Application threads vs Service threads
What are the advantages/disadvantages in placing a lengthy network access code in a thread in an activity or a thread in a service? How would it affect the application? I am writing a streaming audio player and from what I've read so far putting the code in a service will still end up blocking the application so a new thread is needed, does anyone know if it makes more sense to put this piece of code in a service.
Answer
Yes, a blocking operation in a Service will still block the application. Despite first appearances, Services are not simply for running tasks in the background. They are for running tasks with a lifecycle that is independent of the Activity lifecycle (IE, they may continue after the Activity is closed).
A Service that starts when an Activity starts and ends when the Activity ends is useless.
In your case, where you are streaming audio, you may want to stream audio even after the user closes the Activity, in which case, you should use a Service, but you'll still need a thread (or an AsyncTask) for blocking tasks.