Android Application Development Cookbook: 93 Recipes for Building Winning Apps

Recipe 1.6 Auto-Launching Your Application at Boot Time

Android Versions

Level 1 and above

Permissions

android.permission.RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED

Source Code to Download at Wrox.com

AutoStartApp.zip

If you need to automatically start your application whenever the device starts up, you need to register a BroadcastReceiver. This recipe shows you how.

Solution

To auto-launch your app during device boot-up, add a new class to your package and ensure that it extends the BroadcastReceiver base class. The following BootupReceiver class is an example:

package net.learn2develop.autostartapp;

import android.content.BroadcastReceiver;
import android.content.Context;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.widget.Toast;

public class BootupReceiver extends BroadcastReceiver {
    @Override
    public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {
        Toast.makeText(context, "App started", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();

        //---start the main activity of our app---
        Intent i = new Intent(context,MainActivity.class); 
        i.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK); 
        context.startActivity(i); 
    }
}

When the device boots up, it will fire this broadcast receiver and call the onReceiver() method. To display your activity when the device boots up, you will use an Intent object. Remember to add the FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK flag to the Intent object.

To register the broadcast receiver, you need to add the <receiver> element to the AndroidManifest.xml file. You also need the RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED permission: ...