[CrackBerry Question]

Hey guys,

After my passport had an unfortunate accident I bit the bullet and got myself a Keyone, Carphone Warehouse even thoughtfully sent it to me on Wednesday before their official launch date. Hurrahs all around!

It's a kickass device and I'm really happy with it but there's one thing that's driving me crazy with it that I could really use some help resolving.

I'm used to how my Passport handled multitasking. I'm used to applications I'm using just staying open until I tell them not to be open anymore. Not just in the short term, I mean constantly if I want them open. I can just leave an application there on my home screen and dip in and out of it and I can pick up exactly where I left off.

And that's something that Android apparently can't do. I'm not sure why or after how long but at some point it just closes applications running in the background and that is kinda a big problem for me.

There's one really critical place where this is a problem for me; on Word processors. I write a lot on my phone and I work on very very big documents; 100,000+ words sized documents, 400+ pages. On my passport I could just leave my DocsToGo window open and when I clicked back to it my cursor would be exactly where I left it. But now it's touch and go whether my document will still be open when I come back to it. While MSWord considerately auto-saves for me when I have to scroll through four hundred pages to find my place it's vastly worse. It's especially frustrating when I just need to refer to the paragraph I was working on (say to check a figure with someone else) and still have to search through a huge document to find it.

Can anyone tell me how to make sure that Android won't just randomly close my documents? This is a big deal to me; a big part of doing my job. I need to be the one who decides if I need a document open, not my phone.

[John Vieira]

If you could root the device, there would be options, but you can't, so there isn't.

That's just how android works. After a certain time, when it needs more memory, it kills apps in the background.

You could solve this by getting a phone with more ram. 3gb on the key one is simply not enough, and when people complain about "spec crusaders" they fail to realize the real world imitations of that.

You could get a device with more ram, most android phones have 4gb now. Or a One plus with 6gb of ram.

However, depending on your usage, they may still kill apps in the background after some time.

The other option is an iPhone. They "freeze" apps in the background, so you can return to them later. I'm not sure how that would work with word processors.

Your other option is to abandon the smartphone as a production platform, because they're simply not well equipped for that, and consider getting a small tablet + keyboard combo, or a small laptop to make up the difference.

Again an android tablet will work the same way, so you'll need an iPad or a windows tab.

[The Commander]

You writing books or what? Lol.

[bobshine]

If you could root the device, there would be options, but you can't, so there isn't.

That's just how android works. After a certain time, when it needs more memory, it kills apps in the background.

You could solve this by getting a phone with more ram. 3gb on the key one is simply not enough, and when people complain about "spec crusaders" they fail to realize the real world imitations of that.

You could get a device with more ram, most android phones have 4gb now. Or a One plus with 6gb of ram.

However, depending on your usage, they may still kill apps in the background after some time.

The other option is an iPhone. They "freeze" apps in the background, so you can return to them later. I'm not sure how that would work with word processors.

Your other option is to abandon the smartphone as a production platform, because they're simply not well equipped for that, and consider getting a small tablet + keyboard combo, or a small laptop to make up the difference.

Again an android tablet will work the same way, so you'll need an iPad or a windows tab.

The iPhone will still redraw but it will take much longer.

BTW the passport also redraws, actually it will force kill your apps if you open too many.

There is no mobile devices that doesn't freeze and kills an app in the background. With limited ressources compared to a desktop, it's just not possible or designed to do so.

[LostAlone]

BTW the passport also redraws, actually it will force kill your apps if you open too many.

There is no mobile devices that doesn't freeze and kills an app in the background. With limited resources compared to a desktop, it's just not possible or designed to do so.

But the memory footprint of word processors is tiny! Why does it force close applications using approximately 10mb of RAM?

Is this only happening when it runs low on RAM or it is just simply impossible to make ANYTHING stay open?

[LostAlone]

You writing books or what? Lol.

Yes, exactly that. Book length reports. And yes, this is something I've done on Blackberries since 2007 with no problems. I don't understand why it's something that is now impossible.

[bobshine]

But the memory footprint of word processors is tiny! Why does it force close applications using approximately 10mb of RAM?

Is this only happening when it runs low on RAM or it is just simply impossible to make ANYTHING stay open?

I don't know, I never used a KeyOne nor an android phone. But if you want to mimic your passport, in theory, you'll have to force close every apps that you don't need except the word processor.

Will it work? Maybe, maybe not! You'll have to test it!

[Ment]

the hub and associated services carve out alot of memory. That plus using other apps means your large wp/document isn't going to stay in memory very long. You could try disabling hub+ and see if that helps. There is an update coming the in the AAL build which may help how your phone manages its memory.