10-31-2006, 06:00 PM
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Contributing Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 8,228
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HTC Adds Close Button To Its Devices
http://www.modaco.com/index.php?showtopic=247978
MoDaCo is reporting that HTC is giving users what they want on their devices, a close button that actually closes applications. I know, sit down and take a breath. Yes, it is shocking that a button with a big "X" on it should actually close an application. 8O
This change will apparently be effective in AKU3.2 and later devices. Users can choose to enable the close feature and have it closed either by a tap or a tap-and-hold. Microsoft has maintained for years that users simply don't need to close applications. They really don't want to, they just want the application to go away, and so MS has refused to enable the close feature short going through the 7 tap process via the Memory control panel icon and close it there. Microsoft insists that the operating system's memory management is sufficient to manage what applications remain open given the devices resources. Many users maintain this isn't good enough as they watch their devices slow to an absolute crawl as low memory situations come up because too many applications are open and the device isn't doing much about it, or worse, the wrong application gets shut down as it is not always a least-recently-used-app-gets-closed decision. For me personally, Pocket IE is the worst offender as it is a memory hog and I've rarely seen my K-Jam shut it down, opting instead to close something I just used a few seconds ago before starting a new application. :evil: Just recently, the Windows Mobile development team defended the practice of not giving users a close button. The defense goes something like this - ok, it goes exactly like this:
Quote: The base philosophy, that users shouldn't need to manage their memory, is pretty hard to argue against. Come on, tell me that users should be required to manage their own memory. I dare you. You can tell me that you can do a better job. You can tell me that we don't do a good enough job. You can tell me that in some cases we do a fine job, but in the cases when we don't, the world comes to a screeching halt, time goes backwards, and history is rewritten to be somehow more dark and foreboding than it already is. But you can't tell me that users should be required to manage their own memory. That�s like saying that car owners should be required to change their own oil. I don't think so.
Now, Mike is arguing against a strawman and does a pretty effective job of knocking it over. The problem is, I have never heard anyone argue that a user should be required to manage their own memory. We simply want to be allowed to manage our own memory by closing down applications that aren't needed any longer, that are huge resource hogs, or that prevent files from being moved/changed/deleted because some app, like Windows Media Player, is locking it open. What Mike is effectively saying is, you should not be allowed to manage your devices memory and car owners should not be allowed to change their own oil.
Ironically, Microsoft has created confusion here as a number of device manufacturers include the ability to close applications but implement it in different ways, so for a user to close apps, they must figure out first how their particular device does it, if at all. :roll: Hats off to HTC for giving the user what they want! 
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10-31-2006, 06:18 PM
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Thinker
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 450
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Re: HTC Adds Close Button To Its Devices
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The base philosophy, that users shouldn't need to manage their memory, is pretty hard to argue against. Come on, tell me that users should be required to manage their own memory. I dare you. You can tell me that you can do a better job. You can tell me that we don't do a good enough job. You can tell me that in some cases we do a fine job, but in the cases when we don't, the world comes to a screeching halt, time goes backwards, and history is rewritten to be somehow more dark and foreboding than it already is. But you can't tell me that users should be required to manage their own memory. That�s like saying that car owners should be required to change their own oil. I don't think so.
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I just wanted to take 5 seconds out of my day to say that this is the most ridiculous argument I've read in quite some time.
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10-31-2006, 06:41 PM
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Contributing Editor
Join Date: Sep 2006
Posts: 524
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Good Job HTC! I hope other manufacturers follow suite. I like the tap and hold implementation option.
I agree with aroma that the argument given by Microsoft is week. As noted by Ed the argument is saying people should not be able to change the oil in their car. I think the argument shows that the people who make windows mobile don't really use it. Otherwise, the close problem would have been fixed when way back in time when I had my Nino Palm-PC. While I agree that users should not need to manage memory the unfortunate reality is that for anyone doing much work on a pocket pc they will need to do this.
Is anyone from the windows mobile group at Microsoft reading this? Can you give a better defense as to why I don't need a close button on any of my Windows Mobile applications? The biggest offender I've noticed is Media Player. When it's in the background and idle, it manages to take cpu or something so when I'm playing back video in other applications the frame rate drops significantly. This also hurts game performance of course as well as anything else that pushes the hardware at all. I have WM 2003se. Has this been fixed in any newer versions of Windows mobile/Media player?
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10-31-2006, 07:14 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Jan 2008
Posts: 211
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I've always enabled it through some third-party app on all of my PPCs. Part of it is that I don't like seeing that little free memory. Mostly, I just don't trust the WM memory management to free up memory as needed. I use SPB Pocket Plus and watch that free memory counter drop as I use my device so I know I have memory leaks somewhere. I wonder how many of those would be eliminated/reduced if MS actually built-in Close functionality so that programs could terminate cleanly?
Maybe WM does do a better job managing memory, but I still should have an easier way to determine what programs I want open/running at any given time. This has been an issue for as long as I've followed/used the PPC/WM OS. People have kept asking for it and MS will not deliver. I agree with the poster earlier that the argument they present is one of the worst I've ever seen.
Now for the more important question - how can I get AKU 3.x for my HTC Wizard? 
-Pete
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10-31-2006, 07:35 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 165
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You know what's so funny? I have a 3rd party app installed on my Pocket PC that enables me to tap-hold on the X in order to kill a process. Problem is, I've been doing it for so long, and I have so many apps installed, THAT I DON'T REMEMBER WHICH APP IT IS. :lol:
I'm thinking it's one of the Dinarsoft applications (HandyMenu, HandyLauncher, or HandySwitcher), but I'm not for sure. Anyway, I'm certainly not going to uninstall my apps one-by-one to find out.
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10-31-2006, 07:35 PM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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Great move by HTC, even if it might put some third party developers out a bit (they'll just have to be creative in solving other problems).
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10-31-2006, 07:42 PM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Dec 2005
Posts: 62
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I've been using Zapit! for so long on first my 6315 and now my Wizard that I cannot imagine not using it, but at least this change will give me that extra button back on my next device. I have it tied to the camera button on the lower right side and it kills whatever app I have running at the time. It's not even a TSR so it uses NO resources - it just kills whatever's running when I hit the button. Much better than Magic Button, et al.
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10-31-2006, 07:49 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Dec 2005
Posts: 128
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Three cheers for HTC (leading the way again).
I've used Smartskey to enable this (plus softkey controls) for some time, but truly welcom an OS level setting for this. Way to go HTC.
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10-31-2006, 08:02 PM
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Thinker
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 351
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gee...
Microsoft, give us a break, the PPC is not a widely used consumer device, such as an Ipod etc., so stop trying to treat us like non technical users. For the most part, every PPC user/owner I know are reasonably technically inclined.
Non technical user who have used my PPC work in a one-app-at-a-time mode anyway! Open Solitaire. close Solitare. Open PIE. Close PIE.
etc
__________________
iPhone / iPod(s) / Mac Desktop & Portables.. yet I'm a Windows/MS Platform Dev ;)
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10-31-2006, 09:02 PM
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Sage
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 779
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by uwaku
I've been using Zapit! for so long on first my 6315 and now my Wizard that I cannot imagine not using it, but at least this change will give me that extra button back on my next device. I have it tied to the camera button on the lower right side and it kills whatever app I have running at the time. It's not even a TSR so it uses NO resources - it just kills whatever's running when I hit the button. Much better than Magic Button, et al.
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I've also been using Zapit forever. I don't know what I'd do if I lost it, because it doesn't seem to be available anywhere now.
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