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In Android, if you open an App, but only once, it may be kept in memory for a long time if the memory doesn't suffer any shortage.

Will these background tasks/processes consume power continuously? Will it be significantly?

JackWM
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  • "Will these background tasks/processes consume power continuously?" -- that depends on what they are doing. "Will it be significantly?" -- that depends on what they are doing. – CommonsWare Feb 01 '13 at 16:11

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If the app requires that it runs in the background, then yes, it will consume power as long as the phone is on. One app isn't exactly that significant, but the real problem comes up when multiple apps start running processes/services in the background. In fact, most battery-saving apps out there disable these to save power.

David
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  • very useful answer, David. Could you show me couple of these apps that disable background processes to save power. By the way, how do they pick which background processes to kill? – JackWM Feb 01 '13 at 16:23
  • I believe Easy Battery Saver's intelligent mode only lets focused apps have processes. Of course, you can always manually end background processes and services manually through Settings -> Apps -> Running. Keep in mind that it's not necessary to do this unless your phone needs some extra juice. – David Feb 01 '13 at 16:28
  • Thanks, David. But I am a little confused. Why is it not necessary to kill the background processes, it does reserve power, right? – JackWM Feb 01 '13 at 16:43
  • Well, when I said that it's not that necessary, I meant that you should only do it if you're strapped on battery life. So go ahead and do it, by all means. – David Feb 01 '13 at 16:49
  • One more question, David. How the background processes consume the power through memory uses? Are you familiar with DRAM/DDR3? – JackWM Feb 01 '13 at 16:52
  • Most apps like Facebook are constantly connected to the internet for notification purposes. And I'm not too keen on hardware, if that's what you're asking. – David Feb 01 '13 at 16:55
  • let us [continue this discussion in chat](http://chat.stackoverflow.com/rooms/23794/discussion-between-jackwm-and-david) – JackWM Feb 01 '13 at 17:04
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    Background processes only drain your battery if they actually *do* something. The ones that are constantly talking to a server and keeping the radio awake are a real problem. Services that go completely dormant until a foreground process wakes them up are harmless. – fadden Feb 01 '13 at 18:35