »

ryandrake wrote: post #11
fritzo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, Dear app developers, different users want different things. The primary uses of my phone are (1) multi-factor authentication, and (2) as a GPS beacon whereby family can locate me if I'm injured in the wilderness. I definitely value battery life over app snazz.

Longer battery life is consistently number 1 on any survey of mobile phone users you'll find, ahead of camera. It's far and away what people care about. It's not surprising that phone manufacturers will do anything they can to improve theirs vs. competitions, including killing apps that are sitting there sucking up battery. Longer battery life was the clear winner with 73% of people picking it as the most enticing re…

Battery Life is something measurable. It shows well on tech spec and marketing materials.

"Not killing apps", on the other hand, is hard to sell. User may notice some apps become less responsive, load slower, notification are delayed, etc.. but then they would blame the app, not the OS.

Don't get me wrong. I enjoy longer battery life.

Re: Don't kill my app

#39

Post by kqr »

toast0 wrote: post #32
ClassyJacket wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I despise that this still happens today on a phone with 8GB of RAM. EIGHT GIGABYTES. That's what they sell the MacBook Pro with, but Android, built for low memory devices from the ground up, can't consistently keep a single application in memory in the background for just a few seconds. You can literally switch for five seconds and the last app has to reload. This drives me absolutely nuts.

What's worse is when the task switching app and/or the home screen app have to be restarted. My phone only has 4 GB ram, cause it's nearly 3 years old and low cost, but still... I feel like windows 95 could run (poorly) on 4 MB and the start button and the task bar never swapped out. (Well explorer.exe did crash from time to time)

I have to admit I haven't fact-checked this on my own but I have it on fairly good authority that several versions of Windows could swap themselves out, sometimes resulting in a bluescreen.

Re: Don't kill my app

#40

Post by Reason077 »

ClassyJacket wrote: post #24
sebtron wrote: post #17

I think many commenters supporting the "kill my app" behavior do not understand how bad using the affected devices can be. The reason I first discovered "don't kill my app" is that my apps would close as soon as I switched to another one, in most cases. For example if I used maps and switched to a call / browser tab / Telegram chat, when I got back to the map the app would reload. My search would be gone, and I would…

I despise that this still happens today on a phone with 8GB of RAM. EIGHT GIGABYTES. That's what they sell the MacBook Pro with, but Android, built for low memory devices from the ground up, can't consistently keep a single application in memory in the background for just a few seconds. You can literally switch for five seconds and the last app has to reload. This drives me absolutely nuts.

I kind of understand manufacturers getting aggressive about rogue inefficient apps wasting cpu cycles and making their battery life look bad.

But it’s weird and lazy that on an 8GB phone they kill the app rather than just suspend it (to stop it using any cpu)?

On iOS, even in low-power mode, and on a phone with far less RAM, apps rarely have to reload unless you’ve force-quit them or have gone for days without using them.

Post reply on HN