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up vote 4 down vote favorite

How can I disable various social apps from updating while I'm at work (where I work with my laptop anyway)? The main point is conserving battery. (I have HTC Desire HD)

I don't want to turn off wifi completely since I might want to work with the phone occasionally

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4 Answers

up vote 7 down vote accepted

The 'Power Control' widget has five buttons for turning various functions on and off - including one controlling updating of applications (the circular one with two arrows on it). You can add this widget by long pressing (press and hold) somewhere on your home screen, then selecting 'Widget' from the menu that pops up, then 'Power Control'. I believe that if you press the 'refresh' button to turn it off, it should stop applications updating automatically, but they can still be refreshed manually if needed.

The widget also has handy buttons for easily turning on and off wifi, bluetooth and gps, and changing screen brightness. It takes up a whole row on the home screen though, so you might need to make some room.

edit - the below image shows the power control widget with updating turned on, and all other functions turned off, taken from: HTC Desire review at android.marvinlee.net: HTC Sense Homescreen

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FYI, the Power Control Widget is a part of the stock widget and is available in all(?) Android phones. – Lie Ryan Feb 17 '11 at 10:53
Ah, excellent - didn't realise that. New to this - I'm guessing that it would be good to edit the answer to remove incorrect info? – Martin Feb 17 '11 at 11:00
The only problem with this solution is that not all the applications follow the "Auto-Update" state of the phone, so some applications will probably continue to send notifications. – jmbouffard Feb 17 '11 at 13:11
up vote 1 down vote

Since you do not want to disable wifi or data use, I would check each of the social apps to see if each of them have a setting to disable updates that you can turn on/off or set a time limit on. Getting a task killer which can permanently disable apps from starting would also help. You could always turn off wifi and/or data use until you need it since these settings are easy to get to in the phone.

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That will get very annoying after a couple times going through every app to turn them on/off. – Matthew Read♦ Feb 17 '11 at 14:38
up vote 0 down vote

I disable 3G data. I still receive/make calls and receive/send sms using "beautiful widgets".

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Apps will still update over WiFi whether 3G is on or not. – Matthew Read♦ Feb 17 '11 at 14:39
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I put my phone in "Airplane Mode" to save battery and prevent annoying notifications.

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1  
He doesn't want to shut off WiFi. – Matthew Read♦ Feb 17 '11 at 14:37
Can you make calls in Airplane Mode? – Nathan Fellman Mar 23 '11 at 19:22

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