Does anyone know of a good way to have code run after their Android application has been installed?
Something like ACTION_PACKAGE_ADDED that would get delivered to the application that was just installed.
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This is for a zero configuration scheme where the configuration for the device comes from a webservice.
These settings are used in BroadcastReceivers.
One approach is to fetch the settings the first time. Since this would be done BroadcastReceiver, and since it might take a moment to fetch the result, I'm reluctant to use this approach.
The intent ACTION_PACKAGE_ADDED will not be received by the just-installed application. However, there may be some broadcast messages to trigger on in order to start your application automatically. I think, the best way is to use the BOOT_COMPLETED broadcast message, so the settings are loaded the first time device powers on.
I don't now anything about your device, but whenever you are providing Android on these devices, you could pack this app (and your settings) within a firmware update. Or you'll just reboot the device after installing this package..
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I am developing an application for a business entity. That application should run in the background in every employees' mobile phone. Employees are mostly salesman. The application basically detects location changes and suggest the salesman where they might visit. A kind of reminder application. It also lets other salesmen see where are their teammates.
Right now I am using a foreground activity and it works fine till the system forcefully doesn't kill the service or the phone doesn't reboot due to manual activity or battery discharge.
Ones the application is closed, as of now, the managers in the firm needs to call salespeople to turn on the application once, as on application start it automatically turn on its foreground service. But this is really an extra burden on the management team which can be automated.
I am ok to have any settings based or code based solution. One solution is to root the phones of salespeople and install some extra utility app or write the code based on root APIs, but this will be too much for this simple task.
THe permission RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED was not added properly in the manifest. After adding the permission it worked calmly. In on receive method of the broadcast receiver, I am starting the foreground service.
At the moment, the best way is to use WorkManager https://developer.android.com/topic/libraries/architecture/workmanager/ Yes, it still alpha, but works very good.
From other side, you could work on automating the task "managers in the firm needs to call salespeople to turn on the application once". I mean, an app/backend could automatically call the salesman (with some pre-recorded message) or send SMS to them.
I have a device management application, which essentially runs as a service in the background from boot. I'd like to start this application immediately after installation. How do I achieve this?
You cannot do this -- there is no way to automatically start your service merely because it was installed.
The application must first be invoked by the user through some sort of activity. Or, you are going to need to hook into some relevant broadcast Intent via the manifest, so you can get control when one of those events occur and kick off your service that way. Or, you are going to need to ask the user to reboot so your BOOT_COMPLETED Intent filter can get control.
There was a hole - the Android Analytics SDK used to send an intent right after installation - but that got closed (producing lots of confusion, of course).
But the final answer, I believe, is here:
http://developer.android.com/about/versions/android-3.1.html#launchcontrols
This seems to suggest that, as of 3.1, Google made the decision that apps are in a stopped state until the user explicitly activates them, e.g. by launching app or placing widget.
This means that the strategy of listening of a common broadcast (i.e. to get your app launched surreptitiously) won't work either.
I have created an app. Works great, but I want some same functionality as gmail uses:
When I receive a new email, I get a notification. I inspected my phone and saw no services or applications running that look like the gmail-app.
I have investigated the AlarmManager and services, but as soon as I stop the app both don't work anymore.
Could someone give me a hint how to accomplish this?
Thanks in advance
I inspected my phone and saw no services or applications running that look like the gmail-app.
Partly, that is because Gmail gets such notifications via broadcast Intents from the OS, via the subsystem we see as C2DM (which is why you do not see a process). Partly, that is because Gmail is part of the firmware and may get some extra benefits as a result, in terms of resisting the normal behaviors that befall an app that is force-stopped.
Could someone give me a hint how to accomplish this?
You can't. Particularly on Android 3.1+, if your app is force-stopped, it will not run again until the user manually runs one of your activities (e.g., from the launcher).
Is there a way to get a system notification when an app has been uninstalled?
I would like to maintain a table of all clients' info currently using my app. However, that seems impossible if there is no way to detect this event.
The first solution I can think of is to have an always running service in the background listening for android.intent.action.PACKAGE_REMOVED. But then would that service be killed once the uninstallation process has ended, or would it be stopped just before the process has kicked off? Also even if this is a solution it's has the potential to put off a lot of people when they realise that part of the app is running in the background.
Any suggestions? Thanks!
You could simply do it the other way round and maintain a table of users actively using your app. Just call a webservice at a point in the program that show it is active. If an app isn't used for a certain time mark it as inactive.
The documentation for the PACKAGE_REMOVED action says the following:
The package that is being uninstalled does not receive this Intent.
So you can monitor for other applications being uninstalled but not your own.
So you'll probably need track who is still using your application, not who has stopped using it. If you don't want the overhead of having your own server to do this you could use a free service like Flurry.
From Android document, the app uninstalled by user can't not get
Intent.ACTION_PACKAGE_REMOVE
But we can use other method to implement this feature. We all know that there is a directory named with your package name under the /data/data directory after your app installed by user. If your app is uninstalled by user, the root directory of your app(/data/data/com.example.yourappname) will be removed by system. The remove action happen immediately when user click "uninstall", and the directory will be removed by framework package manager system.
So, we can monitor the existence of your app data directory(which usually /data/data/com.example.yourappname) to detect if your app uninstalled by user.
In order to monitor this directory, we have to fork a detached process from JNI.
In this new fork process, we can use Linux system api inotify(7) or access(3) to determine the existence of app's data directory.
Here is a workable implementation. But it got the permission problem when try to send an intent to start system browser on high version Android device. I have no idea how to bypass this. However the example above is enough for your question.
Hope it will be helpful!
Android doesn't provide an inbuilt function for tracking the app uninstall.
Notification can be used as an alternate way to track the app uninstall. For this send notification on the app and track the status of the notification. Count the number of undelivered notification for a particular time period. If status of undelivered notification doesn't change in that particular time period, then consider that the app has been uninstalled from the device.
For example, i have used a cron script which run every 3 days and check the status of last 10 notifications delivered to the device (2 notifications are sent in a day). If all of these 10 notifications have status "undelivered", then the app is considered to be uninstalled from the device.
I have a device management application, which essentially runs as a service in the background from boot. I'd like to start this application immediately after installation. How do I achieve this?
You cannot do this -- there is no way to automatically start your service merely because it was installed.
The application must first be invoked by the user through some sort of activity. Or, you are going to need to hook into some relevant broadcast Intent via the manifest, so you can get control when one of those events occur and kick off your service that way. Or, you are going to need to ask the user to reboot so your BOOT_COMPLETED Intent filter can get control.
There was a hole - the Android Analytics SDK used to send an intent right after installation - but that got closed (producing lots of confusion, of course).
But the final answer, I believe, is here:
http://developer.android.com/about/versions/android-3.1.html#launchcontrols
This seems to suggest that, as of 3.1, Google made the decision that apps are in a stopped state until the user explicitly activates them, e.g. by launching app or placing widget.
This means that the strategy of listening of a common broadcast (i.e. to get your app launched surreptitiously) won't work either.