Android Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide, 2nd Edition

26 Background Services

All the code you have written so far has been hooked up to an activity, which means that it is associated with some screen for the user to look at.

But what if you do not need a screen? What if you need to do something out of sight and out of mind, like play music or check for new blog posts on an RSS feed? For this, you need a service.

In this chapter, you will add a new feature to PhotoGallery that will allow users to poll for new search results in the background. Whenever a new search result is available, the user will receive a notification in the status bar.

Creating an IntentService

Let’s start by creating your service. In this chapter, you will use an IntentService. IntentService is not ...