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Just a quick question, apparently the concept of app memory is completely alien to users of palm OS and the iphone. Why is it that Blackberries seem so inept at allocating and managing memory, when compared to these other devices?
What exactly is app memory? and why would a program that is not running be stored in it, rather than the much larger 1gb onboard memory?
First off, they're not inept at managing memory, it's just that people scream memory leak any time their free app mem drops 0.1MB, and the concept of this being NORMAL is just as alien as app mem is to users of other phones. People scream memory leak when only the FIRST of TWO conditions are met for a memory leak. The second being that the memory is not freed up when some other app needs it, or it is no longer in use.
As for the other part of your question... I can only speculate, but my guess is that it has to do with maintaining backwards compatibility with older BB OS apps. Personally, I'm all for a minor addition to the OS 4.7 API that lets apps written for 4.6/4.7 to be stored and run from anywhere on onboard device storage, maybe even memory cards. Older "legacy" apps are still installed and run from that base 128MB, but other apps are free to be installed and run from anywhere.
lol, I almost misread that last part of your post bigman, until I realized it was just an idea want.
Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com
I'm confused. First you say that BBs are inept at handling app memory, then ask what app memory is? How can you declare something inept at handling something you have no understanding of? Is it possible that the reason you think BBs are inept is because the only information you absorb is from people as inept as you?
No need for personal attacks man, I was dissing a phone, not a human being. ;)
I don't exactly know what app memory is, (I'm guessing it's just RAM) but I do know that the blackberry os seemingly doesn't have the ability to free up memory when it's no longer being used, like after I close a bunch of programs. The memory isn't allocated as free.
Also, I have never owned a device EVER that used more memory to do literally nothing. I have left my phone alone after doing a battery pull and have seen my app memory decline. Why that would happen, I cannot explain the phenomenon.
I agree.
I think as the day goes and apps are opened and closed and tasks are done via 3rd party apps and the OS there is bits and pieces left laying around. Kinda like my son who is 1.50, my wife will organize and clean his room, (battery pull) and then he comes in and messes it all up again.
I'm trying so hard not to pay attention to the memory count, but I'm only human and I want the best my phone can offer.
I fear that the day the app store opens CB is going to get hit hard first with all the members showing all they bought then the memory drain threads will start.
So I'm preparing now: http://forums.crackberry.com/f134/ae...-storm-164055/
You can see from my link, I have more 3rd party apps installed then probably anyone and I'm still floating around 40MB. By the by my phone has been asleep most of the day so nothing is really running. I have opened one or to apps briefly but that's it.I know the number will drop as I dirty my room so by days end I'm clean up (battery pull) and the number will be back up again.
James
I could swear I answered this the last time you asked something like this. This is NORMAL. The garbage collector will come along every so often and see what memory can be reclaimed. Just because it doesn't happen immediately doesn't mean it won't happen or doesn't happen.
It's called caching. Look it up. Your computer does it too. That's just one possible explanation, but I'm not here to do your research for you. You want to understand this sort of thing, start learning to program. Slowly but surely, you'll begin to be able to put these things together on your own. We aren't here to spoon feed you the answers, especially when you just proceed to ignore them and ask the same questions a week later.
bigman, I think you are mistaken. What you are referring to is something called prefetching. I would need to be actively using the device for anything to be stored in cache.
Prefetching is a minor variation on caching. It's like the difference between chunky and creamy peanutbutter.
None of this has anything to do with the fact that I, and others, answered these same set of questions the last time you asked them. So, it seems a bit curious that you would be asking them AGAIN, when I know you read the previous set of answers since you were actively responding. What I figure is that either:
A) You're trolling, or
B) You seem to think that by asking the question again, you'll get a different answer (incidentally, that is one of the quickest and easiest tests you can do for insanity, and you'd fail in this case)
So which is it? If you don't respond, then I would have to assume you're simply trolling, and I should stop wasting my time with you unless you're interested in buying a new bridge to live under.
So since there is so much Q&A about this stuff in SO many threads...here's a more simple question that I don't feel like sifting for..I'm sure it's an easy answer for you guys:
Why does my "File Free" number (what I assume is the app memory or RAM for the phone) in the Help Me! screen start at about 42 MB (42,xxx,xxx bytes) every battery pull and fairly quickly drop to as low as < 1 MB (< 1,xxx,xxx bytes) within 6 hours (give or take a few hours) every time I start fresh after a batt. pull..no matter how much or how little I use applications (I ALWAYS turn them off after using them though).
Why does this drop so significantly EVERY single time I use this thing throughout a work shift (assuming i did a battery pull at the beginning)?? While I don't see it directly affecting the speed of my phone, why is my drop in number so drastic compared to some other ppl who claim it stays around 30-40 MB at all times??
Also, I use the memory cleaner and clear the Event log out but that barely expands the memory number, and it soon drops down again anyway. Nothing can cause that number to go up much at all until I do another battery pull. It always drops so quick, down to nothing (if I let it go that far).
(I realize these are the types of questions that annoy you guys but I just wanted to ask it right out because all of the other times that I can find that it's been answered, the asker just gets beat down because it's been asked before. I actually can't find an easy-to-understand answer for a person like me who isn't sure)
I'm not crazy bm2, just trying to understand this phone. Many things about it I have never experienced with any other piece of technology ever. People tell me it's a little computer, but no one recommends I restart my computer just for the **** of it. I just felt a little lost, so I thought this would be the place to seek help.
Maybe I'm just not understanding your answer. The Prefetching and memory allocation explanation thing seems very fuzzy, like the phone behaves based on how how it feels on the moment. Like I would expect it to either do it all the time or never, not just on a whim.
Actually it's not, it's more along the lines of creamy and extra creamy peanut butter. ;) I say this because caching and prefetching are not complete opposites of themselves, like chunky and creamy peanut butter is. :p
agreed:confused::confused:
Well la te da Ms. Frenchwoman who can afford extra creamy peanut butter! :p
On a serious note, I was going more for a peanut butter to peanut butter comparison, but if the difference between creamy and extra creamy works better for some than chunky and creamy... Knock yourself out. But it'd be easier to knock yourself out with chunky peanut butter. :D
I think it's safe to say that we can all agree that the garbage collector doesn't do a very good job on the Storm. It doesn't free up all the memory that it should... at least it's not properly referenced in the Free Memory indicator on the Help Me/Status screens.
Hey, I'm a big fan of layman's terms in trying to explain something by simile to non-techy people... so, if you're going to do it, do it right. ;)
My memory drops but I've never actually noticed an associated performance decrease. The lowest I've ever seen it is in the 20s, I think. It's usually in the 30s. Don't know that I've ever seen it above 37 or 38. I think much of the problem is obsession.
Are you kidding? There's a reason why in The IT Crowd, every time they answer the phone the first thing they say is, "Hello, IT. Have you tried turning it off and on again?" Granted it's a somewhat obscure British show, so not many people may have seen it, which is a shame. Telling people to restart their computer is a staple of IT support. Sometimes it's just because you're an annoying user who whines about every little thing and we want to get you off the phone as fast as possible, and sometimes it's just because it's faster than actually solving the problem.
You have to understand that the Storm runs on battery power, so the developers can't be quite as lazy as desktop developers can be. The Storm developers have to make every CPU cycle count a lot more than someone does developing a desktop app. You have X amount of processing power and Y amount of RAM without the fallback of swap like on a desktop. You also only have Z amount of battery power. X is inversely related to Z, so the faster the processor goes, the less battery power you have.
So, you don't want to have the garbage collector running every time you close some app. You run it as needed.
Guess it depends on how you look at it. On the one hand, free app mem may not seem to slowly drain away, but at the same time the phone is able to run on "fumes" without resorting to drastic measures like deleting email, contacts, etc.
Thanks BG2, that helps me understand what's going on in the phone a little better.
As a linux user, I only reboot my computer for kernal updates and on the rare occasion that I swap out video drivers. Other than that I don't relly need to reboot to maintain a livel of functionallity.
I'm learning alot behind the "philosophy" of cell phone software. Thanks for shining a little light on it.
True, but without having a reliable free memory gauge, who's to say that the phone won't perform well at 0MB free on day one, but decide to erase all your past data on day 3 of working at 0MB free. See what I mean.
Well, since you can afford extra creamy peanut butter, maybe you should put it to the test. :p
It is kind of an interesting question of whether or not the free mem gauge is simply broken, or if there was some other kind of tradeoff made. Would be nice if we could talk to some of the Storm devs, but can't say as I blame them for not wanting to make it known if they are lurking about here. It'd be like feeding time for a pack of hungry piranhas. The unwashed masses, who have no concept of software development, demonstrating the wisdom in the saying about how it's better to be thought a fool then to open your mouth and prove it.
So, I'll just toss this out there in case any of them happen to be reading. You can always PM me, and I won't reveal your identity... Errr... Username.