Question

I’m writing an Android application that records audio every 10 minutes. I am using a Timer to do that. But what is the difference between schedule and scheduleAtFixedRate? Is there any performance benefit in using one over the other?

Answer 1

The difference is best explained by this non-Android documentation:

Fixed-rate timers (scheduleAtFixedRate()) are based on the starting time (so each iteration will execute at startTime + iterationNumber * delayTime).

In fixed-rate execution, each execution is scheduled relative to the scheduled execution time of the initial execution. If an execution is delayed for any reason (such as garbage collection or other background activity), two or more executions will occur in rapid succession to “catch up.”

Fixed-delay timers (schedule()) are based on the previous execution (so each iteration will execute at lastExecutionTime + delayTime).

In fixed-delay execution, each execution is scheduled relative to the actual execution time of the previous execution. If an execution is delayed for any reason (such as garbage collection or other background activity), subsequent executions will be delayed as well.

Aside from this, there is no difference. You will not find a significance performance difference, either.

If you are using this in a case where you want to stay synchronized with something else, you’ll want to use scheduleAtFixedRate(). The delay from schedule() can drift and introduce error.