![]() PricingĪt ~£13.14 GBP (inc VAT), App Tamer is reasonably priced for what it does. As of 1.3.2, support for Fluid is quite patchy but an update to fix this is on the way. These applications are separate from Safari, allowing more granular over autostop. Fluid Appįluid is a OSX app which allows you to create “applications” from websites. These applications are perfect for autostopping. ![]() Photoshop (and to less extent, Pixelmator) also have unusually high idle CPU usage. Although receiving calls becomes impossible. While it isn’t an app I’d recommend autostopping, idle CPU usage is so ridiculously high that I find it beneficial to autostop it, saving ~7% CPU in the process. However, App Tamer can “wake” stopped background apps at specified intervals to allow them to update/free memory etc. Twitter and Tweetdeck can be autostopped safely, though obviously you lose the ability to update tweets/mentions etc in the background. This is also the reason why the Finder shouldn’t be autostopped. App Tamer is smart enough to let downloads finish before stopping Safari.Įvernote can be autostopped, though if you use services which integrate with Evernote (such as clippers etc), these would “freeze” while they wait for Evernote to respond. ![]() Safari is a good one to autostop for example, leaving a Facebook tab open while in the background causes the browser to use ~7% CPU. Apps for media playbacks such as iTunes, QuickTime, Movist etc shouldn’t be autostopped (doing so would stop playback when the application is in background). Generally, you would want to stop only windowed applications that you’ve installed, and leave background/system processes alone. Notebook left to idle for 15 minutes at room temperature. Idle CPU Temperatures (Room Temperature 26 degrees C) Very little difference due to maxed out CPU, although with lower background CPU usage, the task may have fished quicker. The heavy workload involves scanning a PDF using OCRKit, a task which stresses the CPU, Memory and read/writes to the SSD. Still a reasonable difference in battery life. Light workload includes web browsing, watching a few videos etc. This test was done on a Core 2 Duo MBP, newer Sandy Bridge/Ivy Bridge MBPs may see an even larger difference due to lower idle power consumption. Idle battery life shows a huge difference, with the CPU able to spend more time in C4 sleep state. Idle CPU usage should ideally be closer to 5%.Īpps which have been stopped by App Tamer will appear as “Not Responding” by the OS, and unless you switched to that particular app, it would be completely unusable. A recent update (1.3.2) allows a stopped app to resume automatically when you start scrolling, useful if you’re working on two windows side by side. Idling on the desktop, CPU usage with all apps open is ~15% (with Skype contributing to ~7%). The problem is that normally, I only use 1 or 2 apps at a time, and those in the background are constantly using CPU. Of course, you probably won’t want to do this on a Windows computer, but the “Mission Control” feature in Mountain Lion makes it feasible work like this (8GB of RAM and an SSD probably help as well). My workload involves having almost all of my frequently used applications open at once, and switching between them as I work. The purpose of App Tamer is quite simple, “pause” selected background apps to prevent them from using CPU, then instantaneously resume them when you need them. Not only are these applications reducing performance of foreground tasks, but the additional workload also reduces battery life and increases heat.Ĭontrol rampant background apps with App Tamer There is the exception however which continue to use CPU even while in the background and seemingly doing nothing. Unlike some utilities that let you manually stop processes, App Tamer automatically handles the details for you.Most Applications for OSX behave politely in the background, sitting idle and consuming very little CPU time. Its unique "AutoStop" feature will slow down or stop an application when you switch away from it, and then automatically restart it when you click back to it. App Tamer tames applications that are chewing up excessive CPU time and battery life on your Mac. That uses valuable processing (CPU) power, which leaves you with less CPU power, increased heat & fan noise, and reduced battery runtime. Some applications, particularly web browsers and older apps, continue running tasks or animating ads even when they're idle.
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