Android development: free apps suck power
Purdue University and Microsoft recently conducted a study and revealed that approximately 75 percent of the battery power consumed by a smartphone app is used to serve third-party advertisements. This study covered several popular smartphone apps such as the Android browser, Angry Birds, and other Ravio games. The app download manager in The New York Times was also reported to consume a large amount of power even after its main operation, to download news, has been completed. The study mainly includes users who use free applications and avoid paying money to remove applications. Android phone software developers have suggested that users should use the free app on a trial basis, and once they find it useful, they should purchase it to remove the ads. The longer you use free apps, the sooner your battery life will run out. Users must take care of the battery because it is many times more expensive than the small fee of an application. The study only involved Android apps, not Windows Phone or iPhone apps.
The study was conducted using a tool called eprof. It found that many applications spend considerable time performing I / O functions, including accessing Wi-Fi or 3G data. The study also revealed that numerous apps have a hidden function to keep a device running in full power mode even after the app’s operation is complete. Rovio’s Angry Birds, for example, has a third-party ad network that consumes 45 percent of the total power consumed by the app. Opening the Android search page in the native browser consumes 20,000 µAH and about 31 percent and 16 percent are used for 3G and GPS.
In the test, a sample application was found compromised in establishing a connection with a remote server and sent 5 data packets. Even after the app completed its operation, its 3D radio was active for an additional 6 seconds which wasted even more of the present 57 of the total power consumed by the app.
Hundreds of other apps also behave similarly and provoke users. It’s also a tough time for Android software development experts whose apps are uselessly draining your battery. The study concluded that most of the energy an application consumes is actually consumed by I / O operations that often do not correlate with the operations that the application is made for. Android phone software developers should rethink their app development strategy and ease their temptation to collect personal data from a user’s device. It is also advisable for business communities to adopt Android programming as fair as possible that does not drain the user’s battery for independent I / O operations.