Activity.finishAffinity() vs Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK | Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TASK

Question

In Android, if you want to clear your current Activity stack and launch a new Activity (for example, logging out of the app and launching a log in Activity), there appears to be two approaches.

Are there any advantages to one over the other if your target API level is above 16?

1) Finish Affinity

Calling finishAffinity() from an Activity. Activity.finishAffinity

2) Intent Flags

Intent intent = new Intent(this, LoginActivity.class);
intent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK | Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TASK);
startActivity(intent);
finish();

The finishAffinity() approach is suitable for >= API 16.

The Intent flags approach is suitable for >= API 11.

To be clear, for the purpose of clearing the current Activity stack, both approaches appear to work equally as well. My question is are there are problems with either that people have experienced and, therefore, is there any reason to choose one over the other?

Solution

Functionally, there's no difference, but testing this out on GenyMotion there appears to be a slight visual difference. See web cast: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8Y77sY7Y2CGRS02c3UyNjd2MGs/view?usp=sharing

You would need to try that on a range of devices to see how consistent it is.

Subjectively, I would say go with the finishAffinity() because it's more explicit. However, if you have to support < SDK 16 you don't really have a choice.

Comments

[Craig Russell]

The purpose of both approaches listed in my question is to finish all activities in the current stack without having to call finish() on each one individually. To be clear, as far as I can see, both approaches accomplish this.

[Craig Russell]

The delay, or flicker, that you mention is initially what made me question finishAffinity(). IIRC, some Samsung devices in particular had a very pronounced flicker when using finishAffinity() but I no longer have the devices to test.

[brindy]

In this case it was the intent version that had the flicker as per the video.

[brindy]

Actually, I'm not sure I'd call it a flicker (based on the vide). There's something definitely different about what happens visually though. finishAffinity looks like it appears on top, the intent version looks like it has "finished" revealing the other one on the top of the stack.

[Eury Pérez Beltré]

You have a choice using ActivityCompat.

[Manuel]

@brindy Too bad the video is not available anymore.