ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Benjamin Zeller <benjamin.zeller@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

If anyone is interested, windows phone is doing it in a similar way:
Apps will be stopped when in background but can register special trigger
for specific tasks. The executed background tasks will only receive a
limited amount of CPU time and network bandwith:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/xaml/hh977056.aspx

Am 22.06.2014 17:43, schrieb Fabio Colella:
> Currently the app lifecycle may kill an app in any moment if the app
> is not on focus. Most of the apps are designed to be used when
> focused, but there are many other apps that require to work even when
> not in focus, many examples:
>
>   * Running apps: should count calories and distance even when not focused
>   * Data Sync (Dropbox, OneDrive, GoogleDrive): should continue the
>     up/download and   syncronization when not focused.
>   * Torrent apps(Transmission)
>   * IRC and messaging platforms not covered by "Online Accounts"
>   * Custom Keyboards and Lockscreens (this needs even more work)
>   * Firewalls, antivirus, antispam (may become useful when *the
>     platform becomes popular*, we should take them in account)
>   * Other things to which I'm not currently thinking to but that may
>     be useful
>
>
> The current approach is to use system services to achieve the results:
> this is what happens with music and messaging apps. The problem with
> this approach is that we may end up with the need to create really
> many services and still not cover all the needed requisites. On the
> other hand we may just deny the developers and the users to create and
> use certain kind of apps. The advantages of not allowing background
> services are mainly longer battery life and better overall performances.
>  
> I think we should *find a compromise that allow the user to use apps
> that need background services but also makes him/her free to
> stop/resume them.*
>
> My idea for background services:
>
>   * should need an Apparmor permission
>   * should warn the user that the app uses background services
>   * should be killable/pausable by the user and visible in the home
>     scope and or in the notification area
>   * could be autokilled/paused when battery life is low (this approach
>     is the one used by Samsung, Google Drive, Dropbox) but should
>     still allow the user to resume the service if he/she needs it even
>     on low battery
>   * could be paused/resumed according to the number of running apps
>     and services
>
> My consideration is that the user should always end up being able to
> decide what he/she want's to use and when. We put conventions (like
> stop on low battery) over user configuration, but the user should
> still be *free* to change it.
>
>