why do apps open spontaneosly?

astro46

Senior Member
Jan 4, 2013
6
0
I am new to the world of android. after going through 4 less expensive brands and finding serious flaws in all of them (not connecting with internet, defect on screen, etc) i opted for the asus transformer tf300 .

1. i look at the Asus task manager, ES task manager, or settings>apps>running. they each show apps running that the others don't. the can't agree on what apps are running?

2. why are all these apps running? i didn't start maps, much less 2 instances of it, or google play store, or gallery, or.... . I can close all of them and then watch the task manager as apps open themselves. is this google running apps as it wants for its own purposes? what is the effect of all these useless apps? speed? information theft?

3. i find that if i hit the bottom left corner icons the wrong way (sort of with a swipe rather than tap) something called google search or google now opens. a white screen with a search bar at the top. the first time it tried to get me to agree to let it access all of my notes, reminders, calendar, everything, so that it could give me advice about stuff. it so generously let me decline "for the moment". iow, it is going to bug me again as some point. I don't know if this was there when i bought the tablet a couple of weeks ago, or came along with "upgrade"" from 4.0.3 to 4.1.1. iac, i'd like to get rid of it. any idea how to do that?

i have a few others questions but i'll start other threads for them.

thanks.
 

J515OP

Super Moderator
Staff member
Jan 6, 2011
5,172
899
Hi Astro, welcome to the forum. Good questions and it shows you are getting to know Android.

1. Task managers generally only show user apps (though they sometimes let you adjust the levels they show) while Settings shows all apps and system processes. It is like opening Task Manager in Windows and looking at the Applications tab and the Processes tab.

2. The system processes are necessary for Android to run. Those processes are what the OS is and does. For the user apps, the design of Android is to let apps run certain functions in the back ground. For example a mail app may periodically connect to the internet and see if you have any mail to download. Other apps have tie in features so that if you open Facebook for example and you have location permissions turned on it locates you and may invoke the GPS and map to do so. Most apps are cross connected these days and you need to go both into the apps internal setting and the Android settings to change things like how and how often an app access the internet or location. Most of this is invisible to the user and Android does an excellent job of managing its resources so you don't need to manually go and shut things down. In the Facebook example by knowing your location Facebook may alert you that a friend is near you.

3. Swiping up from the buttons bar (the back, home and switcher buttons) toward the middle of the screen is how you invoke Google Now. It is a really cool new piece of software Google is offering in Jelly Bean that uses information on your device to predicatively provide you cards of information you might need. for example if it knows your home address and your work address, opening Google now at 5pm on a work day will likely bring up directions on how to get home overlayed with the current traffic conditions since it knows you are probably about to head home. It is a very cool feature but some people are creeped out by it. It needs permission to access the requested information so it can make predictions on things you may find useful and gets more accurate over time. Another example is if you book a flight and get a gmail confirmation then it will set an alarm and then notify you the day before your flight that you are scheduled to travel and update you flight status details.

If you don't want to use Google Now don't swipe up from the button bar to the white circle that says Google.

JP
 

leeshor

Senior Member
Dec 27, 2011
6,330
1,037
Everything JP said +1

Moving this to the Android General Q&A forum
 
Last edited:

astro46

Senior Member
Jan 4, 2013
6
0
Hi Astro, welcome to the forum. Good questions and it shows you are getting to know Android.

2. The system processes are necessary for Android to run. Those processes are what the OS is and does. Most apps are cross connected these days and you need to go both into the apps internal setting and the Android settings to change things like how and how often an app access the internet or location. Most of this is invisible to the user and Android does an excellent job of managing its resources so you don't need to manually go and shut things down. In the Facebook example by knowing your location Facebook may alert you that a friend is near you.

3. Swiping up from the buttons bar (the back, home and switcher buttons) toward the middle of the screen is how you invoke Google Now. It is a really cool new piece of software Google is offering in Jelly Bean that uses information on your device to predicatively provide you cards of information you might need. for example if it knows your home address and your work address, opening Google now at 5pm on a work day will likely bring up directions on how to get home overlayed with the current traffic conditions since it knows you are probably about to head home. It is a very cool feature but some people are creeped out by it. It needs permission to access the requested information so it can make predictions on things you may find useful and gets more accurate over time. Another example is if you book a flight and get a gmail confirmation then it will set an alarm and then notify you the day before your flight that you are scheduled to travel and update you flight status details.

If you don't want to use Google Now don't swipe up from the button bar to the white circle that says Google.

JP

2. how do access the apps and android internal settings? is this one of those things only possible with a rooted device? regarding the managing resources: i have heard people talking about having to shut apps on their phones because of them using too much memory and draining battery. how does this mesh with managed resouces?

3. i just discovered that if i disable google search, the swipe from botton window, which opens a google search window, no longer happens. and the google search and microphone on top left are also gone. so, i guess that i have a choice. and, yes, i am one of those who is creeped out by google having so much info about me. besides i don't use google mail for most personal stuff, or google calendars. nor drive home from work at any particular time. i guess google now wouldn't be much use to me, anyway.
 
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