Question

My app supports users down to 1.6 (API level 4) and I want to use WakefulIntentService for scheduled background checks of required data. From a blog post on Dec. 28 2010, Mark indicates the reasoning for dropping support in 0.4.0 and later. From what I can tell, the only real concern with the method used in 0.3.0 is handling a crashing service. If I were to make sure the service never crashed (try not to giggle) would that mean I could safely use 0.3.0, or are other issues afoot?

Answer 1

If I were to make sure the service never crashed (try not to giggle)

:: covers mouth, stifles a pending guffaw ::

would that mean I could safely use 0.3.0, or are other issues afoot?

Uh, well, it’s more that I’m not supporting it on Android 1.x.

Since there have been other modifications, though, you might consider updating your copy of the current stuff to (try to) work on Android 1.x rather than using the older implementation. That should involve:

• Getting rid of the @Override annotation on onStartCommand(), as that might give you VerifyErrors when trying to load it on older Android versions

• Adding onStart() that just calls onStartCommand() and eats the return value

Two other notes:

1. It’s better to ask questions regarding CommonsWare-specific stuff on the cw-android Google Group. I don’t read every question on StackOverflow, but I don’t miss anything on cw-android.

2. I’ll be making a minor update to WakefulIntentService by early next week, so keep tabs on the project.