Keep-Alive

Keep-Alive is a feature that permits DoggCatcher to stay in memory when it is busy performing some function that you would not want to be interrupted.

The feature is active when its icon is displayed in the notification pane.

When this feature can become active is configured in the preferences.

There is quite a bit of history around this preference that has generated quite a bit of discussion. A lot of it is summarized here - Application Performance

Preference choices

• While in foreground or busy in background - This occurs when DoggCatcher is the active foreground window or in the background while performing the following operations: updating feeds, downloading media, playing audio, and when a news article has been launched.
• Always - After DoggCatcher has been started, it will perpetually try to stay in memory. This is still an option because it was the old default behavior, however it is not recommended. Please reference Application Performance

Keep-alive icon
As of Android 2.0, applications that resist eviction from memory while running in the background are required to display an ongoing notification in the notification bar while they are resisting eviction. The reasoning behind this is to inform user when applications are holding on to the previous resources of their mobile device. One might reasonably make the point that the user should be able to disable this requirement if they so desire, but at the moment this is not possible.

For anyone interested in the particular part of the Android API that cover this, here's a reference to the release notes.

• Android 2.0 Release Notes
  "Service.setForeground() has been deprecated and now effectively performs no operation. This is replaced with a new API, startForeground(), that helps (and requires) associating an ongoing notification with the foreground state."