Refrain from Closing Apps for "Better Performance"

[michail71]

So you are saying it wont effect battery life and performance right.....????

The latest build actually doesn't close the apps. They will disappear from the list but if you hit back they are still there. Today my battery tanked and the phone was cooking so I had to do a reboot.

Perhaps it was a background task and closing apps wouldn't have helped anyway.

 

[rayf888]

I always run into the situation that hitting the back button will end up trying to "bring back" one of the background app... Hence the infamous "Loading...." screen will hit me... And making me so obsessed with closing all the apps that I no longer use....

Otherwise I'll have to hit the windows button everytime I try to get out of an app... No an ideal way of doing it I reckon...

 

[Paolo Ferrazza]

You all seem to be mixing multiple problems which does not have much to do with the close/suspend problem. If properly handled suspending the app should always be better.

 

[Ivan05il]

BTW I don't mind being educated how to use my phone, but with every new version there's a new way of doing things. This is not that wild, but it's in more important things, too. What MS needs is a bit of continuity, not 'throw it all out, this is better, promise'. It's not good for the user and it's not good for the developer.

 

[greedo_greedy]

So you are saying it wont effect battery life and performance right.....????

Theoretically it should not because when you press the back or even the Windows button, the app processes are "suspended".

I'm using a Lumia 822 and in my experience, I do not see any negative impact to performance technically.
If and when I do experience hiccups and crashes, I blame it on the app not yet fully optimized.

I did experience battery drain sometimes and I think that it's a process that gets stuck which I hope MS irons out.

 

[greedo_greedy]

I just can't believe that we still don't have instant app opening without any splash or loading screens today. In the era where x64 octa-core processors are almost old tech we still have to wait for the most basic tasks. And as you mentioned, it's stupid because the apps are as basic as you can get. If calculator can't open instantly without a splash screen, what am I to expect from some multi-gigabyte games?

I understand MS view about this and in the long run it should be better.
Back in 8, apps like Calculator, Alarms and Clock, Xbox Music, Games and the Store were all attached to the OS itself.
Since these apps were part of the OS, launching the apps took an instant to open.
This also meant that updating the apps would have to go with major OS updates. This made progress for these apps really slow and was one of the reasons why these apps were behind in features.

With Windows 10 however, they're now real apps that can be updated in the Store. That is why we now get regular updates which is a good thing because MS will be able to update apps individually without an OS update.

We should then hope that MS can iron these apps out to where it can be similar to the Calendar app in 8.1
It has a splash screen but it's really quick so we don't really complain about it.

 

[WPhone]

The calendar in 8.1 was as much a separate app as Outlook in 10. Both get updates via the store but for some reason can not be removed from your phone. Updates to MS apps in W81 have been rare so I'm not expecting much improvement after W10 release.

 

[Ma Rio]

Why should apps backed into the OS differ in opening time from those which are downloaded from the store?

 

[Ivan05il]

The calendar in 8.1 was as much a separate app as Outlook in 10. Both get updates via the store but for some reason can not be removed from your phone. Updates to MS apps in W81 have been rare so I'm not expecting much improvement after W10 release.

The apps are now universal. Given how they keep tinkering with them for big Windows I expect updates for mobiles, too. It's a side effect of the apps being universal.

 

[Paolo Ferrazza]

It is not faster if you have to search for it among ten other apps which I end up closing anyway. Because if I don't I cannot open another app, because there's a bug in OS that prevents the suspended apps from being closed automatically when needed. And yes, I still prefer it the old way.

You didn't understand what I said: you are using an app and you want to close it...with W8 you had to press back N times where N=number of jumps since you opened the app, with W10 you just keep back pressed and swipe down (no searching invloved!!!). Press Home+swipe down TIME <= pressing back N times TIME, on an avarage usage; and it is way more deterministic too. You just can't get used to the new way, and it is understandable, changing isn't always easy

 

[Ivan05il]

You didn't understand what I said: you are using an app and you want to close it...with W8 you had to press back N times where N=number of jumps since you opened the app, with W10 you just keep back pressed and swipe down (no searching invloved!!!). Press Home+swipe down TIME <= pressing back N times TIME, on an avarage usage; and it is way more deterministic too. You just can't get used to the new way, and it is understandable, changing isn't always easy

I am a programmer and I have to keep adjusting all the time, technology, frameworks, etc. and I am fine with that. Some changes just make me wonder if they are worth it and what their purpose is. This is really no biggie, once they fix the bugs I won't have a reason to close the apps explicitly. I just don't understand why we cannot have it both ways.

 

[Kram Sacul]

I understand MS view about this and in the long run it should be better.
Back in 8, apps like Calculator, Alarms and Clock, Xbox Music, Games and the Store were all attached to the OS itself.
Since these apps were part of the OS, launching the apps took an instant to open.
This also meant that updating the apps would have to go with major OS updates. This made progress for these apps really slow and was one of the reasons why these apps were behind in features.

What kind of features do the calculator, alarm clock or calendar need that can't be made in occasional OS updates? The games hub/ app which used to open immediately is basically useless since it became an app. The less said about Xbox Music the better.

8.1 was both the peak and the beginning of the end of WP for me. Lots of new features but somehow at the cost of performance/fluidity. It also didn't help that some of the design decisions they made were just flat out dumb (games in app list, removal of hubs). No surprise that W10M doesn't fix any of those.

 

[colinkiama]

What kind of features do the calculator, alarm clock or calendar need that can't be made in occasional OS updates? The games hub/ app which used to open immediately is basically useless since it became an app. The less said about Xbox Music the better.

8.1 was both the peak and the beginning of the end of WP for me. Lots of new features but somehow at the cost of performance/fluidity. It also didn't help that some of the design decisions they made were just flat out dumb (games in app list, removal of hubs). No surprise that W10M doesn't fix any of those.

who knows? The point is they you don't have to wait for a massive OS update for system apps to gain new features, they can update by themselves.

 

[greedo_greedy]

It's been more than a year since we started discussing about launching apps.
App launch times have improved significantly now.

 

[Joe920]

It's been more than a year since we started discussing about launching apps.
App launch times have improved significantly now.

Except for WhatsApp.. WhatsApp now has the longest 'resuming..' I've ever seen!

 

[greedo_greedy]

^ that's WhatsApp's problem now and not Microsoft's
It's best we send the feedback directly to Whatsapp

 

[white_Shadoww]

I understand MS view about this and in the long run it should be better.
Back in 8, apps like Calculator, Alarms and Clock, Xbox Music, Games and the Store were all attached to the OS itself.
Since these apps were part of the OS, launching the apps took an instant to open.
This also meant that updating the apps would have to go with major OS updates. This made progress for these apps really slow and was one of the reasons why these apps were behind in features.

With Windows 10 however, they're now real apps that can be updated in the Store. That is why we now get regular updates which is a good thing because MS will be able to update apps individually without an OS update.

We should then hope that MS can iron these apps out to where it can be similar to the Calendar app in 8.1
It has a splash screen but it's really quick so we don't really complain about it.

I truly understand what you say. But, can you tell me how many updates did the Calculator or Voice recorder or Alarms app got? I don't think these apps should need updates frequently. MS is a big company and can make these apps the greatest for once and can bake in the OS.

Also, the Photos app, tell me you guys, what better functionality the WM10 app gives us, that was not available for us in 8.1 app? Can you move or copy photos around from a folder to another? No! Instead, it's more difficult to reach to folders in the new app.
'Albums' is a nice addition, but my phone app never creates auto albums while the PC app does. And I would more likely arrange photos in a folders than manually creating albums within the app.
Save the lags, bugs and crashes, there is no any improvement over the 8.1 app, despite being an app, having the luxury to update anytime.

Same goes for Groove music and Movies & TV apps. Sure, those who use or rather can use the Groove music pass or buy from the MS video store would welcome the updates. Folks like me, who live in a country, where there is no Groove music subscription or MS video store, no unlimited Internet plans, no readily available and free WiFi, miserable data speeds, we like to keep our content locally on SD cards. And for that purpose, the Music app in WP8 was way better than Groove music. Sure, the video player could be improved. But I don't think I need updates every week for local playback.

If any app which should have been an app is the File Explorer. It doesn't yet have ZIP support which is crucial in my opinion.

Windows 10 Mobile is just not optimized. Microsoft should start optimizing it.

 

[white_Shadoww]

And back to the point of the thread. I don't mind the apps in the background, but I don't like them in the back-stack, meaning, when I am on the Start screen, pressing the back key should not take me anywhere.

I rarely use the home key to go to Start screen, unless ex. I am on WhatsApp and need to change a song I am listening to. So, what I generally do is, back out of the app with the back key. But because of the hamburger menus, the more I browse through them, the more I need to hit back key. So, I close them via 'hold back key > swipe down'. Else, I just back out of the app with the back key.

But keeping them in the background never affected my performance or battery. In fact, phone is more fluid having them in the background. Open up instantly, no splash screens.

 

[Palm_forlackofchoice]

It is not faster if you have to search for it among ten other apps which I end up closing anyway. Because if I don't I cannot open another app, because there's a bug in OS that prevents the suspended apps from being closed automatically when needed. And yes, I still prefer it the old way.

You don't have to search through list. Just tap the live tile or app in start.