title: Android: creating an insistent alarm (ex: morning alarm, incoming call)
body: <p>I'm writing an alarm-based application, and I'm looking for a way to wake up the user insistently. Ideally, I'd like the phone to vibrate, ring, and display a message. I tried a few different options, here's what I have for the moment:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li><p>Have the background service start an activity that vibrates &amp; plays music.</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>problem: even with a WAKE_LOCK, it seems that the user still has to turn on the screen and unlock it to see my activity</p>
  </blockquote></li>
  <li><p>Use the AlarmManager with RTC_WAKEUP and a broadcast receiver to start the aforementioned activity</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>same issue</p>
  </blockquote></li>
  <li><p>Simply pop up a notification, which the user can click to see the activity</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>problem: stil the same issue, and also I can't get the notification to vibrate and ring, and repeat often until dismissed</p>
  </blockquote></li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>What I would really like is to have a  behaviour similar to the basic Android morning alarm, or similar to receiving a phone call: regardless of whether your phone is awake or sleeping, it rings, vibrates and displays information such as a message, a photo...</p>
  
  <p>Any tips on the direction to use would be greatly appreciated! I'm sure I've seen alarm apps or "fake phone call" apps do something similar, but I'm out of ideas.</p>
  
  <p>Cheers</p>
  
  <p>ps: in the context of this application, I think it would be reasonable to wake up the user this way. A discreet notification would not be appropriate - unless you can wake up to a single vibration :)</p>