Android how do I wait until a service is actually connected?

Question

I have an Activity calling a Service defined in IDownloaderService.aidl:

public class Downloader extends Activity {
 IDownloaderService downloader = null;
//         


        

Answer 1

How can I wait for ServiceConnection.onServiceConnected being called reliably?

You don't. You exit out of onCreate() (or wherever you are binding) and you put you "needs the connection established" code in onServiceConnected().

Are all the event handlers: Activity.onCreate, any View.onClickListener.onClick, ServiceConnection.onServiceConnected, etc. actually called in the same thread

Yes.

When exactly is ServiceConnection.onServiceConnected actually going to be called? Upon completion of Activity.onCreate or sometime when A.oC is still running?

Your bind request probably is not even going to start until after you leave onCreate(). Hence, onServiceConnected() will called sometime after you leave onCreate().