This article, as well as many before it, was born out of an everyday conversation with one of my acquaintances. He once asked me how many applications can be kept running in the background so that the smartphone does not run out of power too quickly. I confess honestly, that question put me in a stupor. After all, it turns out that my friend was firmly convinced that a filled multitasking menu leads to increased power consumption, and he wanted to find out at what point the smartphone starts to consume so many resources that it becomes noticeable. If the same question gnaws at you, I will answer you a little wider than I answered him.
Closing applications on Android is not only pointless, but sometimes it is also completely unjustified from a functional point of view
I myself have not closed applications on Android for a long time. I have had this habit since the days when my only smartphone was iPhone. It seems that then one of the representatives Apple made a statement that closing background programs not only does not save battery power, but, on the contrary, consumes it even more. It sounds really strange, but, as it turned out, iOS is so energy efficient that applications, once in the background, simply freeze and stop showing signs of life, giving the impression that they are not there. But active steps to launch the multitasking menu and sequentially close each open program consume battery life, whatever one may say.
Do I need to unload applications to Android
If you look, iOS is not much different from Android. In terms of resource allocation, so sure
Therefore, when I almost completely switched to Android, I decided not to change my principles. Not that it was difficult for me to close running programs, but I was so used to not having to do this that I was simply too lazy. Nevertheless, the fear that my negligence could cost me a few minutes, and maybe even hours of battery life, did not leave me, and I decided to check what's what.
The experiment I decided to run was pretty simple. I just decided to compare how quickly the charging of my smartphone will go down if I close applications and if I do not. Perhaps my testing option will not seem entirely indicative to you, but since I always use my smartphone in about the same way (correspondence in the messenger, Instagram and occasionally surfing the web), it seemed to me that this is a rather objective way to find out how work properly with multitasking.
Do applications in the background use up charge for Android
Background apps consume no more power than closed apps
As I expected, the battery life results were almost identical in one case and in the other case. No, of course, closing the application did not have a special load on the battery, as it did on iOS, but their work in the background did not use up the charge, which is also a plus. Nevertheless, I admit that different software can function in different ways, and therefore, if you know for sure that some of your programs are activated in the background and consume battery resources, I have a great solution for you.
Most smartphones running Android have some kind of controller that monitors how apps work and prevents overuse of energy. On devices Huawei it is located in the 'Launch Applications' section. Just find it in 'Settings' and turn on the automatic control function. It will block the automatic launch of applications in the background, preventing them from updating and wasting energy or Internet traffic.
How to reduce background power consumption by Android
How effective this mechanism is can be seen in the screenshot above. I do not unload applications from memory, and they continue to hang in the background, without consuming or practically not consuming battery life. But not because the applications are so well optimized or because their developers are concerned about the autonomy of my smartphone. It's just that my apparatus, or rather, its mechanisms block them.
So, we figured out the autonomy. But the lack of visible changes in runtime is not the only reason why I do not close applications. I don’t know what it’s connected with, but sometimes Android it can sin by simply stopping sending notifications from some application. Shamanizing with the settings is useless – the system both blocked alerts and blocks them, or pretends that they are not there at all.
Notifications are not received on Android. What to do
However, my personal experience has shown that push notifications do not come only if the application is unloaded from memory. Open it and leave it running in the background – albeit under the supervision of a controller – and it will continue to send you notifications again. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find out for certain what exactly this is connected with, but the fact remains, so I'd rather keep applications in the background than suffer from the lack of notifications.
Well, and the third reason is rationalism. In my life I try to adhere to a rational approach in everything: do not marinate kebabs in mayonnaise, because mayonnaise is eggs, oil and vinegar, do not buy a private car if taxi rides are cheaper, and, of course, do not close applications if this there is no point. Just think how many times in your life you have done these manipulations.
And it's okay, if your smartphone's firmware has one button to close all programs at once, but many people do it manually, swiping their finger dozens of times across the screen and erasing the oleophobic layer on it. Have you ever wondered why you are doing this? Surely yes, but most likely every time they answered themselves incorrectly, mistakenly believing that closing either saves battery life, or allows the smartphone to work faster. But neither one nor the other is, of course, wrong.
Be rational.