Samsung tops battery management chart, and not in a good way

Samsung has carried out a fairly good job of bringing Android 11-based One UI 3.0 to its smartphones, whereas additionally promising three generations of Android updates to pick out gadgets. Unfortunately, the corporate has earned a moderately doubtful honor due to its Android 11 replace.

The staff behind the DontKillMyApp web site has ranked Samsung on the prime of its charts following the corporate’s newest Android model replace. For the uninitiated, DontKillMyApp ranks smartphone producers primarily based on how aggressively they kill background apps, with the worst offenders on the prime of the checklist.

Samsung was beforehand third on the checklist, so what did the producer do with its Android 11 replace to earn this rating then?

“On Android 11 Samsung will forestall apps work (sic) in background by default except you exclude apps from battery optimizations,” reads an evidence by the staff, including that it was a “extreme divergence” from Android course of management insurance policies.

To sidestep this new default conduct, customers might want to faucet Settings > Apps > Your App > Battery > Battery optimization > All apps > Your app > Don’t optimize, the staff explains.

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The DontKillMyApp staff provides that this breaks use-cases like well being apps accumulating sensor-related information. It’s unclear whether or not alarms, health monitoring instruments, and COVID-19 observe/hint apps is also affected, however we’ve requested the staff to make clear this.

The information comes greater than six months after Google stated it was taking measures to deal with OEMs killing apps working in the background. This newest flip of occasions means that Google’s measures nonetheless have loads of room for enchancment.

The observe of killing background apps is supposed to assist telephones eke out extra juice, however there’s definitely an argument to be made that hyper-aggressive battery management isn’t as obligatory because it as soon as was. This is primarily on account of rising battery sizes, with many OEMs adopting greater batteries with the transition to 5G and excessive refresh charge screens. Then once more, we’ve beforehand seen telephones with large batteries conk out unexpectedly early on account of poor optimization.

Do you assume smartphones nonetheless want aggressive battery management (e.g. killing background apps by default)? Let us know by taking the ballot above!