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I don't have much sympathy for this idea. The vast majority of apps don't need to do anything in the background, but almost every app thinks it's the only app o

I don't have much sympathy for this idea. The vast majority of apps don't need to do anything in the background, but almost every app thinks it's the only app on your phone and wants to be running and online 24/7 so it can constantly send you notifications, mine your personal info, and upsell you on crap you don't need. This is why we can't have nice things. It's a tragedy of the commons where the commons is your battery and your data and your attention. Phone manufacturers try to restrict this nonsense as they should, but the better solution is to give users complete control over background behavior, with the default being "none."

sebtron 3y ago
Many app need to keep state while they are in background though. Imagine your browswer tabs reloading every time you swotch to a different app and back.
- pretext-1 3y ago
  Doesn’t mean your apps need to run in the background all the time. State restoration is a concept that has been present in Android/iOS from the beginning (or almost) and many apps implement it successfully. This is not why the “Don’t kill my app” author wants to run in the background. Also Android has ongoing notifications which let your app stay running forever and iOS introduced Live Activities in iOS 16 which can be used similarly (e.g. Instagram uses it to finish uploads in the background). But what the author of “Don’t kill my app” wants is to run in the background without making it obvious to the user, which many would consider malicious. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/view_controllers/preserving_your_app_s_ui_across_launches/ https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/view_control... https://developer.android.com/topic/libraries/architecture/saving-states https://developer.android.com/topic/libraries/architecture/s...
  - sebtron 3y ago
    Yeah, but I was talking as a user. The worst case of this for me was with Google Maps, you'd think Google would know how to write apps for their OS.
  - g-b-r 3y ago
    No, even apps displaying a constant notification get killed, just less often.
- guappa 3y ago
  You can… save a file?

sebtron 3y ago

Many app need to keep state while they are in background though. Imagine your browswer tabs reloading every time you swotch to a different app and back.

pretext-1 3y ago
Doesn’t mean your apps need to run in the background all the time. State restoration is a concept that has been present in Android/iOS from the beginning (or almost) and many apps implement it successfully. This is not why the “Don’t kill my app” author wants to run in the background. Also Android has ongoing notifications which let your app stay running forever and iOS introduced Live Activities in iOS 16 which can be used similarly (e.g. Instagram uses it to finish uploads in the background). But what the author of “Don’t kill my app” wants is to run in the background without making it obvious to the user, which many would consider malicious. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/view_controllers/preserving_your_app_s_ui_across_launches/ https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/view_control... https://developer.android.com/topic/libraries/architecture/saving-states https://developer.android.com/topic/libraries/architecture/s...
- sebtron 3y ago
  Yeah, but I was talking as a user. The worst case of this for me was with Google Maps, you'd think Google would know how to write apps for their OS.
- g-b-r 3y ago
  No, even apps displaying a constant notification get killed, just less often.
guappa 3y ago
You can… save a file?