App to monitor other apps on android

See more:

Mobile

Android

service

Problem at Hand:
I have to create a Service which runs continuously. This service monitors 5 apps say 5 android games installed on your phone. This service needs to get the information of: 1. How many times the game is opened and run? 2. For how much time the each game has run.

for example: Say If I have this service installed in my app. And I let it run for a month. I need information of this kind on the screen of the app:

Game Number of times the game is run Duration of Game play

Game 1 20 times played for 15 hours in total

Game 2 16 times played for 25 hours in total

..

..

Game 5 10 times played for 12 hours in total

Possible Approach:
When an application loads it comes in the memory. Noting the system clocks time while the application starts. And when the application ends or is put in the background noting the time again.

So say if application is brought to memory at 9:00 pm and exits to background at 9:30 pm that gives us a game play time of 30 mins. next time the application is played the duration will be added to 30 from the previous play stored in some sort of variable and so on. Each time a application is brought into the memory the counter of it being played should increase by one.hence giving us the number of times an application is played.

Coding:
I have no idea about Service in Android as I have never really worked on them. Any tutorials related to my problem at hand will be very helpful. Secondly if there is other way in which this could be done. I would like to know that as well. I could really use some code snippet for me to start this project.