Question

I want to make an activity that starts a (service or thread) that repeats the same commands continuously every x seconds.

How to I go about doing the following:

1. The (service or thread) needs to run in the background even though the os destroys the activity.
2. I only want 1 (service or thread) running even though my activity is destroyed and created multiple times
3. When a user uninstall the activity, I would like to kill the (service or thread)

I would appreciate some pointers to lead me in the right direction.

Answer 1

In my opinion, you should use AlarmManager with an IntentService to schedule repeating background tasks. You can even have alarms wake up the phone to execute your code with AlarmManager.

See:

https://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/AlarmManager.html

http://mobile.tutsplus.com/tutorials/android/android-fundamentals-scheduling-recurring-tasks/

http://android-er.blogspot.in/2010/10/simple-example-of-alarm-service-using.html

In case of phone restart, you will need to trigger the alarm manager again. See this tutorial for exact instructions on how to do this:

http://www.androidenea.com/2009/09/starting-android-service-after-boot.html