Background Tasks and odd behaviour

[Krystianpants]

So whenever I have a bunch of apps running in the background and I flip through them in task manager they are always quick and I can continue running the task.

What behaviour do you guys expect if you click on the app tile instead of switching to the task? Should it just go to the open tasks or should it close the current task and create a new app session?

I find that when I click on the tile when I want to get back to an app it just runs the app again. So I guess I can understand that. But the same thing happens if I get a notification, it opens the app from the start instead of going to the background task. Now isn't the point of the background tasks to load up apps quicker?

I'm not sure if this behaviour is an expected behaviour or if it's a bug. I just don't see the point of running the app in the background if it's just going to close the task and open a new one each time I open the app. On my ipad it seems to go back to the app pretty quickly if it's running in the background. I don't recall if it leaves off on the same spot though but I can't check right now.

 

[920Walker]

Are those apps in the task switcher running in the background or suspended?

I am in the same boat of thinking with your post, for the current action and perception of how it should be. If an app is open I don't care to see the splash screen again, but pressing a tile can be quicker than scrolling all "open" tasks.

 

[mijacs]

The apps are not running in the background (at least not for long). At one point there was a difference between using the task switching vs a tile on the home screen. Now there should not be a difference if the app supports it. I believe the change was made because ios users were confused on why it did not work that way.

Basically, if you are noticing a difference then the app may have not been updated to support the new style.

 

[Krystianpants]

Yah it's running in the task switcher and not suspended. So As you guys say it should be just going to the task. I haven't had that experience yet with any of the apps.

You know what, I tried with Candy crush because I know this is a universal app ported from IOS and with this one it works fine. So I guess it's only an issue with apps that have not yet done a proper port to Windows 10 universal.

Thanks guys! I figured this should have been the behaviour since earlier versions of windows as well. But I guess it's new to windows 10, or the fact that it's a build is messing with it.

 

[a5cent]

A lot of misconceptions here...

What you see in the task switcher is just a JPG image. That means the app is just loaded and sitting in RAM. The only thing that's running is the task switcher itself. None of those apps listed there are running at all. They are, as 920Walker pointed out, all just suspended in the background. They use zero CPU cycles during that time.

Being suspended doesn't mean an app should take long to resume however. In theory it can do so instantly. In practice a resuming app may decide it must first refresh its content from the internet before being displayed, load the last document you looked at, or whatever else it deems necessary. That can lead to delays. In some cases the OS may decide to do some of its own processing at that time, which can unfortunately also lead to delays.

Prior to WP8.0, tapping a tile would always relaunch an app, even if an instance of that app was already suspended and sitting in RAM. In WP8.0 developers could choose to either relaunch the app, or if it was already loaded, resume it. The default behaviour of an WP8.0 app was to relaunch. For WP8.1 apps the default behaviour changed to resume a suspended app. Both approaches are still possible however, as they are fully controlled by the developer.

The design guidelines suggest that apps which have been suspended in the background for a long time should open to their first page, as if they were newly launched. Apps that were just recently suspended should be resumed where the user left off.

How an app reacts to interactions with a notification is also up to the app. Many apps will prefer to act as if they were newly launched however. This is so that you can then drill down and back out of whatever more detailed information interests you. An app that jumps straight to a page focusing only on the specific notification would usually be exited as soon as the user presses the back-button, forcing the user to relaunch the app again if they desire to look at more than just the one notification they tapped on.

How an app behaves depends on whether it's a WP8.0 or WP8.1/W10M app, and whether the developer did anything to change that app's default behavior.

Last but not least, Candy Crush is not a universal app, because it runs on WP8.1, an OS that can not run universal apps. Candy Crush is just a normal WP8.1 app.

 

[Paolo Ferrazza]

A lot of misconceptions here...

What you see in the task switcher is just a JPG image. That means the app is just loaded and sitting in RAM. The only thing that's running is the task switcher itself. None of those apps listed there are running at all. They are, as 920Walker pointed out, all just suspended in the background. They use zero CPU cycles during that time.

Being suspended doesn't mean an app should take long to resume however. In theory it can do so instantly. In practice a resuming app may decide it must first refresh its content from the internet before being displayed, load the last document you looked at, or whatever else it deems necessary. That can lead to delays. In some cases the OS may decide to do some of its own processing at that time, which can unfortunately also lead to delays.

Prior to WP8.0, tapping a tile would always relaunch an app, even if an instance of that app was already suspended and sitting in RAM. In WP8.0 developers could choose to either relaunch the app, or if it was already loaded, resume it. The default behaviour of an WP8.0 app was to relaunch. For WP8.1 apps the default behaviour changed to resume a suspended app. Both approaches are still possible however, as they are fully controlled by the developer.

The design guidelines suggest that apps which have been suspended in the background for a long time should open to their first page, as if they were newly launched. Apps that were just recently suspended should be resumed where the user left off.

How an app reacts to interactions with a notification is also up to the app. Many apps will prefer to act as if they were newly launched however. This is so that you can then drill down and back out of whatever more detailed information interests you. An app that jumps straight to a page focusing only on the specific notification would usually be exited as soon as the user presses the back-button, forcing the user to relaunch the app again if they desire to look at more than just the one notification they tapped on.

How an app behaves depends on whether it's a WP8.0 or WP8.1/W10M app, and whether the developer did anything to change that app's default behavior.

Last but not least, Candy Crush is not a universal app, because it runs on WP8.1, an OS that can not run universal apps. Candy Crush is just a normal WP8.1 app.

All correct, just wanted to point out that all you said is true for the foreground part of the app. Developers can also define some Background tasks i.e. threads that continue running in background even when the foreground app is suspended, those task are sometimes time-limited, sometimes can run in realtime as long as they do not take more than n% CPUtime. The "sometimes" part is defined by what the Task will do, e.g. a task accessing sensors can run in realtime indefinetly as long as it does not consume too much CPU.

You expalination plus mine should be pinned somewhere so we do not have to explain that again and again

 

[a5cent]

^ Yup.

The thread title here is very misleading (I know it's not intentional, no biggie), because the thread is about the apps that are visible in the task switcher, which are erroneously called "background tasks". That's confusing because that term is typically used to refer to the things you just described, which is completely unrelated to the actual thread topic. ;-)

 

[a5cent]

You expalination plus mine should be pinned somewhere so we do not have to explain that again and again

Hopmedic and I explained a lot of this back in the day:

http://forums.windowscentral.com/wi...naging-background-apps-why-you-dont-need.html

Any interest in putting together something similar for W10M? Would even make it a sticky in the W10M forum? *nudge*! ;-)