t0mm13b has already answered this question in a post [elsewhere](http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/43706/whats-the-best-way-to-restart-android-via-command-line-remotely#43708). He writes:

> [While displaying your carrier's shutdown animation:]
> 
> * Android is safely shutting down vital parts of the runtime.
> * The OS is also broadcasting intents to tell apps and services to gracefully close. These, in turn, flush their caches of all data and shared preferences, save what-nots to the sqlite database, et cetera.
> 
> In other words, apps and services are given a chance to do their cleanup systematically.
> 
> [Commands such as `adb reboot`] are harsher. They actually bypass the safety mechanisms for a graceful shutdown.