Now this app needs to check whether or not the user or your friend on the other end has sent the message or not, for which it needs to stay connected to its servers through the internet.īut It’ll be really annoying if after every minute WhatsApp prompts us that it’s checking if the message is received or is the user typing…, So for such things we use IntentService.Īndroid IntentService is a long-running task in the background that’ll help Whatsapp to check in the background without any user prompt or action that whether the user on the other end is typing or has sent the message. IntentService provides a mechanism for your app to run a long running task in the background.įor example like we have Whatsapp installed on our mobile phone and through WhatsApp, we exchange messages and have amazing conversations with our friends and family members (sometimes with annoying bosses too!) Whereas Service is an application component of Android that is used to perform long running tasks in the background and IntentService is the base class of Service which means it helps in the creation of other class that can reuse the code implicitly inherited from the base class. However, IntentService isn’t something same as Intent but the intent is used to start or call IntentService. The intent is asynchronous messages that allow application components to request some additional functionality from some other Android App.

This method of calling another app from one app is done using something known as intent. Difference between Intent and IntentService These connections are not only between the components of our app and the user itself but also with other apps present in the Android OS.įor example, if I am viewing some website on Google Chrome and if I happen to click on some mailto link on the website, this would invoke Google Chrome to open Gmail or some other Emailing App to send a message to that email address. In the world of Android App Development, we code majorly to set up connections.

In this tutorial about Android IntentService Example is taken from a well known messaging app Whatsappin which IntentService is used to help its user stick around with the app and stay connected with their friends. WhatsApp example Source Code to get User Last Location.So how to implement such great ability in our app?.Difference between Intent and IntentService.

Android studio intent service