Google and Samsung team up to fix one of Android’s biggest annoyances

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One of Android’s biggest annoyances is the way different devices handle background services. While Google has a set of guidelines on how to manage background processes, Android manufacturers change their behavior to improve the battery efficiency of their devices. Mostly, this breaks the app’s expected behavior and gives a poor user experience. At I/O 2022, the company revealed its efforts to fix Android’s background app issues. We’ve seen the fruits of that labor with Android 14, which makes several changes for the featured services. Going one step further, Google is announcing a deeper partnership with Samsung to deliver a more consistent experience.

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In a post on the Android Developers blog, Google announced that it is working with Android hardware manufacturers to ensure a consistent and uniform implementation of Android 14’s background APIs. Samsung is the first company to join Google’s efforts, with the advantage that their collaboration has paid off once One UI 6.0 is released for Galaxy devices later this year.

Some of the changes to background and foreground services in Android 14 include simplified background operations, an improved internal broadcasting system, and new Google Play policies to limit device and network abuse.

In its statement, the Korean giant says that starting with One UI 6.0, “the foreground services of apps targeting Android 14 will work as expected as long as they are developed according to the new Android foreground service API policy”. Therefore, you may not immediately see the benefits of this partnership once One UI 6.0 is released. But as developers update their apps to Android 14, the experience should improve a lot.

Samsung has the dubious honor of the Android maker aggressively killing background apps on its devices. This got worse after the Android 11 drop, leading to delayed notifications, inconsistent background tracking, and more.

Ryne Hager, former editor of Android Police, delved into how Android makers are breaking our favorite apps in the name of optimization. Therefore, Samsung working closely with Google to fix the inconsistent deletion of background services is a big win for consumers as it will significantly improve the user experience.

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