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> Also, Google has intentionally crippled Android and background app running, so you have to depend on FCM to deliver notifications, and you can't deliver FCM notifications uf app is installed via apk or fdroid or other third-party appstore.

FCM could indeed offer support for non-play-store apps, but weren’t background apps on Android leashed in because abuse of the capability was rampant and was torpedoing users’ battery life? I remember this being a pretty big Android issue for less technical users and an annoyance to more technical users.



> weren’t background apps on Android leashed in because abuse of the capability was rampant and was torpedoing users’ battery life?

Yes, you can still run in the background but you need to show a persistent notification to that effect. The user can then choose whether to hide it.


If the user hides it, the app loses background capabilities.

Also, notification area becomes unusable if there are too many persistent notifications. Syncthing, VPN, xmpp client, and you almost have no space for regular notifications, they become stacked.


> If the user hides it, the app loses background capabilities.

That seems quite incorrect to me. Source?


We develop an app that needs to stay in the background (an xmpp client). If a user hides the notification, the app dies in 30-60 seconds.


Looks like the outcome of some custom/wild "battery optimizer" logic. AIUI, this just doesn't happen on stock hardware without such customizations.


> weren’t background apps on Android leashed in because abuse of the capability was rampant and was torpedoing users’ battery life?

This should have been addressed by giving the user a capability to determine power usage by each app and either allow it if he needs the app, or restrict background running.

The way it was done is far from adequate. Also, many manufacturers (samsung, xiaomi, huawei) cripple android even further. See https://dontkillmyapp.com




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