Why remove the mService stuff? Is this because it no longer makes sense when multiple services can run at once? (Honest question, I haven't used the services).

Looks good otherwise, thanks!

Exactly. Unless you need something to be a singleton, using static variables to hold instances of classes is not what you want.

I'm concerned that some users may be using a single service and relying on this method of accessing it, as that's the way the old toolchain worked. Would you be terribly disappointed if I merged this but added mService back in for now (at least until after it's clearly deprecated)?

I understand your concern because of the change of behavior with regard to the old tool-chain.
The solution to this is a binder: https://developer.android.com/guide/components/bound-services.html

Example from http://stackoverflow.com/a/24541584

import android.app.Service;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.os.IBinder;

public class MyService extends Service {
    private Binder binder;  

    @Override
    public void onCreate() {
        super.onCreate();
        binder = new Binder();
    }

    @Override
    public IBinder onBind(Intent intent) {
        return binder;
    }

    public class Binder extends android.os.Binder {
        public MyService getService() {
            return MyService.this;
        }
    }
}

I will add this to my service_only bootstrap, because the static variable is a bug if you have multiple services.