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A comment on Android: Freeing up 60% of storage for apps by removing parts of the app. Parent comment

Re:Android: Freeing up 60% of storage for apps by removing p... by hombre_fatal on Wednesday March 09, 2022 @09:49AM (#30614976)
Yeah, it would be nice if this was exposed to us. With just three apps open on my iPhone, sometimes I'll go back to one and it has to relaunch. Did it crash, use too much memory, or was it squeezed out by high memory consumption of the other two apps?

Even desktop OS don't go far enough. Would be nice if Windows and macOS came with a top 5 {mem,cpu} consumers drop-down in the global menu bar without having to install a tool or open task manager. We complain about bloated apps but without providing insights to the user, there's no pressure for apps to optimize.

If it seems like too much of a power-user feature, how about your run-tracking app silently closing on a long run because you were also listening to Spotify in the foreground? That's not a good experience. With no insights, all you have to act on is superstition. Do I need to find a run-tracker that doesn't crash or should I try a different music player? No data so who knows.

We still insulate users from this data for some reason even on mobile devices that LRU-close apps when memory is tight. Let the people know, dammit.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Android: Freeing up 60% of storage for apps by removing p... by londons_explore on Wednesday March 09, 2022 @10:31AM (#30615523)
It's the OS's fault for silently killing apps that are 'in use'.

An app can already say 'I'm still doing a user visible action' (like logging a run, or playing music). Whenever one of those apps has to be killed to free up memory, a messagebox should be displayed saying "Spotify has quit due to low memory. Spotify was using 647MB and RunGPS was using 1454MB out of 3000MB system memory".

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Android: Freeing up 60% of storage for apps by removing p... by mschuster91 on Wednesday March 09, 2022 @11:13AM (#30616119)
The problem is that device manufacturers employ additional killers and "efficiency managers" because too many app vendors use one of the various workarounds to collect data or whatever the fuck they are doing otherwise.

Google won't do much against it because the worst of the data hoarders are the f2p games that make money for themselves by selling the user data they can get their hands on and make also a lot of money for Google via all the IAP commissions.

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Re:Android: Freeing up 60% of storage for apps by removing p... by jessriedel on Saturday March 12, 2022 @08:55AM (#30651363)
Google could still choose to provide a clean and powerful interface on their flagship phones (Pixel) and the Android One certified phones. The existence of the latter program is evidence that Google does (or at least did) recognize the value in protecting the user experience from bad manufacturer incentives for consumers who are willing to pay a small premium.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_One

[ Parent | on HN ]