Android Background Processing Part 3: Services

Jul 5 2018

Learn about letting your app do work behind the scenes, starting with Threads & AsyncTasks, moving on to scheduling work, and finishing up with Services. By Joe Howard.

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Android Background Processing Part 3: Services

2 mins

Part three of our new Android Background Processing course is available today! In the final part of the course, you’ll take a look at the Android Service class. It’s a high-level Android component, available since API level 1, that lets you perform long-running actions that don’t require a user interface.

Learn about the different types of Services that are available, then try out an IntentService, learn to use a BroadcastReceiver, and play music while your app is in the background with a Foreground Service.

Part 3: Services

  1. Introduction: Get an introduction to the Android Service class and what you’ll learn about on Services in this part of the course.
  2. Android Services: Define Android Service-related terminology and see the various types of Services along with their typical uses.
  3. IntentService: Use an IntentService to run a potentially long-running task on a built-in background thread that completes when the task is done.
  4. Broadcast Receiver: See how to use a BroadcastReceiver to send local broadcasts from a background IntentService that are received by the main thread.
  5. Challenge: IntentService: Practice what you’ve learned about IntentService and BroadcastReceiver to download a data file and update the Photos screen when the download is complete.
  6. Foreground Service: See how to use a Foreground Service to allow your app to perform a long-running task like playing media when the rest of the app is in the background.
  7. Notifications: Learn how to use a notification to let your Foreground Service run on later versions of Android, including with a NotificationChannel on Android O and above.
  8. Conclusion: In this final episode, we’ll summarize this last part and the whole course, and then see an overview of Background Processing topics that were not covered.

Where To Go From Here?

Want to check out the course? You can watch the course Introduction, JobService, and BroadcastReceiver videos for free!

The rest of the course is for raywenderlich.com subscribers only. Here’s how you can get access:

  • If you are a raywenderlich.com subscriber: The entire course is ready for you today! You can check out the course here.
  • If you are not a subscriber yet: What are you waiting for? Subscribe now to get access to our new Android Background Processing course and our entire catalog of over 500 videos.

Stay tuned for more new and updated courses to come. I hope you enjoy the course! :]