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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-24T00:41:34+00:00

I’m creating a service that runs in the background. It does the following: Gathers

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I’m creating a service that runs in the background. It does the following:

  • Gathers the user’s data (with permission)
  • Runs certain tasks every X minutes, and sends this data to a server every Y minutes
  • I’d like if other people could write their own UI, widgets and other cool stuff.

Currently, the service continues to run between task runs/network sends (without a wakelock).

The service listens for validation and runtime changes; this requires a separate process. There are ways around this but they would involve using IPC (which I don’t think would cause a big performance hit).

Questions:

  • Should the service be allowed to die between tasks or should I let it run without a wakelock?
  • Is it more effective to remain alive than to open a database every minute or so?
  • Can people use my service if it’s not in a separate process?
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    The question the arises, should my service be in it’s own process?

    No. By which I mean it should run in the same process as all your other components.

    I think it’d be nice if other people could write their own UI, widgets and other cool stuff.
    It doesn’t have to be in a separate process for this right?

    No. It will automatically be in a separate process from the code from the “other people”.

    Right now the service stays running between task runs/network sends (not keeping a wakelock though) as I figure it will be more effective than opening a database/doing setup every minute or so.

    Your users may disagree with this plan. Everlasting services are the reason why users attack developers with task killers and force-stops from the Settings app.

    Should it be allowed to die between or should I let it run without a wakelock?

    I recommend that you use an IntentService (since you need the background thread anyway for the network I/O) and let the service shut down in between polls. Also, please allow the user to control the values of X and Y from your opening paragraph.

    Tasks run on an interval, should my service die in between (having to reopen the DB)?

    Generally, yes. Opening the database takes a very small amount of time (e.g., handful of milliseconds), unless the flash storage is busy. That is a small price to pay to avoid complaints from users about your service running all of the time.

    Can people use my service if it’s not in a separate process?

    Yes, so long as you are exposing some API (AIDL, documented set of Intents to send as commands via startService(), etc.).

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