I lost a draft post in Voyager on Android while I was a few apps away doing research and looking for a photo to add to the post.

That brought to me an understanding that Android will just kill apps for memory purposes.

Then I thought back to Windows 98 and how it had a page file that would write RAM information to the hard disk and use it as RAM. It was slow af, but it worked.

So I’m wondering: it’s 2026; why is Android just killing apps instead of writing them to a much faster drive for recall when needed?

  • schipelblorp@sh.itjust.worksOP
    2·
    19 hours ago

    Why does it necessarily have an impact on battery life? Can it just be dumped into memory and frozen there as a snap shot? It doesn’t need to be running.

    • sniggleboots@europe.pub
      1·
      18 hours ago

      I’m not a computer scientist, but doesn’t keeping RAM engaged cost energy? You can’t turn off your computer and expect the RAM to be unaffected like a hard drive is

      • schipelblorp@sh.itjust.worksOP
        1·
        17 hours ago

        I think it costs electricity to flip bits, but unless things are moving, there’s not much going on. If the app isn’t actively being used, I was wondewring why it couldn’t just get frozen in carbonite and dumped into storage until the user needed it again.