Beginning Android 2

Chapter 30

Invoking a Service

Services can be used by any application component that hangs around for a reasonable period of time. This includes activities, content providers, and other services. Notably, it does not include pure broadcast receivers (i.e., intent receivers that are not part of an activity), since those will get garbage collected immediately after each instance processes one incoming Intent.

To use a local service, you need to start the service, get access to the service object, and then call methods on that service. You can then stop the service when you are finished with it, or perhaps let the service stop itself. In this chapter, we will look at the client side of the Service/WeatherPlus sample application. The WeatherPlus ...