A service is a task running in the background to perform actions without a user interface and they are used to perform long running operations with a significant use of resources by avoiding delays in the user experience.
The services belong to one or both of the following categories:
- started: the service is launched using the the method startService()
- bound: the service is launched using the the method bindService() and the components of the application that has launched the service can communicate with the same service