Waste of resources on my Droid - GIVE IT BACK

M

MZ_RED

New member
I don't want to root my phone - i want it to do what it should - and not what is useless (Voice Search and Voice Dialer are amongst these)

The subject of interpretation of a "running" vs "loaded" task is not relevant to this discussion. Resources are used in either case. I want those resources for other purposes. I am looking at this moment and see 8meg of RAM consumed by Voice Search and cant free it. STOP IT!

OK - I remove all applications I don't want and kill all activity that I done need on all computer systems (smartphone == computer system). I will have another thread related to how I can remove applications if I cant find one (File Indexing, Freecell, and solitaire are not on any of my Windows PC's - waste of time, space, and more places for viruses to adhere)

The largest resource hog that exists on my moto droid is the useless voice search service. When I kill it I get as much as 12M memory back. This depends on how many times it is instantiated.

The ONLY voice option I care about on my phone is that I can talk and be heard by the person with whom I am speaking. That's it. No need for other voice services.

The Settings->Running Services displays the voice search service and other useless services. However there is no offered method of stopping these services nor preventing them from starting (remove them from rc.local or what ever is the representation)

I currently have task killers are actively killing these tasks - kinda silly to start one task to continuously kill others. I want the resources in the task killer freed too.

How can I prevent useless services from starting without logging into the phone and hacking the linux rc.d? Most specifically Voice Search and Voice Dial.

Thanks


BTW: ROM is a valuable resource that I pay for as well so... Other apps that need to have the option to be removed as they have no use:
- MP3 Store - Its free elsewhere who is insane enough to buy it
- Facebook - Don't have never will want an account
- Corporate Calendar - The google calendar is bad enough
- Gmail - Why? I have the email app
- Gallery - Browse to the location with a file browser
- Camera (I have taken 14 pictures with ANY device in 15 years - why do I care)
- News and Weather - We get enough fear and gloom emitted from other resources (USA Gov't)
- Talk - I don't chat
- Youtube - Why? I have gone to that site only by links and the browser handles it
- Voice Dialer - Can't understand me and is sloooow (native Californian Silicon Valley)
- Voice Search - Like the voice dialer - plus - use the text entry - don't use it while driving
- Car Home - I don't need another way of getting the adverts (don't use it while driving)
 
Far as I know, it cannot be done, and this is one of the top 3 problems i have with android. Very little control over what happens, Many times I need those extra resources to do something I want to do, and it just will not release it, and then my phone is laggy, freezes, and makes me very frustrated. Very poor design for an os, especially on a mobile phone..I wish I had an answer
 
not to be rude. but if you don't root your phone you're stuck with stock ie at the mercy of the carrier and android.

beyond taskkillers and rooting there is no solution and taskkillers are temporary solutions IMO.

You have the solution (rooting) but since you won't use it... you are unfortunately out of luck.
 
Firstly, Google's next release of Android is moving towards the paradigm of where every default app is downloaded. The reason is to ship smaller roms, and also to provide updates to them without a major release. So, just simma down over the fact that those apps come with the phone.

Now, on to the overkilling of tasks. Feel free to read the write up I made awhile back on why killing certain things is actually hurting you: http://rabroad.com/forums/f12/task-killers-multi-tasking-etc-on-android-continuation-from-iphone-thread-33855/

That'll explain why things are left running in the background, and why you shouldn't need to worry about them. What you need to worry about is the tasks that actively eat CPU...like your automatic task killer...
 
Thanks,

Rooting is a way of saying "I void warranties". And I do that a lot on just about everything. I hack phones for a living. I want a working phone for my real life.

Rooting is the android way of saying "We don't want to make it right. We want to make you break it so you can buy a replacement"

Phones: Nexus One, Moto Droid, ... (this list is too long and some I can't name yet)
 
well the fact you want to get rid of the camera the gallery chat and the gmail app. I think saying its broken because you don't want it is quite a stretch. if my phone did not have those I'd be miffed and moving elsewhere.

rooting I believe is opposite what you are saying. stock is for people who will settle for what they are given, rooting though it does void the warranty, is for people looking for specific actions from there phone beyond what is standard. which is exactly what you are!

again unfortunately if you aren't willing to root you'll have no luck solving what are problems to you.
 
my rooted nexus one is more functional than a stock nexus one, I rooted because I need a functioning phone. as long as you dont mess with the actual hardware of the phone, its really hard to "break" an android phone with software.
 
The use of the term "broken" is your own.

"We don't want to make it right" is mine.

My interpretation of doing it right is not running programs that don't need to run.
More interpretation of doing it right is "only install the apps that are desired by the user".
Removal of useless apps is an option if they want to SPAM apps at sale time (ala trial version of MS Office on your Windows PC)

Rooting is taking more responsibility for the phone than is needed for killing unneeded programs. It's not like I want to hack the kernel (on this phone). I just don't want useful resources lost on worthless things.

If the user had to root their phone to gain resources to run your application then you'd be looking for a solution that wasn't rooting. Here I am...

Rooting is the for the lazy. Providing a user interface method is the right way.
 
LOL - then you don't make device-level code changes. I have 'bricked' several systems because the cypress chips for the touch screen weren't backward compatible and when I updated the firmware on the touch screen per their directions I had to de-solder them and replace them.
 
Wha?

The phone stock is what a normal user would expect when purchasing any phone of any brand running any OS. Since it sounds like you're a unix guy like myself, we typically would think different then a normal consumer (full accessibility, full choice, etc). However, you're going to the ultimate extreme. What you're saying is you want full control over every aspect of the phone, through a UI. So, in other words, you want to be able to be a super user (AKA: root user, or the equivalent of running su/sudo), but from the interface level.

That's a horrible idea for a typical end user. A typical user is really dumb (no offense). Any chance to mess up their phone, will most likely happen -- and this impacts sales, support, etc.

Trust me. We're lucky Google doesn't care that we root the phone to change it how we want.

The fact that there are services in the background that don't drain your battery, or apps that you don't use that other mights -- really shouldn't be much of an issue. I agree the Amazon MP3 app should be removable, but as far as voice services and such goes -- nope.
 
Vocoding (Voice Coding ) is a CPU intensive process. Programs for such purposes need to be able to run fast and often are intentionally not frugal with code (.text) nor data (.data, heap/stack) memory. They are often hogs so they can get the snappy response without a lot of audio clipping.

I want that hog outta my playground then I should be given the option to do so knowing the price is that I will have a delay before I hear its first grunts.

Power usage (battery life as a representation) has not been mentioned as a resource of my concern in this thread. DRAM refresh is a cost that exists for memory based on its existence not its contents. So if a program is resident and not executed matters little or none in power. Usable (free) memory is the resource of discussion relative to voice services.

Most operating systems on the market have the ability to turn off voice services from the UI; including Windows. Linux has had such for nearly a decade. Android has the feature presented in its UI. They just need to make it work.

No, I am not a unix person. I am not a Windows nor Mac person. They are all pretty much fungible. But I am talking Unix-ese because Android is implemented on top of a Linux kernel. I make it so novel hardware can work with traditional software using conventional and unconventional means. I opt for the convention first as it has some proven worth and knowledge base.

Hacking is what I do when I am lazy or I lack the resources to do it right. Let's do this right.
 
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