How to start a Service when .apk is Installed for the first time

In my Application I am not having any UI part, so I need to start a Service as soon as the Applicaton gets installed on the Device. I saw many links from which the answer was that its not possible but I guess it is surely possible. Just have a look at PlanB Application on the Android Market that does fulfil my requirement. Below is my Manifest file how I tried, but the Service was not called at all. So, let me know what is the best possible way to start a Service when the Application gets Installed.

UPDATE

I also tried using android.intent.action.PACKAGE_ADDED it works fine for detecting the Package for the other Applications but not for itself.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    package="com.auto.start"
    android:versionCode="1"
    android:versionName="1.0" >

    <uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="8" />
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED"/>

    <application
        android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher" >

        <service android:name=".MyService">
            <intent-filter>
                <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
                <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
            </intent-filter>
        </service>

        <receiver android:name=".BootUpReceiver">
            <intent-filter>
                <action android:name="android.intent.action.BOOT_COMPLETED"/>
                <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT"/>
                <action android:name="android.intent.action.PACKAGE_INSTALL" />
                <action android:name="android.intent.action.PACKAGE_ADDED" />
                <data android:scheme="package"/>
            </intent-filter>
        </receiver>
    </application>
</manifest>

Solution 1:

Fortunately, Plan B does not work on Android 3.1+, as tested on a XOOM and a Galaxy Nexus.

What Plan B does is exploit a security hole that could be used by drive-by malware, which is specifically why Android prevents it from happening anymore.

UPDATE

To clarify: As inazaruk posted and I put into comments on other answers, all applications, upon installation, are placed in a "stopped" state. This is the same state that the application winds up in after the user force-stops the app from the Settings application. While in this "stopped" state, the application will not run for any reason, except by a manual launch of an activity. Notably, no BroadcastReceviers will be invoked, regardless of the event for which they have registered, until the user runs the app manually.

This block covers the Plan B scenario of remote-install-and-run, which they were taking advantage of previously. After all, with that, anyone with a hacked Google account would be at risk of having their device infected, hands-free as it were.

So, when the OP says:

I need to start a Service as soon as the Applicaton gets installed on the Device

the OP will be unsuccessful and will need to redesign the application to avoid this purported "need".

Solution 2:

Applications installed on the /system partition are not subject to being placed into the "stopped" state after installation. If you have root, you can do,

$ adb root
$ adb remount
$ adb push your.apk /system/app

And it can immediately receive broadcast intents. This certainly doesn't provide a general purpose solution, but i wanted to mention it for completeness.

EDIT: Keep in mind that different versions of Android locate system APKs in different places. For example, Android 8 puts them under /system/app//.apk. Shell into your device and poke around and follow the same scheme used for other system APKs.

Solution 3:

I agree with CommonsWare's answer to question: How to start android service on installation. In other words, you can't automatically start your service after you've just been installed.

One more thing about newer Android platforms: if you don't have UI at all, you'll have trouble starting your service even when using BOOT_COMPLETE intent on Android 3.1+.

That's because all installed applications are in stopped state. In this state applications will not receive ANY broadcast notifications.

In order to activate your application some other application (or user) needs to start your service or activity, or content provider. The usual workflow is when user clicks on your application's icon.

I've written a detailed explanations about this in my blog post.