Question Are apps like Naptime and Servicely relevant anymore in Android 12?

[mocmocmoc]

Some people are still arguing about this purely from anecdotal experiences.

 

[cyanGalaxy]

That's a very good question and now I want to find this out as well... I've installed Gsam Battery Monitor, Greenify, Servicely and Naptime.

I'm on Xiaomi.eu Custom ROM (Stable). I used to have better battery life (especially on Standby!) when I was still on an AOSP-based Custom ROM (ArrowOS). I have a feeling that the MIUI Always-On-Display causes Android Doze to not activate and that my device is essentially awake the whole time. I'm not sure about this observation, but Settings > Battery > Sort by "Details" tells me that my device is on. The whole time...

I've unrestricted the Battery monitoring apps I've installed, I'll leave AOD enabled, and see for another night if it is actually preventing my phone from going into Doze Sleep. Next night I'll disable AOD, and the night after that I'll enable Extreme Doze-Mode in Naptime and see the behaviour then.

Rant about Xiaomi LOL:
One thing I know for sure is that MIUI is so horribly coded. I don't need to be an OS developer to know this, you can just feel how dirty their custom implementations are. Ranging from their AOD, their Navbar/Gesture Controls, to the Adaptive Refresh rate.
It's like Xiaomi is trying to make the software deliberately feel cheap, because otherwise their phones would be too good, because their hardware is really good for the price. You can't just make a Poco F3 300€. The hardware is insanely good, but the Stock ROM is crap.

 

[mocmocmoc]

I've installed Gsam Battery Monitor, Greenify, Servicely and Naptime.

I have stop using Greenify (it has not updated for 2 years) and lately have also replaced Naptime and Gsam/AccuBattery for BatteryGuru which combined both the main features (battery monitoring and aggressive Doze function).
I'm on ArrowOS 12.1 now, it seems Android11 gave me the best battery life, A12 was horrible and A12L is bearable.
I think it's time I stop worrying about battery and just replace the damn thing every 3 years lol.

 

[cyanGalaxy]

I have stop using Greenify (it has not updated for 2 years) and lately have also replaced Naptime and Gsam/AccuBattery for BatteryGuru which combined both the main features (battery monitoring and aggressive Doze function).
I'm on ArrowOS 12.1 now, it seems Android11 gave me the best battery life, A12 was horrible and A12L is bearable.
I think it's time I stop worrying about battery and just replace the damn thing every 3 years lol.

I don't think Battery Life is related to the Android Version you're using, but more which brand's ROM you use. For example Samsungs OneUI seems more trustable than MIUI in terms of Reliability.

But you're likely best served on Clean Vanilla Android, in terms of Battery Life at least.

But also make sure to use a trusted and genuine AOSP ROM. Not one of those, where the Main Dev can't write proper English and uses some obscure Custom Kernel or whatever.. Use one that's known and popular.

I did figure out that MIUI's Always-On-Display kept the CPU awake at all times. I could see it in Settings > Battery, and changing "Ranking" to "Details".

I don't know if that's normal for AOD or if it's MIUI's implementation of AOD, but my god.. AOD shouldn't drain that much. But now my battery life is normal again. ^^

 

[litetaker]

I don't think Battery Life is related to the Android Version you're using, but more which brand's ROM you use. For example Samsungs OneUI seems more trustable than MIUI in terms of Reliability.

But you're likely best served on Clean Vanilla Android, in terms of Battery Life at least.

But also make sure to use a trusted and genuine AOSP ROM. Not one of those, where the Main Dev can't write proper English and uses some obscure Custom Kernel or whatever.. Use one that's known and popular.

I did figure out that MIUI's Always-On-Display kept the CPU awake at all times. I could see it in Settings > Battery, and changing "Ranking" to "Details".

I don't know if that's normal for AOD or if it's MIUI's implementation of AOD, but my god.. AOD shouldn't drain that much. But now my battery life is normal again. ^^

For all practical purposes, the best/definitive experience of Android is obtained on a Samsung device nowadays. So much so that Google released certain new features in some of their apps on Samsung devices ONLY to begin with, not even their own Pixel devices. And Pixel software experience is terrible. And Samsung has innovated so many new features that Google slowly incorporates into stock Android. Samsung Dex is still unparalleled. I personally don't like some aspects of Samsung UI. The squircle icons, the excessively round UI elements with large paddings.. Sadly, Google seems to have incorporated some of this into Android 12's Material You styling. Android 12 looks more like a Samsung One UI skin. That was my FIRST impression when I played around with Material You, i.e. how much it reminded me of Samsung's style.

I agree that Xiaomi's MIUI has a load of flaws in them. The latest is their custom per-app dark mode override has been broken since they released MIUI 13 and before that you had to do some funky things to make it show the list of apps. They never allowed us to see notification history for some strange reason. These are two issues I can think off right away. But otherwise I feel that the software is pretty decent and I had no major issues with it and the battery life with Stock ROM is quite good. I personally don't understand the vehement negativity towards MIUI. Perhaps in the past it was attrocious, but now it is decent. Just like Samsung's One UI. Remember the awful TouchWiz days!? I still have an old tablet with Samsung's touch wiz on it! Bottom line, MIUI is nothing exemplary, but definitely usable and fine, with some minor issues.

In fact, I do like some of the things in MIUI versus stock. I like the fact that the Settings button is immediately visible in the notification shade (like it USED to be on Stock Android) rather than having to swipe again to reveal the quick toggles. I do like some of their built in apps, like the Clock, Calculator (which is very feature rich) and Compass app. So, overall not too shaby.

But I ranted a lot in this thread and none of this is relevant for this topic! So back to relevance...

I do use GSam battery monitor and after a lot of usage I feel like my battery life on Stock MIUI is similar to Arrow OS. I used Arrow OS 11, I used MIUI 12 and 13 and the battery life on all of them was very similar. Arrow OS 11 had some weird bugs with incoming phone call sound and Bluetooth when using Navigation. But Stock MIUI has no such issues. I've slowly decided to stop paying close attention to battery life as it is mostly very good for my usage.

 

[cyanGalaxy]

For all practical purposes, the best/definitive experience of Android is obtained on a Samsung device nowadays. So much so that Google released certain new features in some of their apps on Samsung devices ONLY to begin with, not even their own Pixel devices. And Pixel software experience is terrible. And Samsung has innovated so many new features that Google slowly incorporates into stock Android. Samsung Dex is still unparalleled. I personally don't like some aspects of Samsung UI. The squircle icons, the excessively round UI elements with large paddings.. Sadly, Google seems to have incorporated some of this into Android 12's Material You styling. Android 12 looks more like a Samsung One UI skin. That was my FIRST impression when I played around with Material You, i.e. how much it reminded me of Samsung's style.

...

For me the hate for MIUI stems from all the little things.

Notification History & Log being hidden (Can be accessed through an Activity Launcher),
Holding a notification and clicking "More" doesn't bring to you to the specific notification channel,
No Gestures on 3rd Party Launchers,
Recents-Animations broken on 3rd Party Launchers,
Dolby Atmos Sound effect doesn't apply to the first volume step.
Touch Sounds are way too loud, regardless of users volume,
For Google Clock to work properly, you need to disable MIUI Battery Saver,
MIUI Boot Sound is way too loud, also regardless of users volume,
Annoying additional restrictions/permission-manager which cannot be turned off anymore,
Fullscreen Pop-Up with user-unfriendly 10 second timer when trying to change sensitive permissions,
Adaptive Refresh Rate only activating when Screen-brightness is >80%, and only after 2 second delay,
YouTube, Games etc are forced to 60 Hz,
MIUI Camera doesn't respect Default-Gallery setting and always uses MIUI Gallery,
Default Camera cannot be changed,
Monet Colours cannot be customised,
Almost all apps used to get forcibly themed dark (even when the app already had Dark Mode), and you had to individually disable it for all apps. This made text from some apps unreadable.

I do like a few changes Xiaomi has done to Android with MIUI, like bringing back down the Brightness-bar (retarded change from Google), Custom Fonts, the really cool Live Wallpapers, its Dolby Atmos and much more...
I also do like many of their apps like Mi Fitness and the Calc...

But all the little issues give me micro-aggression. It's not a 100% reliable OS in my opinion and I'm still a tiny bit concerned about its Privacy & Tracking.. it's still a chinese company and China is ruled by CCP. The chinese Gov't can control their Tech companies.

Samsungs OneUI does indeed seem like a good and stable experience. But I'm also not a fan of goofy rounded corners and padding.
I bought my Galaxy Note 8 when TouchWiz was still a thing. Then a System update came and upgraded me to OneUI 1.0 and I kinda didn't like it all that much. TouchWiz looked a bit more professional to me, but that's just personal preference.
I'm more into Edgy than Curvy ;D

 

[BrokeBloke1969]

Yes, Naptime still makes quite a difference with its agressive dove settings and disabling sensors.

Even with how optimized Android 12 is you cannot escape bad programmed third party apps, so use something like IceBox to freeze not often used apps too

 

[litetaker]

For me the hate for MIUI stems from all the little things.

Notification History & Log being hidden (Can be accessed through an Activity Launcher),
Holding a notification and clicking "More" doesn't bring to you to the specific notification channel,
No Gestures on 3rd Party Launchers,
Recents-Animations broken on 3rd Party Launchers,
Dolby Atmos Sound effect doesn't apply to the first volume step.
Touch Sounds are way too loud, regardless of users volume,
For Google Clock to work properly, you need to disable MIUI Battery Saver,
MIUI Boot Sound is way too loud, also regardless of users volume,
Annoying additional restrictions/permission-manager which cannot be turned off anymore,
Fullscreen Pop-Up with user-unfriendly 10 second timer when trying to change sensitive permissions,
Adaptive Refresh Rate only activating when Screen-brightness is >80%, and only after 2 second delay,
YouTube, Games etc are forced to 60 Hz,
MIUI Camera doesn't respect Default-Gallery setting and always uses MIUI Gallery,
Default Camera cannot be changed,
Monet Colours cannot be customised,
Almost all apps used to get forcibly themed dark (even when the app already had Dark Mode), and you had to individually disable it for all apps. This made text from some apps unreadable.

I do like a few changes Xiaomi has done to Android with MIUI, like bringing back down the Brightness-bar (retarded change from Google), Custom Fonts, the really cool Live Wallpapers, its Dolby Atmos and much more...
I also do like many of their apps like Mi Fitness and the Calc...

But all the little issues give me micro-aggression. It's not a 100% reliable OS in my opinion and I'm still a tiny bit concerned about its Privacy & Tracking.. it's still a chinese company and China is ruled by CCP. The chinese Gov't can control their Tech companies.

Samsungs OneUI does indeed seem like a good and stable experience. But I'm also not a fan of goofy rounded corners and padding.
I bought my Galaxy Note 8 when TouchWiz was still a thing. Then a System update came and upgraded me to OneUI 1.0 and I kinda didn't like it all that much. TouchWiz looked a bit more professional to me, but that's just personal preference.
I'm more into Edgy than Curvy ;D

I guess these can be frustrating issues for some, but none of this is an issue for me. I tend not to get overly worked up by minor software issues. In fact I do not mind the additional 10 second delay for sensitive permissions. For power users it maybe too annoying, but for ordinary users it is useful to show such warnings to help them avoid making big mistakes and messing up their phones or falling for scams. And anyway, it is just an extra 10 seconds delay. I do admit that blocking access to notification history is annoying but I have learned to live with it. Having the per app dark mode option is genuinely useful as it allows me to force dark mode on only some apps that I use that don't have a dark mode built in, rather than forcing it on all apps via Developer tools. Although this is not working anymore on MIUI 13.

 

[cyanGalaxy]

I guess these can be frustrating issues for some, but none of this is an issue for me. I tend not to get overly worked up by minor software issues. In fact I do not mind the additional 10 second delay for sensitive permissions. For power users it maybe too annoying, but for ordinary users it is useful to show such warnings to help them avoid making big mistakes and messing up their phones or falling for scams. And anyway, it is just an extra 10 seconds delay. I do admit that blocking access to notification history is annoying but I have learned to live with it. Having the per app dark mode option is genuinely useful as it allows me to force dark mode on only some apps that I use that don't have a dark mode built in, rather than forcing it on all apps via Developer tools. Although this is not working anymore on MIUI 13.

I think the Warning with 10 sec-timer is the most infuriating one. :x

About Notification History, you can download Activity Launcher, search "Notification History" and make a shortcut for that hidden Activity to your Home screen!
That's what I did, because I use Notification Log & Notification History regularly.

However Notification-History on MIUI is a bit broken. You have to enable Light Mode to see the text properly

 

[litetaker]

I think the Warning with 10 sec-timer is the most infuriating one. :x

About Notification History, you can download Activity Launcher, search "Notification History" and make a shortcut for that hidden Activity to your Home screen!
That's what I did, because I use Notification Log & Notification History regularly.

However Notification-History on MIUI is a bit broken. You have to enable Light Mode to see the text properly

Thanks a lot for the tip on how to get Notification History! That is very useful! It is stupid that Xiaomi blocks us from accessing this useful information natively and we need to use a third party app to expose this activity, but at least now I can see the history and get some info! Sometimes I get a ping on my phone and I am not sure which notification caused it. Now I can get more clarity! Yay!

 

[Abdel1993]

Yes, Naptime still makes quite a difference with its agressive dove settings and disabling sensors.

Even with how optimized Android 12 is you cannot escape bad programmed third party apps, so use something like IceBox to freeze not often used apps too

We are now 1 year on, and Naptime + Servicely doesn't matter one bit on new devices. I've been running Android 13 for a while now and have never felt the need to install these two apps.

With Android 14 around the corner, app efficiency will be addressed even further by TARE and the introduction of new background APIs.

 

[lapirado]

I'm still using naptime since a9/10. And see no reason to not use it. Induce deep sleep faster.
BTW, anyone noticed that naptime was removed from play store?

 

[cyanGalaxy]

I'm still using naptime since a9/10. And see no reason to not use it. Induce deep sleep faster.
BTW, anyone noticed that naptime was removed from play store?

Yup i think Naptime and Servicely do improve my battery life! I can see from the Naptime Doze-logs that my phone goes to Deep Doze faster and the battery life does seem improved.

I just checked, and Naptime seems to be gone from Play Store, tho not Servicely. I think Google are being twats again...

 

[skyNET]

Yup i think Naptime and Servicely do improve my battery life! I can see from the Naptime Doze-logs that my phone goes to Deep Doze faster and the battery life does seem improved.

I just checked, and Naptime seems to be gone from Play Store, tho not Servicely. I think Google are being twats again...

Hi, I could not run Naptime on Oxygen OS without Root. Did you find a solution? It worked fine on OOS11.

 

[cyanGalaxy]

Hi, I could not run Naptime on Oxygen OS without Root. Did you find a solution? It worked fine on OOS11.

Does the app not start for you? You don't need Root, you can grant the permissions via ADB.

 

[skyNET]

Does the app not start for you? You don't need Root, you can grant the permissions via ADB.

First of all thanks for your answer.
Yes, of course, it doesn't start properly, it shuts down quickly. I gave permissions with adb in OOS11 and it was doing its job really well (Naptime). But after I upgraded to OOS 12, I saw that the following command string "adb -d shell pm grant..." did not work and gave an error. I can't get around this problem, have you tried it? Naptime is a really successful app and OOS needs it.

 

[cyanGalaxy]

First of all thanks for your answer.
Yes, of course, it doesn't start properly, it shuts down quickly. I gave permissions with adb in OOS11 and it was doing its job really well (Naptime). But after I upgraded to OOS 12, I saw that the following command string "adb -d shell pm grant..." did not work and gave an error. I can't get around this problem, have you tried it? Naptime is a really successful app and OOS needs it.

What error?

Enable USB debugging, connect your phone to PC, get the Google SDK Platform Tools, open the folder in Terminal, and type the commands exactly as written.

If you are on MIUI, you also have to enable "USB Debugging (Secure Settings)"

 

[skyNET]

What error?

Enable USB debugging, connect your phone to PC, get the Google SDK Platform Tools, open the folder in Terminal, and type the commands exactly as written.

If you are on MIUI, you also have to enable "USB Debugging (Secure Settings)"

Let me show you the simplest with BBS!

 

[cyanGalaxy]

Let me show you the simplest with BBS!

Try "adb shell" -> "pm grant ..........."

 

[skyNET]

Try "adb shell" -> "pm grant ..........."

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