I want to write an android app that would be a background service that would listen for either a specific gesture or key press in the and then trigger an action. Is it even possible to do such a thing with a service? If so could someone guide me the right direction. I have search high and low can could seem to find an answer.
A:
Doing this (except on top of apps that cooperate by sending you their input) would be a huge security hole of the kind that the android architecture is designed to prohibit. To do it you would need to modify the platform and have the watching done by something running with access to the raw touch and button input, possibly as part of the driver for that.
In other words you can with difficulty do it on your own rooted phone or on devices you manufacture, but it's not usable for most people.
Chris Stratton
2010-09-23 05:09:06