There is not a standard way to achieve this; Many makers such as Sony or Samsung have implemented it in their own Android customization.
For example in Samsung, you have to broadcast an intent with BADGE_COUNT_UPDATE action, let MainActivity
be your main activity class and count
be the number you want to display in your app icon, note that 0 will hide the badge:
Intent intent = new Intent("android.intent.action.BADGE_COUNT_UPDATE");
intent.putExtra("badge_count", count);
intent.putExtra("badge_count_package_name", context.getPackageName());
intent.putExtra("badge_count_class_name", MainActivity.class.getName());
context.sendBroadcast(intent);
Sony devices uses "com.sonyericsson.home.action.UPDATE_BADGE"
action with their custom extras as @Marcus Answered, so you have to add "com.sonyericsson.home.permission.BROADCAST_BADGE"
permission to your app manifest and:
Intent intent = new Intent("com.sonyericsson.home.action.UPDATE_BADGE");
intent.putExtra("com.sonyericsson.home.intent.extra.badge.ACTIVITY_NAME", MainActivity.class.getName());
intent.putExtra("com.sonyericsson.home.intent.extra.badge.SHOW_MESSAGE", true);
intent.putExtra("com.sonyericsson.home.intent.extra.badge.MESSAGE", String.valueOf(count));
intent.putExtra("com.sonyericsson.home.intent.extra.badge.PACKAGE_NAME", context.getPackageName());
context.sendBroadcast(intent);
Note: it's desirable to query your app's data (context.getPackageName()
, MainActivity.class.getName()
) rather than hardcode it just in case you do some refactoring in the future.