In addition to sync, the RTM app may run in the background if you've added an RTM widget to their home screen or if you have location alerts or reminders enabled in the app.

Of those, the only one that should use any more battery than normal is if location alerts is enabled to check location frequently with GPS. Otherwise, there should be minimal impact on battery. Regardless, memory impact should also be minimal. (Android will automatically terminate any background applications using a lot of memory if the memory is needed by something else.)

If you'd like to try the app again, could you possibly restart it after installing it?

Thanks for your reply,

I understand how the android activity cycle works, I'm an android developer, sorry I didn't mention that in the previous post.

I'm not running widgets, location alerts and notifications are off.
I tried the app again during the day right after posting, making sure all those settings you mentioned were off, just in case you replied this, and yes, it's still happening. I kept monitoring it, and every once in a while I would fire my task manager and RTM was there, most of the time.

I tried restarting the phone after install, and it kept happening.

It seems RTM's service is getting fired up randomly, or on a hardcoded set of times using the AlarmManager, maybe. But maybe, it might work better if the scheduler you have for the AlarmManager actually pays attention to the "Sync Schedule" option in the settings, as well as the location aware settings.

Again, this is what I can see and asume from testing the app, maybe I'm completely wrong and you have it setup the right way and I'm sounding like an idiot, but those are my results from testing the app, and I'm a big believer of resource and battery consumption.

Thanks!

velazcod, thanks for getting back to me; I apologize for the explanations you already understood. :)

I've added this to our list to investigate; thanks for bringing this use case to our attention.

Hi andrew, no need to apologize

I really wouldn't mind but sometimes it does make the phone slow, and as you may know resources on current android phones (RAM and CPU) are very limited, unless you are on a Nexus One, but still.

Thank you very much for looking into it.

I don't have velazcod's developer skills, but investigation into my battery usage showed Remember the Milk as the 2nd largest user. I stopped the background process and was happy to see my battery dropped only from 39% to 35% overnight.. a big improvement. My phone is an HTC Magic btw.

Further to the above entry I can now confirm that stopping the RTM process on my HTC Magic has more than doubled my battery life so far, i.e. to over a day between charges. That's more like it..

cintra,
It may be worth decreasing the frequency in which the RTM app synchronizes, as well as making it check for any location reminders less frequently.

Also, if you haven't restarted your device since installing the app, it would be worthwhile to try that also.

Last, to check battery life, be sure to go to Settings > About Phone > Battery Use. (Some people have reported looking at the Spare Parts app, but that seems to measure how long an app has been running, not how much battery it's used, so it can produce unreliable statistics.)

Have just recharged the phone after 45 hours of use vs typically 12 hours previously.. Ref. my RTM settings - when in background I had location setting on longest, and used manual sync. I am repeating the exercise as of 20 minutes ago..

It's also worth restarting your phone, if you haven't already, to make sure there's not something aberrant going on.

I have been doing some tests as well, this time with battery life.

I'm currently using a Nexus One, and I'm not sure if it will last the 45 hours that cintra mentioned above, but I did see a huge difference after uninstalling RTM. I was using manual sync and no location check at all, oh and no RTM widget. My phone usually (with RTM) lasted13 hours, at that time it was screaming for a charge (less than 5%).

Uninstalled RTM, when I was on 15 hours running on batteries the phone still had 35% battery life.

There must be something going on here in which the background service is using too many resources, or even firing up when its not supposed to. If I have no widgets, no location updates, and I'm syncing manually, it shouldn't fire up at all. Yet, sometimes I go into my task manager and I see it running, that should explain things a little.

Thanks for your replies andrew (is that your name?) ;)

velazcod, thanks for some more details; I've added this to our list to investigate. (And yes, my name is Andrew.) ;)