Android 11 tries a new way to save even more battery: suspend cached apps

The latest version of Android 11 debuts a way to improve the battery in the background: now you can cancel the execution of cached applications. In this way the useful life is extended after a charge, although with a drawback: use of multitasking worsens.

Android always had the sambenito of high power consumption, not in vain it had to run applications in a virtual machine. Over the years Google significantly improved the runtime environment, also included improvements for the use in the background and even an intelligent energy saving system (Adaptive Battery). Despite the satisfactory evolution there is always room to further reduce consumption, a point on which the latest Android 11 novelty affects.

Battery improvement, somewhat slower multitasking

The application execution system that Android has caches the applications that are not used so that user can switch to them quickly in case you are using multitasking. These cached apps continue to access the processor cycles and also the rest of the components, such as modems, to use the communication data. This implies an additional energy expenditure since, in theory, the user does not need that application that is kept in cache.

Google began testing a system of ‘freezing’ cached applications with the beta 2 of Android 11, a system that is starting to go live in tests for some users of the stable version. This is corroborated XDA Developers (via @MishaalRahman), it still does not appear on the Google Pixel.

As detailed by XDA Developers, the new system freezes the applications that are in the device’s cache to prevent them from working while not in use. This saves battery life, you can also help keep mobile data consumption at bay. All with a trade-off: since the cached apps are frozen, in case the user wants to return to them, Android 11 will have to put them back into operation, an action that involves a some delay in reactivating the app. Of course, it will always be less than loading the application from scratch since, likewise, it is kept in cache no matter how long it is suspended.

The new feature of Android 11, named as’Suspend the execution of cached applications‘, has appeared in tests within the developer options

of some users. By default it is adjusted according to the device: in this way it is the system that is in charge of canceling the execution. We will see if it really manages to scratch a few mAh to energy consumption.

Via | XDA Developers

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Android 11 tries a new way to save even more battery: suspend cached apps

was originally published in

Xataka Android

by
Ivan Linares

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