Differentiate between Android killing the app and user swiping it off on the recent apps list

Question

I am working on a project, where while being on a specific Activity we show a local sticky notification. That should also be the case when the app is minimized. What I have

Answer 1

First, let's get one thing clear: Android MAY NOT CALL onDestroy(). Referring to the Activity Page, from Honeycomb onward, onPause() and onStop() are guaranteed to be called before an app is killed.

Be aware that these semantics will change slightly between applications targeting platforms starting with HONEYCOMB vs. those targeting prior platforms. Starting with Honeycomb, an application is not in the killable state until its onStop() has returned. This impacts when onSaveInstanceState(Bundle) may be called (it may be safely called after onPause() and allows and application to safely wait until onStop() to save persistent state.

So after (hopefully) clearing the air on the Android lifecycle, I think you can achieve what you want by putting the notification removing code in onStop() instead. If you end up needing it back because the user actually DOES come back to the specific Actvitiy(IE not killed), you can bring it back in onRestart().