Setting Android Theme background color

Question

Okay turned out that I made a really silly mistake. The device I am using for testing is running Android 4.0.4, API level 15.

The styles.xml file that I was editing is in the default values folder. I edited the styles.xml in values-v14 folder and it works all fine now.

<resources>

    <!-- Base application theme. -->
    <style name="AppTheme" parent="android:Theme.Holo.NoActionBar">
        <item name="android:windowBackground">@android:color/black</item>
    </style>

</resources>

Open res -> values -> styles.xml and to your <style> add this line replacing with your image path <item name="android:windowBackground">@drawable/background</item>. Example:

<resources>

    <!-- Base application theme. -->
    <style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar">
        <!-- Customize your theme here. -->
        <item name="colorPrimary">@color/colorPrimary</item>
        <item name="colorPrimaryDark">@color/colorPrimaryDark</item>
        <item name="colorAccent">@color/colorAccent</item>
        <item name="android:windowBackground">@drawable/background</item>
    </style>

</resources>

There is a <item name ="android:colorBackground">@color/black</item> also, that will affect not only your main window background but all the component in your app. Read about customize theme here.

If you want version specific styles:

If a new version of Android adds theme attributes that you want to use, you can add them to your theme while still being compatible with old versions. All you need is another styles.xml file saved in a values directory that includes the resource version qualifier. For example:

res/values/styles.xml        # themes for all versions
res/values-v21/styles.xml    # themes for API level 21+ only

Because the styles in the values/styles.xml file are available for all versions, your themes in values-v21/styles.xml can inherit them. As such, you can avoid duplicating styles by beginning with a "base" theme and then extending it in your version-specific styles.

Read more here(doc in theme).