Beware the vampire app!
<p>This is a heads-up for all smartphone owners out there.  A few days ago I read <a href="http://www.technewsdaily.com/4422-buggy-apps-killing-smartphone-battery.html">Buggy Apps Killing Your Smartphone Battery</a>. And I can now certify that the problem is real.</p>
<p><span id="more-4394"></span></p>
<p>I&#8217;d been having what looked like serious battery issues on my HTC G2 for about the last 60 days. It was unclear whether the battery had lost its ability to hold a full charge or whether it was somehow draining at an abnormally high rate.  But it was pretty bad &#8211; forcing me towards getting a new phone before I really wanted to.</p>
<p>Then I read this article.  Short version: buggy apps can eat the battery, presumably through failing to terminate or sleep themselves properly when they should.  OK, what the heck &#8211; I walked though my download list, deleting a bunch of apps I had downloaded and then decided weren&#8217;t interesting, but failed to delete.</p>
<p>To my delight, this cleared the problem up immediately.  My phone once again readily takes a full charge and can run for a day or more on it.  I haven&#8217;t been able to pin down which apps were the problem &#8211; I deleted about a dozen &#8211; but I can say this much: none of them was one I&#8217;m actually using.  Hacker&#8217;s Keyboard is OK, the Angry Birds games and Coloroid and Spider are OK, the Fandango client is OK, Nexus Torch and OpenRecorder are OK, and (despite a hint in the article) none of the preinstalled Android stuff seems to have been implicated in the excess power drain.</p>
<p>So&#8230;if you think your battery is going south, don&#8217;t panic.  Houseclean all those junk apps off your phone and see what happens. It worked for me.</p>
