Live data from Hacker News

Android vendors, don’t kill my app

dontkillmyapp.com

291–300 of 414 posts

Re: Android vendors, don’t kill my app

#291
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want Slack or Gmail to deliver notifications instantly. I'd love to have functionality that saves battery by delaying them.

Get one of the phones listed in the link. Xiaomi is brilliant in this regard !

Does it allow the user to configure the delays per app?

Re: Android vendors, don’t kill my app

#292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does - the one that works properly is https://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/AlarmMan... However, the implementations of the API are questionable. Some calls to that API on some OEMs device round alarms to the nearest minute, some to the nearest ten minutes.

> Some calls to that API on some OEMs device round alarms to the nearest minute, some to the nearest ten minutes. WHY? What benefit does that serve?

>WHY?

Because China.

Having lived in China for a few months with an Android phone I can with absolute certainty tell you that this is needed over there. The amount of garbage apps, even from big companies like baidu is enourmous!

And without a Google playstore, or play services, or play safety thing it is an absolute wild-west of background alarms, API calls, battery draining and whatnot.

Re: Android vendors, don’t kill my app

#293

I have an Android One Nokia (8 Sirocco), and: a) I wholeheartedly want this behaviour. The phone lasts 2-3 days without recharging, and I no longer fear leaving home with 30% battery. b) It's not an app that kills background apps. It's Android's own Background Activity Manager, where apps that are not whitelisted can't wake up the CPU. They run only when the CPU wakes up for some other reason (screen-on qualifies but…

From a usability perspective, this sounds crazy. Is is responsible of me to recommend Android to my non-technical friends?

I wouldn't say so. I got my grandma a cheap Android phone and a book to help her learn because I thought it'd be better since I also have Android and can help her.

My grandma is 89 now, she uses Whatsapp, Youtube and whatnot and I am not kidding but within 2 months she had:

- AVG antivirus (an ad told her she had a virus)

- She had batterylife for 7 hours before a charge was needed due to shitty apps

- Ads on her lock screen?!

- Ads on her homepage

After 6 months and 3 house calls to fix her phone we gave up and she got my aunts old iPhone 5s with a new battery.

It runs iOS 12 now and it runs flawlessly and protects her from all the stuff I mentioned.

From a guy that has always had Android: most users need iOS level protection. Just simple facts.

Re: Android vendors, don’t kill my app

#295

An example of this problem is casting shows to Chromecast. Android often kills your app in the background while you're watching, and now your Chromecast controls don't work and you have to reconnect.

This is so annoying! Do you know what needs to be whitelisted?

Re: Android vendors, don’t kill my app

#298
post #281
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, so 'open' Gentoo would get forked into a hundred locked down, obfuscated, proprietary flavours with all the same problems. In fact it's only a closed system with a single gatekeeper that can avoid this problem at scale, because it's the only way to maintain clear lines of responsibility.

> Right, so 'open' Gentoo would get forked into a hundred locked down, obfuscated, proprietary flavours with all the same problems. That's the beauty of the GPL: one can't lock down a GPLed distro that way. > In fact it's only a closed system with a single gatekeeper that can avoid this problem at scale, because it's the only way to maintain clear lines of responsibility. Those who s/freedom/security/g tend to rm -rf…

"That's the beauty of the GPL: one can't lock down a GPLed distro that way."

True, but its strength is also its weakness in this context: anyone can keep the distro open but add some "vital" code that is closed and does what they want without anyone noticing. The GPL doesn't prevent closed code from running on open source machines, it just sets limitations on imposing limitations (which makes it so great IMO), so a module that displays advertising, tracks users or steals personal data can easily be implemented inside a closed app, blob, device driver etc. and unless I missed something the GPL can do nothing if that module was compiled using non GPLed compilers, linked against non GPLed libraries etc. In other words, if I take a non GPLed compiler and a set of non GPLed libraries that set no obligation to open the resulting code if I distribute the output, I can write anything and add it to a Linux distro then distribute them together without any legal obligation to publish the source and reveal the internals of my code. That would be the case for suspicious code inside blobs and drivers. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

Of course the community can fork in no time, but imagine a very popular piece of hardware which could work only with that closed blob.

Re: Android vendors, don’t kill my app

#299
post #117
post #90

To be honest, as a user I really like the implementation of battery saving features of my Sony phone: 1. They are not enabled by default 2. Their settings screen explicitly states what the modes do 3. They can extend battery life significantly The most aggressive mode is called Ultra Stamina, and it works by basically turning the phone into dumbphone mode -- complete without any internet connectivity, calls, SMS and…

Interesting. Batteries in smartphones usually have five times more battery capacity then feature phones, it should last over a month!

My old Turbo 2 could, in fact, sleep for a month in airplane mode (with crappy apps removed). However that would quickly drop to about a week with light usage, e.g. connecting to WiFi somewhere to get directions or pull email for the day.

Re: Android vendors, don’t kill my app

#300

For our Zombies, Run! run tracking/audio adventure app, "battery management" is turning into our most consistent customer complaint, to the point where it's impacting review scores, active users, and probably subscriptions. The result of the changes made by Huawei, OnePlus, Xiaomi, and Samsung mean that our app is killed during runs, and people interpret that as the app crashing. We're trying to figure out the best w…

Seems like battery management has the traditional firewall problems.

Eg. Blocking legit services and obscure errors popping up.

Ps. Love zombies run

Post reply on HN