GB2511717A - Updating mobile applications - Google Patents

Updating mobile applications Download PDF

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Publication number
GB2511717A
GB2511717A GB1116512.3A GB201116512A GB2511717A GB 2511717 A GB2511717 A GB 2511717A GB 201116512 A GB201116512 A GB 201116512A GB 2511717 A GB2511717 A GB 2511717A
Authority
GB
United Kingdom
Prior art keywords
mobile application
change
application
server
mobile
Prior art date
Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the status listed.)
Withdrawn
Application number
GB1116512.3A
Other versions
GB201116512D0 (en
Inventor
Michael Barr
Andrew Mccartney
Rachel Ethel Gawley
Jonathan Mark Barr
Samuel David Douglas
James Haliday Scott
Current Assignee (The listed assignees may be inaccurate. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation or warranty as to the accuracy of the list.)
THEAPPBUILDER Ltd
Original Assignee
THEAPPBUILDER Ltd
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
Filing date
Publication date
Application filed by THEAPPBUILDER Ltd filed Critical THEAPPBUILDER Ltd
Priority to GB1116512.3A priority Critical patent/GB2511717A/en
Publication of GB201116512D0 publication Critical patent/GB201116512D0/en
Priority to PCT/GB2012/052295 priority patent/WO2013045893A1/en
Publication of GB2511717A publication Critical patent/GB2511717A/en
Withdrawn legal-status Critical Current

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Classifications

    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
    • G06F8/00—Arrangements for software engineering
    • G06F8/60—Software deployment
    • G06F8/65—Updates
    • G06F8/658—Incremental updates; Differential updates
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04L67/00—Network arrangements or protocols for supporting network services or applications
    • H04L67/01—Protocols
    • H04L67/10—Protocols in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network
    • H04L67/1095—Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04W—WIRELESS COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
    • H04W8/00—Network data management
    • H04W8/18—Processing of user or subscriber data, e.g. subscribed services, user preferences or user profiles; Transfer of user or subscriber data
    • H04W8/20—Transfer of user or subscriber data
    • H04W8/205—Transfer to or from user equipment or user record carrier

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  • Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
  • Theoretical Computer Science (AREA)
  • Software Systems (AREA)
  • General Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
  • Computer Networks & Wireless Communication (AREA)
  • Signal Processing (AREA)
  • Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
  • General Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
  • Computer Security & Cryptography (AREA)
  • Databases & Information Systems (AREA)
  • Stored Programmes (AREA)
  • Information Transfer Between Computers (AREA)
  • Telephone Function (AREA)

Abstract

Mobile applications are updated dynamically by their owner, rather than by the developer or application store, by applying changes 3 to mobile structures on both the client device 9 and a mirror application 11 held on a server 13. Changes are captured 5 using ActionScript 3 object-oriented programming code to create a structure-change object which is then delivered 7 to the server 13 via an authenticated link, where an update element 11 applies the change to the mirror of the application.

Description

Updating Mobile Applications This invention relates to updating mobile applications i.e. applications suitable for operating on mobile devices such as a mobile phone, or a smartphone, or a personal digital assistant, or any such similar device, operating on any of a number of mobile platforms.
Applications for mobile phones and other such devices have immense popularity with hundreds of thousands of applications available for various platforms. For example, the Apple® AppStore® alone provides over 300,000 applications for the iOS® platform used by iPhone®, iPad® and iPod Touch® devices. Each mobile application is designed to carry out a chosen activity. The variety and ingenuity of the activities performed by applications is considerable, with just some of mobile applications activities including brochure-type products (estate agents, online shopping, etc), geolocation-type services (interactive maps, locating restaurants, etc), gaming, music-based services (streaming radio, identifying specific tunes, etc), and health-related services (calorie counters, etc).
The usual process for a mobile application is creation (or development) of the application, generally for a specific mobile platform, making the application available to end-users by having it accepted and published in an application store, and downloading of the application from the application store by end-users to a device operating the mobile platform for use. Most mobile applications are not updatable, i.e. they are static. Some mobile applications may be updatable by the developer of the application.
However, generally the owner of an application is not the developer of the application, and if the owner wants to update their application, they will have to ask the developer to do this. Once the developer has updated the application, the owner then has to resubmit the updated application to the application store. The store will then go through the acceptance and publication process for the updated application. It will be appreciated that, even when updates to applications are possible, the process is involved and time-consuming. It is therefore desirable to provide a mechanism in which dynamic updates to mobile applications can be made especially by the owner of an application.
According to a first aspect of the invention there is provided a method of updating a mobile application comprising the steps of (I) making at least one change to structure of the mobile application on a client device, (ii) sending the change to a server holding the application, (Hi) applying the change in structure of the mobile application to a mirror of the mobile application held by the server thereby updating the mobile application.
Making the at least one change to the structure of the mobile application may comprise running the mobile application on the client device and using one or more functions provided by the mobile application to instruct the change to the structure of the mobile application.
The change to the structure of the mobile application may be any of an addition to the structure of the mobile application, a deletion from the structure of the mobile application, an amendment to the structure of the mobile application. For example, the change to the structure of the mobile application may comprise any of an addition of a component to the mobile application, a deletion of a component of the mobile application, an amendment of a component of the mobile application. The change to the structure of the mobile application may be accompanied by a change to content of the mobile application. The change to content of the mobile application may be any of an addition to content of the mobile application, a deletion from content of the mobile application, an amendment to content of the mobile application.
The client device may be a mobile device, operating on any of a number of mobile platforms, capable of running the mobile application, such as a mobile phone, a smartphone, a personal digital assistant. The client device may be a mobile device, operating on any of a number of mobile platforms, provided with the capability of making a change to the mobile application.
The server may be provided in a private network. The server may be provided in a public network. The server may be controlled by an owner of the mobile application.
Applying the change to the structure of the mobile application to the mirror of the mobile application may comprise running an object-oriented programming language provided on the server and using it to apply the change to the mirror of the mobile application. The object-oriented programming language may, for example, comprise any of ActionScript, HTML XML Java, JavaScript, C, C++, C#, Visual Basic.
The method may further comprise capturing the change to the structure of the mobile application using at least one object created using an object-oriented programming language provided on the client device. Capturing the change may comprise any of creating a new object to define new structure of the mobile application, deleting an existing object defining structure of the mobile application, amending an existing object defining structure of the mobile application.
The object-oriented programming language provided on the client device may comprise code provided as part of a platform of the client device. The object-oriented programming language may comprise code capable of operating on various platforms of client devices. The object-oriented programming language may, for example, comprise any of ActionScript, HTML XML Java, JavaScript, C, C-i--i-, C#, Visual Basic.
The method may further comprise providing an update to the mobile application to the client device. The method may further comprise making an update to the mobile application available to end-users of the application.
According to a second aspect of the invention there is provided a mobile application update system comprising (i) a change element for making at least one change to structure of the mobile application on a client device, (ii) a delivery element for sending the change to a server holding the application, (iii) an update element for applying the change in structure of the mobile application to a mirror of the mobile application held by the server thereby updating the mobile application.
The system may further comprise a capture element for capturing the change in structure of the mobile application using at least one object of an object-oriented programming language provided on the client device.
It will be appreciated that the various elements of the application update system may be provided in software on the client device and server.
An embodiment of the invention will now be described by way of example only with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which Figure 1 is a schematic representation of an application updating system according to the present invention, and Figure 2 is a flowchart showing the steps carried out in a method of updating a mobile application according to the first aspect of the invention.
Figure 1 shows an application updating system 1 comprising a change element 3, a capture element 5 and a delivery element 7 all provided on a client device 9, and an update element 11 provided on a server 13. In this embodiment the client device 9 is a mobile device comprising a smartphone, operating on any of a number of mobile platforms, e.g. Android, which is provided with a mobile application comprising a brochure-type application. It will be appreciated that other types of client device and mobile applications may be used.
Figure 2 shows the steps carried out in a method of updating the mobile application.
Referring to Figure 2 and Figure 1, the client first makes a change to the structure of the brochure-type mobile application using his smart phone 9 (step 20). This comprises running the application on the smart phone 9 which uses the change element 3 to present a number of functions to the client. The client uses the functions to instruct the change to the structure of the mobile application. In this embodiment, the change to the structure of the mobile application is an addition to the structure of the application, in the form of addition of a new component providing use of a twitter feed to the mobile application. The owner uses the functions provided by the change element 3 to instruct the addition of the twitter component to the mobile application. The addition of a new component providing use of a twitter feed to the mobile application is accompanied by content for the new twitter feed component. It will be appreciated that an update to the mobile application may comprise other types of change to the structure of the mobile application.
The change to the structure of the mobile application is captured by the capture element 5 (step 22), using an object created using an ActionScript 3 object-oriented programming language provided on the smart phone client device 9. In this embodiment, the capture element 5 captures the change by creating an object comprising code defining the structure of the new component of the mobile application.
The delivery element 7 is then used to send the change in the structure of the brochure-type mobile application to the server 13 (step 24), which, in this embodiment, is provided in a private cloud. The client device 9 makes a connection to the server 13, and an authenticated link between the client device 9 and the server 13 is established.
A unique identifier for the brochure-type mobile application and the change to the structure of the mobile application, in the form of the object, are transmitted to the server 13 via the authenticated link.
The update element 11 of the server 13 receives the change to the structure of the mobile application, in the form of the object. The server 13 uses C# object-oriented programming language. The update element 11 applies the change (defined by the object) to the mirror of the mobile application held on the server 13 (step 26), thereby updating the mobile application by the addition of the new twitter component.
One or more changes to the structure of the mobile application may be accommodated by the update method, i.e. if multiple changes to the structure of the mobile application are made at the client device these can be incorporated into the mobile application mirror on the server in one update.
In this embodiment, the client is provided with the brochure-type mobile application by the owner of the application. The client is licensed to use the brochure-type mobile application, deciding on the structure and content of the application, and to make updates to the application. When the client wishes to make an update, he uses the method and system described above, sending the update to the brochure4ype mobile application to the server. The server is part of a private network controlled by the owner of the brochure-type mobile application. The owner of the brochure-type mobile application makes the update to the application and provides the mobile application update to the client on the client device. The owner further makes the brochure-type mobile application update available to end-users of the application from the server. It will be appreciated that alternative models of provision and ownership of the application and making the application available to end-users can be used.

Claims (13)

  1. CLAIMS1. A method of updating a mobile application comprising the steps of (i) making at least one change to structure of the mobile application on a client device, (ii) sending the change to a server holding the application, (iii) applying the change in structure of the mobile application to a mirror of the mobile application held by the server thereby updating the mobile application.
  2. 2. A method according to claim 1 in which making the at least one change to the structure of the mobile application comprises running the mobile application on the client device and using one or more functions provided by the mobile application to instruct the change to the structure of the mobile application.
  3. 3. A method according to claim 1 or claim 2 in which the change to the structure of the mobile application is any of an addition to the structure of the mobile application, a deletion from the structure of the mobile application, an amendment to the structure of the mobile application.
  4. 4. A method according to claim 3 in which the change to the structure of the mobile application comprises any of an addition of a component to the mobile application, a deletion of a component of the mobile application, an amendment of a component of the mobile application.
  5. 5. A method according to any preceding claim in which the change to the structure of the mobile application is accompanied by a change to content of the mobile application.
  6. 6. A method according to any preceding claim in which the client device is any device capable of running the mobile application.
  7. 7. A method according to any preceding claim in which the server is provided in a private network.
  8. 8. A method according to any of claims 1 to 7 in which the server is provided in a public network.
  9. 9. A method according to any preceding claim in which applying the change to the structure of the mobile application to the mirror of the mobile application comprises running an object-oriented programming language provided on the server and using it to apply the change to the mirror of the mobile application.
  10. 10. A method according to any preceding claim further comprising capturing the change to the structure of the mobile application using at least one object created using an object-oriented programming language provided on the client device.
  11. 11. A method according to claim 10 in which capturing the change comprises any of creating a new object to define new structure of the mobile application, deleting an existing object defining structure of the mobile application, amending an existing object defining structure of the mobile application.
  12. 12. A mobile application update system comprising (i) a change element for making at least one change to structure of the mobile application on a client device, (ii) a delivery element for sending the change to a server holding the application, (Hi) an update element for applying the change in structure of the mobile application to a mirror of the mobile application held by the server thereby updating the mobile application.
  13. 13. A system according to claim 12 further comprising a capture element for capturing the change in structure of the mobile application using at least one object of an object-oriented programming language provided on the client device.
GB1116512.3A 2011-09-26 2011-09-26 Updating mobile applications Withdrawn GB2511717A (en)

Priority Applications (2)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
GB1116512.3A GB2511717A (en) 2011-09-26 2011-09-26 Updating mobile applications
PCT/GB2012/052295 WO2013045893A1 (en) 2011-09-26 2012-09-18 Updating mobile applications

Applications Claiming Priority (1)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
GB1116512.3A GB2511717A (en) 2011-09-26 2011-09-26 Updating mobile applications

Publications (2)

Publication Number Publication Date
GB201116512D0 GB201116512D0 (en) 2011-11-09
GB2511717A true GB2511717A (en) 2014-09-17

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GB1116512.3A Withdrawn GB2511717A (en) 2011-09-26 2011-09-26 Updating mobile applications

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GB (1) GB2511717A (en)
WO (1) WO2013045893A1 (en)

Citations (6)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
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EP0984603A2 (en) * 1998-05-20 2000-03-08 Lucent Technologies Inc. System and method for denoting and communicating with computer network mobile sites
WO2005026958A1 (en) * 2003-09-11 2005-03-24 Voice Signal Technologies, Inc. Method and apparatus for back-up of customized application information
US20060026264A1 (en) * 2000-10-30 2006-02-02 Microsoft Corporation Shared object stores for a networked computer system
WO2006066413A1 (en) * 2004-12-23 2006-06-29 Research In Motion Limited Systems and methods for continuous pim synchronization between a host computer and a client handheld device
US20080300020A1 (en) * 2007-06-01 2008-12-04 Renesas Technology Corp. Wireless communication system, sim card, mobile communication terminal, and data guaranteeing method
WO2011150968A1 (en) * 2010-06-02 2011-12-08 Malvacom Ab Communication method and device

Family Cites Families (5)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
AU2002230771A1 (en) * 2000-12-07 2002-06-18 Webputty Automatically deploy and upgrade an application based on markup language application definition
US7634258B2 (en) * 2004-11-22 2009-12-15 Motorola, Inc. System and method for over-the-air update of wireless communication devices
US20090082003A1 (en) * 2007-09-20 2009-03-26 Per Thorell Mobile Phone Code Editing Method and Apparatus
US8463884B2 (en) * 2009-04-08 2013-06-11 Microsoft Corporation Synchronization of mobile device with application server
US20110022986A1 (en) * 2009-07-23 2011-01-27 Research In Motion Limited Method and device for application archiving

Patent Citations (6)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
EP0984603A2 (en) * 1998-05-20 2000-03-08 Lucent Technologies Inc. System and method for denoting and communicating with computer network mobile sites
US20060026264A1 (en) * 2000-10-30 2006-02-02 Microsoft Corporation Shared object stores for a networked computer system
WO2005026958A1 (en) * 2003-09-11 2005-03-24 Voice Signal Technologies, Inc. Method and apparatus for back-up of customized application information
WO2006066413A1 (en) * 2004-12-23 2006-06-29 Research In Motion Limited Systems and methods for continuous pim synchronization between a host computer and a client handheld device
US20080300020A1 (en) * 2007-06-01 2008-12-04 Renesas Technology Corp. Wireless communication system, sim card, mobile communication terminal, and data guaranteeing method
WO2011150968A1 (en) * 2010-06-02 2011-12-08 Malvacom Ab Communication method and device

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GB201116512D0 (en) 2011-11-09
WO2013045893A1 (en) 2013-04-04

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