Android O : PHONE_STATE broadcast limitation

Question

I have been trying to do something similar to truecaller app, where my app is supposed to show a screen after a call gets hung up. Was achieving this by registering android.intent.action.PHONE_STATE implicit broadcast in the manifest file.

But it is not working if I change the app to target Android O, because of the Android O broadcast limitation, and I'm trying to figure out an alternative solution to this use case.

Alternative solutions suggested in android docs: Job scheduler or register a service with context.

Job scheduler: Because of the Job scheduler optimizations there will be some delay to receive the callback. So it will affect the user experience if our app screen is shown a few min after the phone call and polling to check for new call logs every few seconds causes battery drain issue.

Register service with context in Java: I want the behavior to work even if the app is not active or alive. This will not work if the system kills the Service.

Register a Foreground Service: This requires a notification to be shown to the user all the time, which would be spam the user, and running a service 24/7 consumes lots of resources which defeats the whole purpose of broadcast limitation.

Please suggest an alternate solution so that the user experience remains the same.

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

Eventually, the action was added to the "Implicit Broadcast Exceptions" list so you can add ACTION_PHONE_STATE_CHANGED to your manifest and it will work:

https://developer.android.com/guide/components/broadcast-exceptions

ACTION_CARRIER_CONFIG_CHANGED, TelephonyIntents.ACTION_*_SUBSCRIPTION_CHANGED, "TelephonyIntents.SECRET_CODE_ACTION", ACTION_PHONE_STATE_CHANGED, ACTION_PHONE_ACCOUNT_REGISTERED, ACTION_PHONE_ACCOUNT_UNREGISTERED

OEM telephony apps may need to receive these broadcasts.

Answer 2

You have only one solution, use a foreground service and register the broadcast receiver in the service.