Why dont Android applications provide an "Exit" option?

Question

Is there something in the Android developer guidelines that disuades developers from providing the option to "exit" (stop running) an application from within the application itself?

I love multitasking and all but it's not clear to me why:

• the vast majority of apps don't have their own Exit functions and hence just keep running forever
• don't give you a choice about running when you turn on the phone - they just do by default

Both of these things lead to memory usage constantly increasing and your device running with this performance burden all of the time despite the fact that you may only want certain apps to run some of the time.

Am I missing something?

Answer 1

Is there something in the Android developer guidelines that disuadea developers from providing the option to "exit" (stop running) an application from within the application itself?

Yes. It is generally not needed, just as it is generally not needed to restart a Web server because some user with a browser decided (s)he is done with a Web app.

the vast majority of apps don't have their own Exit functions and hence just keep running forever

They don't keep running forever. Android will close things up as needed.

don't give you a choice about running when you turn on the phone - they just do by default

Those developers aren't paying attention to me.

Both of these things lead to memory usage constantly increasing

Generally, it doesn't. If you find specific apps that do this, uninstall them.

and your device running with this performance burden all of the time

Generally, it doesn't. If you find specific apps that do this, uninstall them.

Also, this question is a duplicate of this one.

Answer 2

"Both of these things lead to memory usage constantly increasing"

Which doesn't matter since Android apps are limited to a fixed amount of RAM. Freeing RAM won't give more RAM to other apps.