Question

Should we start async task from within onHandleIntent() method of IntentService? I read that onHandleIntent() runs in worker thread so will it be safe to start asyncTask from there??

Answer 1

IntentServices already are background-processes; there’s no need to start an AsyncTask from there. Also, starting an AsyncTask is ‘safe’ from anywhere; it’s a helper class that helps you multithread. Just make sure you don’t manipulate Views in the doInBackground()-method of your AsyncTask if you use it in your Activity.

If you need to spawn multiple threads inside your IntentService, just use:

new Thread(Runnable r).start();

See an example at How to run a Runnable thread in Android?

If you need to call some kind of callback, use Handler. For an example, see http://www.vogella.com/articles/AndroidPerformance/article.html#handler