So in 4.3 there was a concept of System applications. Apks that were placed in System/app were given system privellages. As of 4.4, there is a new concept of Privellaged app. Privellaged apps are stored in system/priv-app and seem to be treated differently. If you look in the AOSP Source code, under PackageManagerService, you will see new methods such as
static boolean locationIsPrivileged(File path) {
try {
final String privilegedAppDir = new File(Environment.getRootDirectory(), "priv-app")
.getCanonicalPath();
return path.getCanonicalPath().startsWith(privilegedAppDir);
} catch (IOException e) {
Slog.e(TAG, "Unable to access code path " + path);
}
return false;
}
So here is an example of a situation where these differ.
public final void addActivity(PackageParser.Activity a, String type) {
...
if (!systemApp && intent.getPriority() > 0 && "activity".equals(type)) {
intent.setPriority(0);
Log.w(TAG, "Package " + a.info.applicationInfo.packageName + " has activity "
+ a.className + " with priority > 0, forcing to 0");
}
...
This affects the priority of any activities that are not defined as system applications. This seems to imply you can not add an activity to the package manager who's priority is higher than 0, unless you are a system app. This does NOT preclude privileged apps as far as I can tell (theres a lot of logic here, i may be wrong.)
My question is what exactly does this imply? If my app is privellaged, but not system, what difference will that make? In PackageManagerService you can find various things that differ between system and privileged apps, they are not exactly the same. There should be some kind of ideology behind privileged apps, otherwise they would have just said:
if locationIsPrivilleged: app.flags |= FLAG_SYSTEM
and been done with it. This is a new concept, and I think it would be important to know the difference between these kinds of apps for anyone who is doing AOSP development as of 4.4.