Singletons vs. Application Context in Android?

Question

Recalling this post enumerating several problems of using singletons and having seen several examples of Android applications using singleton pattern, I wonder if it's a good idea to use Singletons instead of single instances shared through global application state (subclassing android.os.Application and obtaining it through context.getApplication()).

What advantages/drawbacks would both mechanisms have?

To be honest, I expect the same answer in this post Singleton pattern with Web application, Not a good idea! but applied to Android. Am I correct? What's different in DalvikVM otherwise?

EDIT: I would like to have opinions on several aspects involved:

• Synchronization
• Reusability
• Testi

Answer 1

Although the app context can be considered a singleton itself, it is framework-managed and has a well defined life-cycle, scope, and access path. Hence I believe that if you do need to manage app-global state, it should go here, nowhere else. For anything else, rethink if you really need a singleton object, or if it would also be possible to rewrite your singleton class to instead instantiate small, short-lived objects that perform the task at hand