Android continuing ACTIVE life cycle of an activity

Question

In ANY map that I checked out, the coordinates of my phone is real-time, EVEN with locked screen.

here is the question:

in Life cycle of an activity, Locked screen mean Pause

, so its recommended to avoid using sources as in a active part of cycle, to prevent killing by the OS.but what I see in result is that, they simply work!

I thought they use a service to do that, but All I read is that it is not to rely on services and expect them to run forever in background. my question is what approach do they ( developer of these Maps ) have toward this ?

thanks in advance

Answer 1

How are you getting coordinates?

Service is appropriate way as you do not know when you will receive location change event, unless you want last known location.

Check here http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/location/strategies.html in sample code they use service to listen to location change. You register when to listen location change and unregister when done else it will consume battery.