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System Monitor: Live Metrics
Tapping the plots at the top of the home screen opens the System Monitor, which initially displays "Live" metrics indicating the current state of the device. This feature is also accessible by selecting "Monitor" from the home screen menu.
The upper portion of the Live Metrics screen shows recent processor and network bandwidth consumption (for the last two minutes), average processor clock speed, and a breakdown of processor utilization by activity type. |
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System Monitor: Live Metrics (Continued)
The lower portion of the Live Metrics screen shows memory and storage consumption, battery data, and temperature information.
Some devices, such as the Verizon HTC Droid Incredible, will also show internal storage utilization data. |
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System Monitor: Historical Metrics Plot View (full version only)
The historical metrics plot view shows an overview of how the device has been used over a period of time. The interval of time is selectable between 2 hours, 8 hours, 1 day, 3 days, or 1 week. Information about battery charge, processor utilization, screen usage, and battery charging state is displayed. |
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System Monitor: Historical Metrics Top Apps View (full version only)
The "Top Apps" view shows which applications have been using the most processor over a given time interval. Linux system processes (which are not Android applications) are grouped together in a "System Processes" category. As with the plot view, the interval to display is selectable. |
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System Monitor: Historical Metrics Top System Apps View (full version only)
Tapping the "System Processes" item brings up a breakdown of how each Linux system process has been using the processor.
In this particular screenshot, we see that the "mediaserver" process, which is responsible for tasks such as decoding MP3 files, used 4.1% of the processor over the last 8 hours. This occurred because the device was used to play music during this time. |
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Process Details: Historical Data (full version only)
Tapping on an item in the "Top Apps" view also takes us to the previously discussed "Process Details" screen. When the system monitoring service has been enabled, this screen will also show historical consumption information.
The screen at left shows that the MyTracks process was active from about 6:30pm to 8:15pm, during which time it consistently used a bit over 3% of the processor.
Note that this process has actually ended. With the monitor service running, we are still able to see historical information about processes which no longer exist. |
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Process Details: Historical Data (Continued) (full version only)
Scrolling down further on the Process Details screen, overall system monitoring data is displayed beneath the process-specific data.
From this screenshot, we can observe that the available battery decreased significantly while the MyTracks app was running. This is reasonable, given that the app was using the GPS receiver to record a route for two hours. |