Comment by Izkata
2 years ago
> Android _still_ allows background applications, the only limitation they added in that release is that such background applications have to show a notification that they are running (actually a feature if you ask me). You are still allowed to listen on a gazillion sockets perfectly fine.
...I'm not even clear on what they're complaining about (the page github links to seems to have been changed, it describes the current state rather than what happened in 8), because this was actually a thing as far back as Android 2: you had to have one of those notifications up to prevent Android from killing your service.
Android's behavior WRT to background services over the years changed from "MAY kill" to "WILL kill", so for people who never honored the official docs (unfortunately most of them), this was a problem.
Additionally, Alarms and Broadcast Listeners were seriously crippled which made common workarounds much harder.