Well, it was a rant rather than information. And I disagree with it from the beginning:
> You should not close apps because you may interfere with tracking your location and other data collection.
That's bullshit reason - you'd write a background service, not try to stop users from closing the app. For any single application I'm using I'm happy for it to be cached rather than restarting every time. This is just arguing against a cache layer, because <made up reason>.
Going offtopic from the rant to an Android development question, if I may - I thought background services were shut down brutally at random times, and hard to keep running reliably unless some app which uses them is open? I'm a newbie to Android dev, but I have an app which (attempts to) maintain an always-on connection, and I've gone with a foreground service because that doesn't get killed (as often).
> A started service must manage its own lifecycle. That is, the system does not stop or destroy the service unless it must recover system memory and the service continues to run after onStartCommand() returns.
A started service shouldn't be killed randomly - after all, that's how the downloads are handled - you don't see those disappearing without a reason.
Downloads are generally handled via foreground services (one significant difference is that foreground services show up as an icon in your notification area, notice downloads or Play Store updates appear there?). Background services are more like OLE in the sense of they let you set your app up so another app can ask it for stuff.
This is why I didn't get to it until the edit. If I could be sure I wouldn't offend my clients, one of the first questions I'd ask is "are you a nerd?" As it is I have to couch it as "what's your background? are you technical?" and risk getting pinned as a condescending asshole when all I'm asking is "do you want me to tell you what the opcodes are doing to the transistors or do you want to tell me how the machine is 'feeling'?
The real question, I guess, is "do you have the knack"?
> You should not close apps because you may interfere with tracking your location and other data collection.
That's bullshit reason - you'd write a background service, not try to stop users from closing the app. For any single application I'm using I'm happy for it to be cached rather than restarting every time. This is just arguing against a cache layer, because <made up reason>.