Windows 8 Strives for Optimal Battery Life
Windows 8 is stingy doling out power to applications, particularly what Microsoft calls Metro-style applications written specifically for the operating system, all in an effort to prolong battery life.
Wed, February 08, 2012
This is important because Windows 8 devices include more battery-powered devices such as tablet computers.
According to the latest Building Windows 8 blog power efficiency is a priority feature that is designed into the operating system but also supported in Metro-style applications via a set of APIs that allow background application activity without draining battery reserves.
MORE WINDOWS 8: Users help fine-tune the beta
The developers say they tried to let applications in active use grab the resources they need but strip down the resources used by applications that are standing by.
Power scrimping extends to the operating system itself, the company says, an effort it calls power hygiene. The goal is to balance this economy with functionality, so, for example, applications finish tasks they have started even if users switch to something else.
This is the principle the engineers followed: if an app is not on screen, and the screen is not on, it should not impact battery life. The goal is to suspend applications that are not in active use, so any app should be in one of these three states: running in the foreground; suspended; or performing a background activity like printing.
Suspended apps get dumped from CPU scheduling; they don't even get the chance to tap the main processor. If enough apps are suspended and not making demands, the CPU could drop to a lower power state, the blog says.
The OS has a Background Tasks infrastructure that enables Metro apps to manage resources and give users options to set rules on background-task activity.
The system knows when it is plugged in and will run more background tasks then when they won't affect battery life. The example they give is of a news-reader app that pulls down content at night when the user is asleep, and the device is plugged in but otherwise idle, providing fresh news when the app is fired up in the morning.
The upside for users is they won't have to limit the number of apps running at any given time and can expect them to respond immediately when they are switched to. They don't have to worry about resources and shut apps down manually.
"The benefit of being able to suspend apps is that you get really fast switching between them without negatively impacting the battery life or performance of your system. This is altogether different than traditional desktop apps, where we are all used to optimizing our workflow for those apps that take a long time to launch."
