[Tfug] OT: Phones..... Argh!

[John Gruenenfelder]

On Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 11:11 PM, nick <nick at glowingmonkey.org> wrote:
>
>   I've moved to ActionLauncher, but I used Trebuchet for months and it does
> do folders there just isn't a "new folder" button. You just have to drag one
> app on top of another and you'll get a little circle/folder graphic and
> that's it. That was actually done in stock Android circa 3.0 I think and has
> been adopted by Trebuchet. ActionLauncher expands the concept to include
> defaults; IE, you can make a folder and pick a default so when you tap you
> get the default, but you can swipe up and expand the folder. I use it for
> browsers (Chrome default) and chat apps (SMS)

Oh, I see.  That's good to know.

My low-memory home/launcher of choice has been NemusLanucher.  Seems
to not use a lot of memory, and it's fairly basic.  It supports
scrolling in widgets and folders in both the app drawer and home
screens.  It also lets you set the number of "home screens", the size
of the grid on the home screen (I usually use a 5x5 grid), and the
number of dock "segments" at the bottom of the screen from 1 to 3.  I
set this to 3 and then the dock becomes horizontally scrollable.  As a
convenience feature, which I like a lot, you can make the home
screens, the app drawer, and the dock all "loop", so they wrap-around
as you keep scrolling.  Beyond that, NemusLauncher doesn't do much,
but that's fine by me since those are the features I actually
like/use.

I used to use GoLauncher for awhile, and it was extremely nice,
configurable, and with good eye candy.  It used a lot of RAM, though,
and as time went on it just kept getting larger and larger as more
features were added.  If my device had more RAM that would have been
nice, but it doesn't, so I had to find a replacement for GoLauncher.

How is ActionLauncher in the low-memory / decent features area?  I
understand that attempting to quantify, even with the help of the OS,
how much RAM an app is using can be both difficult and time-dependent.
 Depending on when you check, for example, NemusLauncher's RAM usage
can vary between ~16MB and ~35MB.  I suppose it depends on what it has
recently cached/processed recently.

>   Your adventures have reminded me that there's a Jelly Bean build for my
> old & tiny phone I wanted to try. My old Aria has even less ram than your
> Droid 3, it should be "interesting" :)

Yes, "interesting" is one way of putting it...  :)

Though I have no plans to go back to the stock Android 2.3.4 ROM, I
still need to find tweaks/methods to free up RAM or get CyanogenMod to
use less.  I have only a few apps running in the background, but those
have already used up the limited memory.  I use Google Voice (and it's
home screen widget) and definitely don't want to get rid of it.

Since my phone is on all the time I have used, for a long time now,
the "imo" instant messenger since it supports logging into all of my
accounts (just like Pidgin on the desktop).  It also inadvertently
provides a real-time memory pressure monitor.  If the device runs very
low on memory, imo will be unceremoniously shut down and its
notification icon will disappear.  When some RAM returns, imo will
automatically (and quickly) restart, the icon will reappear, and a
brief message will appear on the status bar indicating the number of
accounts it has logged into.

Now, with CM 10.0 and Android 4.2, I find that the memory pressure
seems to have increased a fair amount as I can see imo stop and start
far more often (as I use the phone for other tasks) than it used to.
Of course, just like GoLauncher and many other apps, imo has steadily
added more and more features (that I don't need) and uses more RAM
than ever before.

According to the "Running" apps list under settings, I can often see
other apps/remnants still running that really have no excuse for being
there.  My credit union app is uselessly using ~2.5MB of RAM for a
".camera" service/process?  Why can't it just run that *when* I run
the actual banking app?  Similarly, the soft-keyboard process and
service are always running.  It comes with the AOSP stock keyboard
though I have replaced that with the better "Hacker's Keyboard", but
regardless of which one is selected, it will always be present in the
background.  Why not *actually* run when it needs to pop up,
especially since my device has a hardware keyboard?  These aren't new
issues, of course, just something that has always bugged me about
Android.  I suppose I could be drawing incorrect conclusions, but the
small amount of free RAM and the heading/title of "Running" seem to
indicate otherwise.

At present I am working on getting CM 10.1 / Android 4.2 onto my HTC
Flyer tablet.  I don't remember if its CPU is faster or slower (it's
close), but it is only single-core.  It does have, however, twice the
RAM of the Droid 3 and because of this it will run circles around the
phone.  With my Droid 1, I quickly learned that with Android total RAM
is much more important than raw CPU horsepower.  The Droid 3 has twice
the RAM of the Droid 1, and I initially thought that would be fine
(plus, the Droid 3 was the latest in the line at the time), but I have
since realized that a *realistic* minimum for decent performance
appears to be that amount twice over again, or 1 GB.  As Don
mentioned, it is rather amazing that a device with these sorts of
specs (the Droid 3 in this case) could *ever* be slow, but the truth
is in the tapping, I suppose.


-- 
--John Gruenenfelder    Systems Manager, MKS Imaging Technology, LLC.
Try Weasel Reader for Palm OS  --  http://weaselreader.org
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        --Sam of Sam & Max