Amazon mp3 app always there

T

Typicalover

New member
I am running 2.1 on my Nexus One and the Amazon MP3 apparently always seems to be running in the background every time I open my browser. Any idea why and if I can stop it?
 
I use Advanced Task Manager, it has an option to close the apps you chose every 30 minutes or it has a shake to close all apps. It is a paid app though. You can kill it in the application settings settings, can't remember exactly where but should be listed under running processes. But you have to manually kill it.
 
This subject has been talked about a lot in here since the Droids release. I've talked to a developer who is very well versed in Linux/Android and he summarized the following as correct......

Android is different to most other phone operating systems. It's closer to Linux than any other type of operating system. Lots of services and applications constantly run in the background just like they do on Windows. However, and this is important, they do not have to use up a ton of resources. A service or app can be loaded, yet use almost no additional memory, and 0% CPU until it actually has to do something.

In general, killing off stuff is a waste of time. Android automatically asks apps to close that aren't needed when it needs more memory. Killing off some of the processes you are killing off also means it'll slow your phone down, as these processes only need to reload, and when you do need to use them it means the phone will be slower for the few seconds it takes to reload them.
 
"a developer who is very well versed in Linux/Android" = me, it would seem

To balance what I said in the post that was copied from though, the important point here is the word "can"... "A service or app can be loaded, yet use almost no additional memory, and 0% CPU until it actually has to do something.". In fact, a service or app can be loaded and use 100% CPU, if it needs it. It depends what it's doing.

I don't understand why Amazon MP3 would run when you start your browser though. I don't have it on my phone where I am so I'm not familiar with it.

Can I ask why you think it is running? How do you know?
 
You can see it in Taskiller. I've killed mine before, but in spite of not using the browser or playing any music it insists on reloading. They are so desperate for their affiliate commission from the purchase of tracks off Amazon they apparently designed the app to keep loading itself back when you kill it.
 
If it reloads, I'd advise not killing it then. If you keep it running, it'll use a small amount of memory, which will eventually and up compressed into the compcache (less memory) or swapped out to disk (no memory). If you kill it, then it'll reload (uses heavy CPU and IO), and it'll occupy main memory for a while until it ends up compcached or swapped. All you're doing by killing it is freeing up a small amount of memory for a short time, at the expense of using more CPU, IO, and memory, in the long run.
 
I guess I understand the "not-killing-an-app" idea but when my N1 lags I go in and kill a bunch of apps and the lag is gone. Mostly, apps I have started and used but now I am noticing that Google Maps shows up a lot as it is associated with many apps. But sometimes I see it listed 2X, why would that happen?

Here's the thing, I am showing this gorgeous phone off to iphone users and after a few minutes of showing off some cool apps, when I hit "home" there is a noticeable lag getting to the home screen. As soon as I kill all the apps and hit "home" it flows beautifully. This seems to contradict the idea that Android kills of the stuff it doesn't need.
 
It might be it killing stuff that causes the lag. Either that or it garbage collecting to free up some memory to load the home process.

If any iPhone use laughs at the home screen lag, you just point out that at least Android phones CAN multitask and hence have more than one app loaded at a time.
 
Back
Top