Checking if an Android application is running in the background

Question

By background, I mean none of the application\'s activities are currently visible to the user?

Answer 1

You should use a shared preference to store the property and act upon it using service binding from your activities. If you use binding only, (that is never use startService), then your service would run only when you bind to it, (bind onResume and unbind onPause) that would make it run on foreground only, and if you do want to work on background you can use the regular start stop service.