[lvillani]

iOS is different in a subtle way: once you grant an application permission to use location/microphone, it will show a banner if a background app is using it.

Once you grant e.g. permission to access the microphone to an Android app, it can do so at any time without you noticing. Until you manually go to the settings and revoke the permission, that is.

[tinus_hn]

This happens only if the permission is for ‘while using the app’. This permission means that part of the app needs to be visible on screen and if it’s not, the banner will show.

If you change the permission to ‘always’ the banner won’t show.

[lvillani]

That only applies for location access. Even then, you'll see an arrow in the status bar and there's a page in the settings that lets you see which applications are actually accessing your location in the background, and how often.

Mic recording, on the other hand, is always user-initiated and very explicit.