The unexpected closure of apps in the background is one of the most common problems that Android users face due to the aggressive energy-saving policies implemented by some manufacturers. Now Google wants to take action against these practices.
In recent years, Google has made optimizations that have improved the management of apps in the background to save energy. However, most smartphone manufacturers offer their Android customization layer, which modifies the original operation.
Although that’s not necessarily a bad thing, manufacturers often make aggressive changes to some Android features that ruin the user experience.
For example, many manufacturers apply additional energy-saving measures to provide longer battery life. However, this comes at the cost of background apps crashing unexpectedly.
According to the DontKillMyApp website, Samsung’s One UI layer is the most aggressive with background apps, followed by OnePlus’s OxygenOS. In third and fourth position are EMUI from Huawei and MIUI from Xiaomi.
Some manufacturers allow popular apps like Facebook and WhatsApp to run without restrictions but limit the background activity of other lesser-known apps. This often prevents applications from working properly, and it is developers who find out from user complaints.
Google is now asking app developers if custom Android layers are interfering with their apps.
The company wants to know which manufacturer is preventing apps from working properly in the background, on which version of Android the problems are most frequent if the problems can be reproduced on third-party devices and other details.
Although Google hasn’t done anything about it yet, it seems like it’s finally getting a little serious about it. If you are an affected Android application developer, you can send your comments by filling out this Google Docs form.
