Operating System Support for Inter-Application Monitoring in Android

In the stock Android mobile operating system there exists no mechanism by which an application is able to observe state changes within other applications. While for most typical applications this functionality is not necessary, there are particular instances in which it proves incredibly useful. One such scenario presented in this paper is an app to monitor the behavioral patterns of users through their device interactions. The addition of this feature also opens up many new possibilities for more adaptive applications that respond to how the device is being used. This thesis presents a mechanism by which apps can register to be notified of lifecycle transitions within other applications, extends the Android Open Source Project to include this mechanism, and ensures that the security of the device is not compromised and that performance is impacted as little as possible