Autostart Manager
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Description
In order to keep your device running as smoothly as possible, it's important to know what programs are running at startup, sometimes even without your knowledge. It is not unusual that startup programs have cryptic names and it is not clear Whether they are necessary or malicious. The goal of this article is to suggest the improvement in design of Auto-start at reboot policy of nokia.
There are also some application which user uses always. User always want some application to start with the phone. For example, messenger application & mail applications, voice recorder. It may happen that all application is not providing auto start feature. Nokia should introduce an inbuilt phone application like Autostart manager. Where user can see all the application available on his/her device. And user can select which application he want to be start on phone start. The selected applications will then be automatically started when the phone is turned on. By providing this feature inbuilt on device, user will have not to start the same application over and over again after every restart of phone.
For example, On computer people set their outlook expres (Mail application ) & other chat application (gtalk, yahoo chat) to be started automatically once window start process completed. Now a days the smart devices are not less than any computer (Nokia N97 provides 32 GB inbuilt memory & widget concept) .So phone manufacturer should provide same feature on phone also. It can also help user to set autostart spam filter type of applications on phone start.
This is also important from the user point of view as now he has the full control of his device applications which he want to auto start and which not.
How do you find what's running at startup?
Finding out what's running at startup is very difficult task in symbian. It will be very useful, if Nokia add one application in device which monitor/handle Startup List of device and from which user can on/off auto boot of application, instead of handling it through each application separately.
Where the AutoStart Manager will be suitable?
It will be expected in Main menu->Settings->AutoStart Manager. like following.
How will it looks like? On clicking Autostart manager, it will open the application which handle Startup List. Application will show a list of all installed application with check box. This check box will allow user to add or remove application from AutoStart Manager.
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What features it must includes?
- Allow users to on/off autostart of application.
- It show only certified/express signed application in list.
A search box can also be added in application manager, to search easliy any application by it's name. For example If user press "a" in search box, he will be able to see only application starting with "a" letter. It will be very helpful for the user who has installed lots of application on his phone. Following can be the screen design with search box.
Advantage of AutoStart Manager
- Developer can not have to worry about UNI-11 test criteria.
- User can set auto-start on/off of more than one application from Startup List.
- when installing the application and change the setting later on from the application settings
This is good suggestion to introduce a Autostart Manager. But probably you need to take into account the memory managment for the applications running. Its very difficult to run many applications simulteneously and hence auto-starting the application can add to the cheos.
Insted if nokia can add a Task manager for mobile devices, it will be great convenience. Mant times the application hangs, so in situations like this it would be better to shut down the application rather than restaring the mobile.