ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

["Thomas A. Moulton" <tom@xxxxxxxxxx>]

It is very tricky and what makes it hardest is the app behavior depends
on the skill of the development team (or person) to write an app that
manages the phone's resources properly.

I wonder if we are mixing short term and long term goals.
Many app, like games, utilities, etc do not have need to do much while
not the foreground task (active and facing the user)

But there are going to be app of various kinds that rely on networking
and need to keep sockets open to other systems for long periods.

skype and other on-line messaging tools and maybe some games

If the app can be woken up from background when data arrives on the
socket that would be preferred, otherwise it will need to set a timer
and poll it's socket, wasting cpu cycles (battery power)

In the short term, using a Tweak Tool to enable this may provide the
best experience for most people, but as the app base grows, won't there
be apps that need the ability to do some background processing without
being tweaked by a power user?

As far as draining the battery, if a battery monitor can identify what
processes run over time then the mis-behaving apps can be identified.
(look at Settings->Battery on your other phone..)

Granting this to an app is something that the user should be notified
about, which as we all know most users will grant without reading the
message, but if they can at least go back and change it when needed.

Tom

On 08/18/2015 03:44 AM, Simos Xenitellis wrote:
[snip]

> "Multitasking" (ability to run in the background) for installed apps
> on a mobile device is quite tricky
> and the main issue is how to deal with misbehaving apps.
> Those misbehaving apps that make use of "running in the background"
> can effectively
> drain the battery, make you unhappy and give you a bad view of the phone OS.
> It is difficult to debug issues if you have to factor in the
> possibility of some app running in the background.
> I think that even the early iOS did not allow apps to run the
> background, until they could
> figure out how to do properly.
> 
> If you are a power user and you need the ability to allow certain apps
> to run in the background,
> then you can install the OpenStore at https://open.uappexplorer.com/apps
> get Ubuntu Touch Tweak Tool and toggle the ability for specific apps
> to run in the background.
> 
> Simos