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I am going through the process of learning Android basics. please forgive me for the noob question.

one thing i fail to understand(even after reading so much documentaion) is why do we need aidl for IPC when even simple intents do the job. (as i understand implicit/explicit intents creates the new component in the same/new process.)

at the end of the day its just data transfer and calling some function directly or indirectly. what is the key difference and use cases?

Tiju John
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  • The main difference, i think, is that Intent input data size is [limited](http://stackoverflow.com/a/12497065/3858030). You can use [Messenger](https://developer.android.com/guide/components/bound-services.html?hl=en) pattern, it uses aidl, but it is much more simplier to use. – Ufkoku Mar 11 '17 at 08:54
  • thanks @Ufkoku, i am just trying to fix my mental model of the whole picture. – Tiju John Mar 11 '17 at 08:58
  • intents are used in "started" services and are relatively slow, `AIDL` is used in "bound" ones and direct `Binder` transactions are much faster and the param passing is a lot easier, more [here](https://developer.android.com/guide/components/bound-services.html) – pskink Mar 11 '17 at 09:08

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