Android Background Processing

You’ve made it to the end of this course! Well done! :] This was quite the fun ride, and you’ve learned so much about Android’s background processing mechanisms.

You started by learning about the WorkManager on a very small app. You saw how powerful the API is, and how you can add many constraints to each Worker. You also learned that you can observe Worker status, return data from workers, and even chain them!

This all proved to be very useful, when you implemented similar workers in a more complex application. You also used a CoroutineWorker, which has built-in support for Kotlin Coroutines.

And to top it all off, you’ve replaced some of the download workers you’ve built, with DownloadManager, an API which is specifically useful when you need to download files, and display the progress to users.

You then proceeded to build various types of Services in Android, starting with the most basic Service. After which you implemented IntentServices, broadcast receivers, and a ForegroundService, all of which had a slightly different behavior model.

Every service was different in the way it’s supposed to be used, and you learned that services have background restrictions!

Finally, you had to learn about legacy components and APIs in Android because you may encounter them in older projects and it’s important to know what they look like! :] The legacy concepts were the AsyncTask, JobScheduler and the AlarmManager!

But the party doesn’t stop there! There is so much to learn about threading and background processing nowadays, that you can always watch another course, or read another book! :]

Now that you’ve finished this course, you’re ready to watch the Kotlin Coroutines: In Depth course, which will give you a deep overview of the Kotlin Coroutines API.

You can also read our Kotlin Coroutines By Tutorials book, which should give you an even deeper dive into the API, with more technical and theoretical content, and many fun examples.

There are many other tutorials on our website, such as the Beginning RxKotlin course, or the Kotlin Flow: Getting Started course. These courses cover writing asynchronous code using streams of data, a very popular topic in the Android community.

Once again, such a good job on finishing this course! You’re ready to dive deeper in the world of Android development! Good luck, and see you in the next course! :]