Does Android tend to slow down over time?

[Rossini87]

I've had a Moto G for about 6 months now, and I've noticed in the last month that the phone has slowed down quite a bit. Sometimes it will take seconds to go back to the home screen or open an app when pressed, and even the home screen will have to refresh the icons at times. I've never experienced this one at first got the phone.

I remember reading about how the Nexus slowed down to a crawl after extended use, and it seems to be happening with my phone as well. But I also thought KitKat was supposed to fix this flaw.

I'm about to give this phone to my mom and was wondering if there is a way to fix the overall slowness with the OS on my Moto G.

Thanks

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Did you reboot?

I do feel Android phones get slower over time as you install more apps kinda like a PC. Some apps just insist on running at startup and staying open forever (Youtube, Facebook, Slacker Radio, etc.). The more of those you have Im sure the more sluggish the phone feels.

I just factory data reseted my Nexus 5 and its amazing how fast it boots with nothing on it.

 

[s44]

The G doesn't have a lot of storage... how full is it?

 

[Rossini87]

I have a 16GB model and have 4.78GB available. I've tried rebooting, and also try closing all of my apps whenever possible.

Is there a way to restore like on an iphone?

 

[Dice144]

I have the Moto G and mine started running really slow in the last 2-3 weeks.

 

[Bateluer]

Generally, very little natural slow down over time. However, apps evolve to use the evolving hardware in the device. And the Moto G wasn't exactly a super fast phone to begin with.

 

[Deeko]

Android apps achieve much of their multitasking prowess through persistent background services. The longer you have a device, the more apps you have installed, the more services there are running in the background. Leads to the feeling of slowness, especially on a device lacking top end specs.

 

[riahc3]

Sadly, this is a issue with Dalvik.

Since, all apps are translated on the moment, there tends to be a overhead.

You add that up with having services in the background translating code at the moment, and obviously all that sums up.

Thankfully, Android Runtime (ART) is going to fix that by natively interpreting code. At the same time, there will be a huge boost in battery life as well.

Problem? I believe (do not quote me on this) apps have to be recompiled to use ART instead of Dalvik. But there is a backwards compatibly layer so it is up to the devs to do this.

 

[maxi007]

in android mobiles , with passage of time you will install apps , its normal and as they run in background so definitely slows your mobiles
but in case you uninstall them still some dump files will be present in memory which affects the speed .
i would recommend there is some memory cleaner software , you can try them

 

[Muadib]

I have a 16GB model and have 4.78GB available. I've tried rebooting, and also try closing all of my apps whenever possible.

Is there a way to restore like on an iphone?

You can wipe the phone. Closing some apps is useless because they still run in the background. After you closed them, did you check to see what was still running?

 

[NikolaeVarius]

I have a 16GB model and have 4.78GB available. I've tried rebooting, and also try closing all of my apps whenever possible.

Is there a way to restore like on an iphone?

Its lagging like crazy because you're closing your apps all the time.

 

[Dulanic]

Android apps achieve much of their multitasking prowess through persistent background services. The longer you have a device, the more apps you have installed, the more services there are running in the background. Leads to the feeling of slowness, especially on a device lacking top end specs.

This plus apps get updates and those updates tend to make them larger as they add more and more things to them.

 

[jacktesterson]

Switch to ART

 

[soccerballtux]

This plus apps get updates and those updates tend to make them larger as they add more and more things to them.

I liked it better when they weren't adding Indian and Chinese localization to the official binary. No wonder it bloats

 

[BrightCandle]

Android does seem to degrade in performance over time. Yes apps get bigger and installing more of them does indeed add more background tasks, but actually I have found my devices get slower with each android release despite the fact the applications I use is basically staying the same or even reducing.

I find resetting the device and reinstalling the apps afterwards will restore performance, and I do this about every 3 months now as its happening at an increasing rate. There is definitely something wrong in the Android world, it has always been happening but its gotten worse with android 4 for some reason. A reset and a reinstall of all your apps (your google account remembers them btw so its easy to do) should restore performance back for a little while until it happens again.

 

[openwheel]

It is still best to wipe and start fresh every 6 months or so. Switching to ART helps. But the quick and easy soluton is to simply restart or wipe.

 

[shortylickens]

I swear we have this EXACT same thread every 3 or 4 months.

 

[nanwuemi]

you need to close apps on time, when you finish to use it...

 

[sm625]

I had to reboot my phone after 5 months of uptime. It was starting to act flaky and the charge light wouldnt come on when I plugged it in.

 

[sze5003]

I rarely ever notice my phone get slow. But I'm running a custom debloated Rom anyway. Stock...yes it will happen over time.

 

[s44]

I generally suspect it's due to one of the partitions getting (near) full, not any runtime issue. In any case a factory reset will fix it. As far as OP's question, device backups are straightforward with root... without root, you should probably use Helium.

 

[Axon]

Go out and get the AVG cleaner app. It clears a lot of the BS on your phone. Close all apps. http://blog.laptopmag.com/how-to-close-android-apps

If it really bothers you, bone up on what the other guys are saying here and install a different runtime enviorment.