Start android application without activity

Question

I\'ve an application which aims to run only as a service (no interface, just run in background). I have no activity mentioned in my AndroidManifest.xml but put a receiver to

Answer 1

Starting The service using Broadcast receiver through any Intent like

android.intent.action.BOOT_COMPLETED

is not possible above Android 3.1 until the user uses your app, and thus to use your app there must be a single non UI activity (which can call finish in oncreate()).

See the proof here

Answer 2

Option 1: Add a dummy activity that will start your service. Remove it before shipping.

Option 2: Create a second test application that starts your service.

Answer 3

Apart from the two options mentioned by EboMike: You can always send the BOOT_COMPLETED broadcast via the command line instead of rebooting your phone.

Use

adb shell am broadcast -a android.intent.action.BOOT_COMPLETED

This will result in a situation like after an actual reboot, and will also trigger any 3rd party apps boot receivers. After typing it once in a terminal you can usually repeat it simply by pressing the up-arrow key followed by return on most operating systems. Or you can include it in a script thats triggered after reinstalling your app.

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If you want to limit the broadcast to your app only, you can also specify a component:

adb shell am broadcast -a android.intent.action.BOOT_COMPLETED -n your.app.packagename/.YourReceiverClassName

This sends the reboot broadcast only to your receiver. All other apps are not called.