From Newsgroup: comp.mobile.android

I have an Android Xiaomi MIUI 9 cellphone.
My wife has an Android Samsung 13.

I have to use her phone occasionally and find its app handling awful.
Can I change the front end to something similar to the Xiaomi?

TIA
Alan
--
Linux Mint 22.1 kernel version 6.8.0-84-generic Cinnamon 6.4.8
AMD Ryzen 7 7700, Radeon RX 6600, 32GB DDR5, 2TB SSD, 2TB Barracuda
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From Newsgroup: comp.mobile.android

pinnerite <pinnerite@gmail.com> wrote:

I have an Android Xiaomi MIUI 9 cellphone.
My wife has an Android Samsung 13.

I have to use her phone occasionally and find its app handling awful.
Can I change the front end to something similar to the Xiaomi?

I have a Samsung. There is no "13" model. I have their Galaxy A36 on
which runs Android 16. Without details, I don't know what is your consternation with app handling. I've had LG before, and now Samsung,
with no problems with app handling; however, I suspect your issue
regards a preference, or a learning curve issue, not a defect.

With my Samsung A56 and Android 16, the current UI is Samsung's One UI.

https://www.samsung.com/us/apps/one-ui/

I'm currently at One UI 8.0. The above article mentions 8.5, but have
not yet been offered to update to that.

One UI showed up back at Android 9. You might have One UI, but an older version than for me, and each One UI version has different features or behaviors hence the versioning.

https://www.sammobile.com/samsung/software/
Section: "One UI"

I'm guessing you're wife is back on One UI 5.0. I didn't walk through
all the feature and behavior changes from 5.0 to 8.5 to see what
changed. To upgrade her One UI version probably means having to upgrade
to a later version of Android, but whatever is her actual phone model
may no longer be supported, so no upgrades of Android or One UI.
Android 13 came out in 2022, so maybe she can upgrade; however, if she
is having no issues regarding feature or bahavior preferences then she
may not appreciate moving forward, if possible.

Xioami used MIUI (c.2010-2024) for their UI, but I that got deprecated
to get replaced by HyperOS. You don't mention phone model, just MIUI
version. You don't mention what is the issue that makes Samsung a
problem to use versus Xioami.

I doubt you will find a non-root method to switch to a UI more to your
liking, and emulates MIUI 9, but I'm not Xioami experienced. I've not
bothered investigating how to root my Samsung phone to change Android
versions. However, you can get alternate app launchers, like Nova
Launcher. Not a recommendation (Nova might've died regarding updates)
since I don't use any of them. Lawnchair (open source) is another I've
seen users recommend. Octopi is another launcher choice. Niagara is a minimalist launcher, and no ads. Even Microsoft has a launcher for
Android.

Other users here may use still another alternate launcher they can
recommend. Which launcher you choose depends on what preference on
Xioami that you want available on Samsung. However, your issue,
whatever it is, is with your wife's Samsung phone, and she may not want
you putzing with it to adapt it to your preferences. I believe you can
switch between launchers, like use Lawnchair, and then disable it to let
your wife use One UI. Or, maybe just learn how to use One UI, and don't
change anything on your wife's phone.
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From Newsgroup: comp.mobile.android

On Sat, 13 Jun 2026 15:07:15 -0500
VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> wrote:

pinnerite <pinnerite@gmail.com> wrote:

I have an Android Xiaomi MIUI 9 cellphone.
My wife has an Android Samsung 13.

I have to use her phone occasionally and find its app handling awful.
Can I change the front end to something similar to the Xiaomi?

I have a Samsung. There is no "13" model. I have their Galaxy A36 on
which runs Android 16. Without details, I don't know what is your consternation with app handling. I've had LG before, and now Samsung,
with no problems with app handling; however, I suspect your issue
regards a preference, or a learning curve issue, not a defect.

With my Samsung A56 and Android 16, the current UI is Samsung's One UI.

https://www.samsung.com/us/apps/one-ui/

I'm currently at One UI 8.0. The above article mentions 8.5, but have
not yet been offered to update to that.

One UI showed up back at Android 9. You might have One UI, but an older version than for me, and each One UI version has different features or behaviors hence the versioning.

https://www.sammobile.com/samsung/software/
Section: "One UI"

I'm guessing you're wife is back on One UI 5.0. I didn't walk through
all the feature and behavior changes from 5.0 to 8.5 to see what
changed. To upgrade her One UI version probably means having to upgrade
to a later version of Android, but whatever is her actual phone model
may no longer be supported, so no upgrades of Android or One UI.
Android 13 came out in 2022, so maybe she can upgrade; however, if she
is having no issues regarding feature or bahavior preferences then she
may not appreciate moving forward, if possible.

Xioami used MIUI (c.2010-2024) for their UI, but I that got deprecated
to get replaced by HyperOS. You don't mention phone model, just MIUI version. You don't mention what is the issue that makes Samsung a
problem to use versus Xioami.

I doubt you will find a non-root method to switch to a UI more to your liking, and emulates MIUI 9, but I'm not Xioami experienced. I've not bothered investigating how to root my Samsung phone to change Android versions. However, you can get alternate app launchers, like Nova
Launcher. Not a recommendation (Nova might've died regarding updates)
since I don't use any of them. Lawnchair (open source) is another I've
seen users recommend. Octopi is another launcher choice. Niagara is a minimalist launcher, and no ads. Even Microsoft has a launcher for
Android.

Other users here may use still another alternate launcher they can
recommend. Which launcher you choose depends on what preference on
Xioami that you want available on Samsung. However, your issue,
whatever it is, is with your wife's Samsung phone, and she may not want
you putzing with it to adapt it to your preferences. I believe you can switch between launchers, like use Lawnchair, and then disable it to let
your wife use One UI. Or, maybe just learn how to use One UI, and don't change anything on your wife's phone.

Firstly, I was confused by the devices that my daughter's suggested to
my wife and mis-remembered the model number.

She has a Samsung A55 5G.
That doesn't change my opinion. Before the Xioami I also had a Samsung
and found it easy to manage. But this model drives me mad.
For example, she sometimes wants to make sure that an app has been
shutdown. On the Xiaomi. I can tap the bottom of the screen a couple
of times to display three buttons.

THe left-hand one will bring up a screen reduced size images of every
open app, two across.

Drag them off the screen and that's it.
On the Samsung my wife swipes the app up and off but is it shut down?

Thanks for the detailed information.

Alan
--
Linux Mint 22.1 kernel version 6.8.0-84-generic Cinnamon 6.4.8
AMD Ryzen 7 7700, Radeon RX 6600, 32GB DDR5, 2TB SSD, 2TB Barracuda
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From Newsgroup: comp.mobile.android

pinnerite <pinnerite@gmail.com> Wrote in message:

She has a Samsung A55 5G.
That doesn't change my opinion. Before the Xioami I also had a Samsung
and found it easy to manage. But this model drives me mad.
For example, she sometimes wants to make sure that an app has been
shutdown. On the Xiaomi. I can tap the bottom of the screen a couple
of times to display three buttons.

THe left-hand one will bring up a screen reduced size images of every
open app, two across.

Drag them off the screen and that's it.
On the Samsung my wife swipes the app up and off but is it shut down?

Simple answer: yes. Complicated answer: it depends. But for any
given app the two methods have the same effect, which is all you
need to know.

If you want to make it easy to operate your wife's phone, and she
yours, buy the same make - and possibly model - of phone. (It's
one reason I have an iPhone.)
--
Remove numerics from my email address.
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From Newsgroup: comp.mobile.android

pinnerite <pinnerite@gmail.com> wrote:

She has a Samsung A55 5G.
That doesn't change my opinion. Before the Xioami I also had a Samsung
and found it easy to manage. But this model drives me mad.
For example, she sometimes wants to make sure that an app has been
shutdown. On the Xiaomi. I can tap the bottom of the screen a couple
of times to display three buttons.

THe left-hand one will bring up a screen reduced size images of every
open app, two across.

That is a Recent list, not a list of running apps.

Drag them off the screen and that's it.

Removing an app from the Recent list does not unload it. That is a
history of recently opened apps. An app running in the background is
still running in the background after you remove the app from the Recent history. When in the background, an app may be still running, but most
times it has been suspended. It is still loaded whether in the Recent
history, or not.

On some Android phones, the Recent (history) list will show the number
of active backgrounded apps at the top left of the screen. You can tap
on that count to get a list of those active apps, and then opt to stop
them (unload them). I have the Samsung Galaxy A56 with Android 16, and
there is no active-app icon in the Recent list. Would be handy if it
did. The A3/x5x series are not top-of-the-line models, so probably why
I don't get to see a hint of actual running backgrounded processes when
viewing the Recent list.

If you have Developer Options enabled on your Android phone, select
Running Services. That will list all backgrounded processes, and the
memory each consumes. Nothing runs unless in memory. Many of the
backgrounded processes are not normally visible to the user, so you'll
see a lot of them that will never be listed in the Recent list. Just
because you see a previously used app listed in the Recent list does not
mean it is currently running. From the running services list, you could
select to Stop an app, but that's equivalent to crashing a process in
Windows using the taskkill /f command. Not a graceful means to actually
unload a backgrounded app.

You can also go into Settings -> Battery (might have to tap View
Details) to see a list of backgrounded apps since they consume some
power to stay active.

There are app killers that will show the backgrounded and active apps;
however, it can be confusing which app you want to kill. Could be what
looks like an ancilliary app you have to kill to get rid of it, and the
app that is visible to you. You might kill an backgrounded app, and it immediately reappears. For a service or a sticky app, if the OS sees it
is missing then it reloads it. You kill, the OS reloads.

Normally Android leaves apps in the background until their memory is
required by a newly loaded app. Unlike Windows and Linux where users
are accustomed to programs unloading when exited, not true in Android
while leaves old apps loaded until more memory is needed for a newly
loaded app. Closing the window or screen for an Android app is not the
same as exiting a program in Windows or Linux. The window disappeared,
but Android leaves the app running in the background. And the Recent
list you mention is just a history of apps you recently used, not a list
of running apps.

If you're the type that doesn't want many apps left running in the
background when you're no longer using them, Developer Options has a
setting where you can limit the number of concurrent backgrounded apps: background process limit. You could set it to "no background processes"
which means nothing gets left behind. You can only run foregrounded
apps (those you see). You could set the process limit to 1 to 4
processes. The standard limit is dynamic. Some users set a max process
limit to make their phones faster or more responsive since the
backgrounded apps are still consuming power and CPU. I played with that
a few years ago, but didn't feel I really needed to throttle the phone
as to how many processes it could run. I let Android figure that out.

There are a few apps that actually have an exit feature. Both the Edge
and Firefox web browsers on Android have an Exit or Quit entry in their
menu. That will really unload the app. Chrome does not have that
option. I have a couple other apps with a real exit option; else, all
the rest sit in the background until the OS decides to unload them when
their memory is needed for a newly loaded app. Most apps do not have a graceful real-exit option, so you hope a stop/kill on them doesn't fuck
up something.

The adaptive power saving feature in battery saver options can help with
lots of apps left running in the background. That's another technique
to reduce impact on the phone by backgrounded apps rather than killing
them off, or limiting how many can be concurrently running. Adaptive
power saving makes changes based on your pattern of phone usage, like
turn off AOD, reduce CPU speed to 70%, and/or reduce screen refresh to
60 Hz. Adaptive battery is an AI scheme trying to figure out which apps
you'll likely use in the next few hours versus those you won't use for
many more hours, or not until tomorrow, or later.

Rather than stop/kill a backgrounded app (that has no graceful exit
option), throttle the phone, or hope battery options eliminate the
impact of too many backgrounded app, you could go into the settings for
each app to disable it from running in the background. Settings -> Apps

show all apps -> select the app you want to disable from running in

the background -> App battery usage -> toggle off Allow Background
Usage. I don't have that option. The closes is choose the app ->
Battery where I can choose: Unrestricted (app uses battery without restriction), Optimized (OS tries to figure out best battery management
for the app), and Restricted (app gets no power when backgrounded).
That doesn't reduce the count of backgrounded apps, only how alive they
are regarding their allocation of battery power.

Again, the Recent (history) list you mention is NOT a list of currently
active backgrounded apps. It's just a history of what you've used. And
the default in Android is not to unload (exit) apps when you close their
window unless the app itself offer a real exit option.

On the Samsung my wife swipes the app up and off but is it shut down?

Nothing you do with the Recent list has any effect on whether or not the
listed app is currently running or not. If you kept a log of everything
you eat, like when trying to determine to what you may be allergic, that doesn't mean everything in that list is currently in your mouth nor does
it indicate what may be in your mouth now. You've seen MRUs (Most
Recently Used lists) in many programs, like documents you had previously
opened in Word, but that doesn't mean they are currently loaded in Word.

You cannot manage which apps are still running in the background using
the Recent list. If they are backgrounded, removing from the Recent
list means they remain backgrounded.

The Recent list is a history list, not a task manager.
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