Aggressive RAM Management (ARM) is a term that you may or may not have heard of. I don’t hear it very often, but it is thrown around a fair bit.

What is Aggressive RAM management?

Aggressive RAM management is simply when a phone cannot keep apps in memory for an extended period of time. It refers to a situation where an operating system overzealously manages RAM.

Some OS and Android Skins are notorious for having very aggressive RAM management. Examples may include TouchWiz (Samsung), Oxygen OS (One Plus), iOS 13 (iPhone), MIUI (Xiaomi) etc.

Symptoms

One of the first things you’ll notice is that if you leave an app and return, the app basically starts all over. It would be as though you never opened it and this can be really annoying.

This makes multitasking nearly impossible. Because as soon as you switch apps, the OS simply kills the previous one.

Another symptom is that there’s never enough space even when there’s really no apps in memory.

Causes

Aggressive RAM management is caused by either:

  1. Poor RAM management
  2. Deliberate action

1. Poor RAM management

Poor RAM management is simply when the smartphone (Operating System) fails in its task of managing the RAM.

Details can be read here…

2. Deliberate action

Operating Systems can be designed to aggressively manage RAM. This means that whoever wrote the software, deliberately designed it to act this way.

If an OS is deliberately written to manage RAM aggressively, then you can be sure that the developers are trying to cover for some flaw in the software.

Benefits

Aggressive RAM Management can arguably help save battery and forestall out of memory situations.

Drawbacks

  • Whatever battery it may have saved, would be spent in reloading killed apps. Thus making the whole thing a pointless endeavor.
  • It would also seriously restrict multitasking and slowdown some phone functions.
  • Apps may be closed suddenly and without warning, even while in use.
  • It would be a source of frustration for the end user as it would not only waste time, but also battery as well.

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