Develop Reference

Android O : PHONE_STATE broadcast limitation

I have been trying to do something similar to truecaller app, where my app is supposed to show a screen after a call gets hung up. Was achieving this by registering android.intent.action.PHONE_STATE implicit broadcast in the manifest file.
But it is not working if I change the app to target Android O, because of the Android O broadcast limitation, and I'm trying to figure out an alternative solution to this use case.
Alternative solutions suggested in android docs: Job scheduler or register a service with context.
Job scheduler: Because of the Job scheduler optimizations there will be some delay to receive the callback. So it will affect the user experience if our app screen is shown a few min after the phone call and polling to check for new call logs every few seconds causes battery drain issue.
Register service with context in Java: I want the behavior to work even if the app is not active or alive. This will not work if the system kills the Service.
Register a Foreground Service: This requires a notification to be shown to the user all the time, which would be spam the user, and running a service 24/7 consumes lots of resources which defeats the whole purpose of broadcast limitation.
Please suggest an alternate solution so that the user experience remains the same.
Thanks in advance

Eventually, the action was added to the "Implicit Broadcast Exceptions" list so you can add ACTION_PHONE_STATE_CHANGED to your manifest and it will work:
https://developer.android.com/guide/components/broadcast-exceptions
ACTION_CARRIER_CONFIG_CHANGED,
TelephonyIntents.ACTION_*_SUBSCRIPTION_CHANGED,
"TelephonyIntents.SECRET_CODE_ACTION", ACTION_PHONE_STATE_CHANGED,
ACTION_PHONE_ACCOUNT_REGISTERED, ACTION_PHONE_ACCOUNT_UNREGISTERED
OEM
telephony apps may need to receive these broadcasts.

You have only one solution, use a foreground service and register the broadcast receiver in the service.

As there is NO proper solution to read the PHONE_STATE from Android O. The best alternative we can go for is to trigger a job on new call log entry from the content provider. By this, the behaviour is maintained of showing a screen(with a few sec of delay) after the call ends.
NOTE : The disadvantage is we cannot get the state of the phone call(Ringing or off_the_hook etc.,). The call back will only be received after the new call log has been added to the System DB.

For me, and my production app, the solution would be to avoid targeting api 25 and above, until a better workaround/api comes up.
If your app targets level 24 or below, you're not affected by the new Implicit Broadcast Limitations and your app can still listen to PHONE_STATE broadcasts even when your app is not running.
An app targeting lower APIs can still be downloaded and installed normally on new Android versions, the only reason to update your sdkTarget value is if your app requires usage of new APIs.

There seems to be an broadcast exception for ACTION_NEW_OUTGOING_CALL but not one for incoming call (or when call ends). It seems like a bug to have one for outgoing but not one for incoming. There's been a bug report filed in google issue tracker. Hopefully their answer will clarify what we should be doing.
I'll update this answer if/when the bug tracker gets updated.

As mentioned here: https://issuetracker.google.com/37273064#comment4, ACTION_PHONE_STATE_CHANGED (android.intent.action.PHONE_STATE) will be whitelisted for the Android O release. Though they may be replaced with a different mechanism in a future release.

Android broadcast receiver to get status of installation even app is closed

Hi I am working with android.Firstly I am not familiar with broadcast receiver. I need to create an app in which, if anyone installed my app a broadcast receiver will run which check the installation status like ACTION_PACKAGE_INSTALL and android.intent.action.PACKAGE_REMOVED
.But How can i get these status even my app is closed ?? Is it possible with broadcast receiver ?? Please help me, thanks in advance :)

basically, BroadcastReceiver can receives broadcasts even if your app is not in foreground, or even if your application's process is not alive.
this can be done by declaring the receiver within your application's Manifest.xml file
when you declare a receiver in the Manifest file - then the system would wake up your application and invoke your receiver if it set with the appropriate intent filter that responding to the broadcast that been sent (in your case - ACTION_PACKAGE_INSTALL and PACKAGE_REMOVED actions..)
but unfortunately there are also bad news for you:
from Android ICS and above - you cannot receive any broadcasts until you application launched explicitly by the user at least once!
this is due to security reasons Google decided is necessary, to prevent from malicious apps doing staff entirely transparent without the user launched them at all even once..
so the answer basically is - no! you can't perform any code and receive any events from your app until it launched at least once.
by the way - you wouldn't received ACTION_PACKAGE_INSTALL and PACKAGE_REMOVED broadcasts for your own app that been installed or uninstalled anyway.
by reading your question again, honestly I'm not sure what is that you expects to happend:
it is no make any sense to "check your application installed status" if it unistalled or not. after all - if it uninstalled - then it can't run (and perform any code) anyway.

Android receiver cannot always get broadcast correctly

I have a package added receiver in my Android application, and has been distributed for a couple months.
Recently I found that not all the PACKAGE_ADDED broadcasts can be received by my receiver.
looked up a while, someone said that if your app had been killed by users or system, then you will no longer get broadcasts.
My questions are:
Is that true?
confirmed, if you terminate your app from Settings->Applications --> force stop
then your application wont receive any broadcast.
How can I prevent this happening, or is there a work around?

1.Yes that is true.
2.Take a look at WakefulBroadcastReceiver that will wake up when it receives an Intent. Then make sure you spawn eg. an IntentService so it will process your work in the background.
Take a look at CommonsWare's WakefulIntentService for implementation example.

Validity of alarm upon application update

Say that one of my Services set an alarm, and now updates for the application were installed.
Is it guaranteed that my alarm will fire?
If not, can I add an event listener for updates?

I guess you should intercept install, remove and replace broadcasts and reinstantiate your alarms there.
The actions are:
ACTION_PACKAGE_ADDED
ACTION_PACKAGE_REPLACED
Check this link

Alarms are preserved across updates. I can at least verify that on Android 4.0.
It also works on Android 2.2. I would assume this just works.

how implement broadcastrecevier for uninstall particular application in device?

I want to receive Broad Cast receiver for "when will i remove or uninstall my application in device,How to implement,
Thanks

there is no such broadcast. you are not notified when your application is removed

See my answer to [Android] Hook some regular tasks ?.
You can be notified when an app is removed (including your own), but you cannot prevent it or alter the outcome, so depending on what you want to do with the notification, it may not be of any practical use for you.
Also, since your app is being removed asynchronously, your window of opportunity to receive the notification may be too small to do anything practical or respond in any way.

You can use "android.intent.action.PACKAGE_REMOVED" to broadcast the application package that has been removed.