Android, running an app in the background

I have an app which consists of a simple GUI an开发者_如何转开发d a few Broadcast receivers. I found somewhere on here how to start an app on boot of the device but cant seem to locate it atm. However i need more i need it to start in the background and just listen using the broadcast receivers and then return to this state after the Gui(the visible part of the app) has been used. Is there a way of doing this? Thanks.

Look into the Service class. Services run in the background and have no direct user interaction.

http://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/Service.html