Are You The Culprit? Your Poorly Coded Apps Are Leading Smartphone Battery Drainage

While the number of Smartphone users is about to surpass 2.16 Billion by 2016, one of the common causes of frustration is Battery Drainage/huge energy consumption. Because of the larger screen, advanced processors and other software and hardware components, now a day’s battery is simply mattered for few hours; if the coding for your application is ineffectively written.

There is no hesitation to rate your App – “Poor” if it is not justifying energy consumption. A recent study from Purdue University and Microsoft tell – up to 75% of the power consumed by an app is being used to serve ads. Most of the application reviews clearly indicate customers are complaining about apps due to their massive energy consumption resulting in battery drainage.

Offering an app which is power-hungry leads negative reviews and frustration for your customers. In these cases, you do not need to be surprised if your users are uninstalling or ignoring such apps which are energy greedy.

At most of the cases, developers have limited experience and a single focus towards performance and memory uses for mobile apps results a solution developed in an energy oblivious manner.

So What Pitfalls are taking the Battery’s Performance to Grave?

Quality of Code:

If the quality of code for your app is poorly written, it wastes a lot of energy resulting in additional drain on the device battery.

Display:

Size and type of display are one of the biggest power hogs. Smartphone operating systems are designed in a manner, so in case if a user is inactive, the display turns to dim automatically. When during development developer override this, it leads to unnecessary power consumption.
In some cases, the effulgence of the image and the exhibit are set to default levels. However, we can hack this to achieve kindred perceived effulgence by brightening the image or content and dimming the exhibit, or vice versa. This can be applied to video apps and games, which are kenned to consume a lot of power.

Network interfaces:

Network interface components, e.g. GSM, 3G, WLAN etc. are the second-biggest energy hogs for mobile devices. Research reveals: WLAN consumes roughly 40 percent of the energy in mobile devices when the display is on, and 70 % of energy consumption when the display is off.

Location based services:

These services require enough energy, so you should ignore location-based services unless it is very necessary. Consider leverage of the Significant-Change Location Service if it is at all possible, also this is one of the most power efficient techniques of getting long-term location data for your application.

Mobile Ads:

A recent study indicates that Ads consume 65 percent of an app’s total communication energy or 23 percent of an app’s total energy.

CPU:

You can optimize CPU utilization by either abolishing unnecessary processing or optimizing the exertion of necessary processes:
If you have a game app, minimize the number of frames-per-second. In normal cases, human eyes just cannot identify the difference, unless the frame-rate is skipping.

Hardware Configuration:

Developers should be aware of the hardware configuration of the device for which they are developing apps. For example, when you are going to design audio-video applications, select the format and codec type which is backed by that hardware. CPU load optimization can be implemented by developers who employ hardware-enhanced codec’s solutions rather than software-based alternatives.

Avoid unnecessary hardware components: Smartphone has multiple components such as camera, accelerometer, various sensors, etc. In order to access the device hardware, ensure your software has failover parameters which turn off the peripheral during the period of ideal & inactiveness. Turning off Bluetooth, GPS, and other features when they are not in use is an easy way to save battery life in your app.
Take leverage of cloud offloading: Partition mobile applications, so that energy-intensive functionality is executed in the cloud.
Just like with networking interfaces, avoid polling, accessing the disk frequently and doing computations in small chunks.

Consider use of LookUp Tables for common cases during complex computations.

DATA USAGE:

Most of the native apps require less Internet connectivity, while various other apps require regular updates or interactivity to function such as serving advertisement. News, weather, social networking, messaging, banking, social media and retail/auction applications need to sync with real-time download/update news articles, images, messages, offers, catalogs, prices, advertisements, transaction etc, when the user uses them they are accompanied by pointless push notifications/alerts.

In addition, the app will send data from the handset to the Website, as the user interacts, sends a message, updates their status, adds a photo, checks product availability, performs a search and so on; as well as the more covert activities such as tracking and reporting back on the user’s activity, location etc. Some apps keep updates to a minimum, using personalization and transferring data in an efficient manner and/or only syncing on demand, thus keeping network traffic to a minimum and using up as little of the users data allowance as possible… other apps don’t.

Challenges and tools

Many developers aren’t even aware of the amount of energy their app consumes…

Multiple layers of abstractions and middleware that reside between an application and the hardware make it easier for developers to implement How Wrong Implementation in the code of App leads to Battery Drainage?

To understand it take an example: Consider an app that requires minimal resources from the phone to operate will consume less energy. The moment AdMob or iAd is dropped into the code, everything changes drastically. Now your simple app starts accessing GPS chips for location data, added network communications to transmit user data and receive targeted ad code. Additionally, SDKs are often added on top of the ads to monitor user habits, which are also transmitted to additional servers. As a result, your simple app turns in to power hog and drains the battery of Smartphone/mobile.

How to Build a Mobile app that consumes less battery?

Until SDK developers improve their code to optimize battery use, there are some solutions which need to be implemented by the developers:

1. Use static advertising to minimize the use of ad-serving
2. Instead of letting an App run in the background; prompt the user to close the application.
3. Give an easy & convenient method to close the application from the main menu.
4. You should use a SDK which allows to selectively enable-disable unwanted features like GPS if they’re not necessary.
5. Create an UI which give enhanced user experience even in Dim light.

Here are 5 Coding Tips To Make an energy efficient App

The most important consideration you can take while developing an App that it should perform an action only when a user needs it.
There are following five coding tips which will make your app more efficient and well-behaved, also use Android alarms in a clever way. By implementing below techniques your app will save power and runs well on any Android device.

Avoid use wake locks

Wake locks consume lots of energy since they keep the entire Android system awake all the time. If it is absolutely necessary, make sure you are using timed wake locks so that the taken wake lock does not remain functional for long hours. Schedule your wake lock so once your task is complete it gets stopped.

In addition to this when you use a wakelock, select the lowest possible level. For example, use PARTIAL_WAKE_LOCK rather than FULL_WAKE_LOCK.

Minimal use of Wakeup Alarms:

Consider using intents instead of to keep updated on a certain regular interval. There are other different events used to listen for, like the network intents and charging events, that remove the need for alarms. As it is impossible to get around STAMINA without being whitelisted, the right intent will help you perform your task when possible. And remember, every alarm that goes off has an impact on power consumption!

Use of Network Intents to Perform on Action While Data is allowed

When mobile is connected to a network, an intent is sent. Many apps don’t check for these intents, you can listen to network change intents that will tell you when communication is possible to make your application work smoothly. To check for network connectivity you can use the following:

 if (intent.getAction().equals(android.net.ConnectivityManager.CONNECTIVITY_ACTION)){ NetworkInfo info = intent.getParcelableExtra(ConnectivityManager.EXTRA_NETWORK_INFO); //perform your action when connected to a network}

Save certain tasks when the device is charging

Battery STAMINA Mode will automatically be disabled when a charger is connected. If possible, consider listening for charging events in your application, and trigger synchronization and update activities when a charging event is detected. It will help to save the battery power, as your application will perform its tasks while the device is plugged in.

Perform tasks only when your application is running.

Instead of waking up automatically you should use alarms and intents, consider performing an action once a user enters or starts the application.
In addition to this follow the Android activities and services lifecycle, to ensure your application should function in the most optimal way

Question for developers:

How much is your app going to cost the user in roaming fees when they go overseas? Did you consider the impact, while developing?
Do really think customers are going appreciate your rich media ads when they find out how much it is costing them in data?

Care for users, who are going to use your system

As a developer your prime intent to get most of the downloads, it should be problem-solving and oriented towards mutual value. Using your system it’s all about believing in you, so be very careful, don’t abuse their trust. It is unethical to show an attitude of ignorance.– it’s your ethical and moral obligation to carry out a thorough test of your apps properly before you publish them.

As a developer your prime intent to get most of the downloads, it should be problem-solving and oriented towards mutual value. Using your system it’s all about believing in you, so be very careful, don’t abuse their trust. It is unethical to show an attitude of ignorance.– it’s your ethical and moral obligation to carry out a thorough test of your apps properly before you publish them.

CONSUMERS VOTE WITH DELETE TO A SOLUTION THAT ABUSE

Never forget your users are very smart, they will permanently remove your app and will share how a bad app has created trouble for their battery life and wasting their data in reviews. And believe me, negative stardom goes viral very soon.

There are lots of alternatives of any app, as a developer doesn’t just focus on features, functionalities and visual effects. Take care user device, battery, and other performance parameters.