The Looper object in Android is described in detail

Description of Looper objects on Java website:

public class Looperextends Object
Class used to run a message loop for a thread. Threads by default do not have a message loop associated with them; to create one, call prepare() in the thread that is to run the loop, and then loop() to have it process messages until the loop is stopped.

Most interaction with a message loop is through the Handler class.

This is a typical example of the implementation of a Looper thread, using the separation of prepare() and loop() to create an initial Handler to communicate with the Looper.

  class LooperThread extends Thread {
      public Handler mHandler;

      public void run() {
          Looper.prepare();

          mHandler = new Handler() {
              public void handleMessage(Message msg) {
                  // process incoming messages here
              }
          };

          Looper.loop();
      }
  }

static void loop() : Run the message queue in this thread
static void prepare() : Initialize the current thread as a looper