Read the per-app figures honestly and find one anomaly

short · 30 min · Objective 3.2

Task

Read the battery, data and storage figures on a real device, and identify one genuine anomaly -- consumption disproportionate to use -- rather than simply naming whatever is at the top of the list. Distinguishing the two is the entire skill in this objective.

Steps

  1. Record the top eight applications by battery use in lab/mobapp/battery.csv with header app,percent,screen_time,background_time,anomaly.
  2. Record the top eight by data use in lab/mobapp/data.csv with header app,data_mb,expected,anomaly.
  3. Identify one anomaly, investigate it, and write lab/mobapp/anomaly.md naming the application, what made it an anomaly rather than simply the most-used, and what you did.
  4. Record the cache and data sizes for four applications in lab/mobapp/storage.csv with header app,cache_mb,data_mb,what_clearing_data_would_lose.
  5. Write lab/mobapp/permissions.md listing three applications whose permissions do not match what they do, and what symptom a denied permission would produce for each.

Verify

awk -F, 'NR>1 && NF>=5 {n++} END {print n" app(s) by battery"}' lab/mobapp/battery.csv
awk -F, 'NR>1 && $5 ~ /yes/ {n++} END {print n" battery anomal(ies)"}' lab/mobapp/battery.csv
awk -F, 'NR>1 && NF>=4 {n++} END {print n" app(s) by data"}' lab/mobapp/data.csv
awk -F, 'NR>1 && NF>=4 {n++} END {print n" app(s) sized"}' lab/mobapp/storage.csv
awk -F, 'NR>1 && $4!="" {n++} END {print n" app(s) with a loss assessment"}' lab/mobapp/storage.csv
grep -Ec '^[-*0-9]' lab/mobapp/permissions.md

Eight applications by battery and by data, four sized with what clearing their data would lose, and three permission mismatches. An anomaly column marked yes on the most-used application is usually the mistake this lab exists to prevent.

Notes

Background time against screen time is the whole discriminator. An application at forty per cent after four hours of use is a description of the day; one at ten per cent with two minutes of screen time is a finding.

This is an independent study companion for CompTIA A+ Core 2 220-1202 and is not produced by or endorsed by CompTIA.