4 ms·

> "my phone died" actually meant that they had 300 running processes because they never learned how to close running apps on Android -- which to be fair is a PR

> "my phone died" actually meant that they had 300 running processes because they never learned how to close running apps on Android -- which to be fair is a PRETTY buried feature that doesn't lend itself well to user discovery; the number of people I see that don't realize they have to manually close apps on their Android phone is shocking Maybe on a 2011 device with 256MB of memory and Gingerbread this was true, but memory management hasn't been a problem on Android phones for a few years now. The memory management has improved in parallel with the amount of available memory, to the point where the device can actually perform worse if the user goes mucking about and closing apps manually. With Marshmallow and Nougat it has become even more efficient.

kuschku 10y ago
Eh, not really. On my Moto G 2014 you can consistently crash the system UI if you have more than 2 or 3 apps open, and any further app you open also just dies. The OS already uses 950M of its 1GB of RAM.
- morganvachon 10y ago
  Interesting, I had a 2nd generation Moto G that would only bog down if I had a misbehaving/badly coded app running (Pandora, and basically any app or game that contained ads). It was a surprisingly peppy device for $100.
  - kuschku 10y ago
    Sure that was a Moto G? The 2nd Gen Moto G was sold even at the end of its lifetime for 200$.
    - morganvachon 10y ago
      Yep, I got it from Consumer Cellular back when I used their service, their regular price was $150 but I got it on a promo for $100. That's without a contract, in fact I called and had them carrier-unlock it for me a few weeks after I bought it.
Hydraulix989 10y ago
The Linux kernel has used the SLUB memory manager (and Android is just Linux) since major kernel release 2.6.23 so I'm very confused by your post? Remember, memory is like a keg of beer, if everyone drinks it all, it's gone regardless of how you "distribute" it to people into smaller sized Solo cups or whatever. I can think of a few things that could help but not solve the problem, but the crux of the problem is that it's still a finite resource: https://developer.android.com/topic/performance/memory-overview.html https://developer.android.com/topic/performance/memory-overv... Working against that, you also have Gates' Law.
- morganvachon 10y ago
  Well, Android isn't "just Linux", if that were the case it wouldn't be able to run any Android apps. Anyway, it's my understanding that Android uses custom heap size limits to help keep things running smoothly. This combined with efficient garbage collection makes for a generally smooth user experience on a constrained device like a phone or tablet. Android will cache, and later kill, processes that aren't being used, to free up memory for active processes. Memory may be a finite resource, but not in the way you described; it's not permanently used up and can always be freed for foreground tasks.

kuschku 10y ago

Eh, not really. On my Moto G 2014 you can consistently crash the system UI if you have more than 2 or 3 apps open, and any further app you open also just dies. The OS already uses 950M of its 1GB of RAM.

morganvachon 10y ago
Interesting, I had a 2nd generation Moto G that would only bog down if I had a misbehaving/badly coded app running (Pandora, and basically any app or game that contained ads). It was a surprisingly peppy device for $100.
- kuschku 10y ago
  Sure that was a Moto G? The 2nd Gen Moto G was sold even at the end of its lifetime for 200$.
  - morganvachon 10y ago
    Yep, I got it from Consumer Cellular back when I used their service, their regular price was $150 but I got it on a promo for $100. That's without a contract, in fact I called and had them carrier-unlock it for me a few weeks after I bought it.

Hydraulix989 10y ago

The Linux kernel has used the SLUB memory manager (and Android is just Linux) since major kernel release 2.6.23 so I'm very confused by your post? Remember, memory is like a keg of beer, if everyone drinks it all, it's gone regardless of how you "distribute" it to people into smaller sized Solo cups or whatever. I can think of a few things that could help but not solve the problem, but the crux of the problem is that it's still a finite resource: https://developer.android.com/topic/performance/memory-overview.html https://developer.android.com/topic/performance/memory-overv... Working against that, you also have Gates' Law.

morganvachon 10y ago
Well, Android isn't "just Linux", if that were the case it wouldn't be able to run any Android apps. Anyway, it's my understanding that Android uses custom heap size limits to help keep things running smoothly. This combined with efficient garbage collection makes for a generally smooth user experience on a constrained device like a phone or tablet. Android will cache, and later kill, processes that aren't being used, to free up memory for active processes. Memory may be a finite resource, but not in the way you described; it's not permanently used up and can always be freed for foreground tasks.