WO2008082360A1

WO2008082360A1 - Dynamic launcher

Info

Publication number: WO2008082360A1
Application number: PCT/SE2008/000008
Authority: WO
Inventors: Schlomo Liran; Per Hallkvist; Mattias Nilsson; Jonas Palmkvist; Anna Grandt
Original assignee: Hi3G Access Ab
Priority date: 2007-01-02
Filing date: 2008-01-02
Publication date: 2008-07-10
Also published as: SE0700002L; EP2109817A1; EP2109817A4

Abstract

In a mobile telephone or terminal (1) owned by a user a launcher program can be run. The launcher program then shows a menu list (3) of items that are available through the mobile telephone or terminal. The user can select any of the menu items by manual input, the program then starting the operation corresponding to or associated with the selected item, such as starting an application in the mobile telephone or terminal or opening/displaying an Internet page. Each time when the launcher program is started it checks whether new menu information on which said menu list is based is available and if available, it replaces or updates the menu information stored in the mobile telephone or terminal with said new menu information. It may also check whether a new version of the launcher program itself is available and if available, it can install the new version in the mobile telephone or terminal. For the updates, the mobile telephone or terminal may connect to an application server (31, 43) that has a storage in which current menu information and/or the latest version of the launcher program is/are stored.

Description

DYNAMIC LAUNCHER RELATED APPLICATION

This application claims priority and benefit from Swedish patent application No. 070002-9, filed January 2, 2007, the entire teachings of which are incorporated herein by reference. TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention relates to a mobile telephone or terminal for use in , a mobile telephone network and a mobile telephone system including mobile telephones or terminals. BACKGROUND

The evolution of mobile services is happening very rapidly and the customers are usually not aware of all new features and applications that become available. When downloading clients and programs from the mobile web a user will have to navigate deep down into the telephone menus in order to find the wanted service. This is difficult and complex for most users and they therefore tend not to use the services as much as they might want to.

The program "Pocket Launcher 2" for Pocket PCs, see the document "Pocket Launcher Documentation" for Pocket Launcher 2, Conduits Technology Inc., 2004, can assist a user to start applications already installed in a Pocket PC. SUMMARY

It is an object of the invention to provide a mobile telephone or mobile terminal and/or a mobile telephone system in which a plurality of applications and Internet pages can be easily opened and/or accessed.

Generally, a launcher program is used in a mobile telephone or terminal and it is substantially an application that comprises such features as listing and opening a series of applications, bootstraps and/or URLs, i.e. listing and opening both applications or services stored in the mobile telephone or terminal and applications or services that can be reached by some intermediate means, such as an access network or the Internet and a browser adapter therefor, hi a shown list of applications or services the latest available applications or services may be made available. New applications or services can be introduced in a way that is fast and smooth to the user of a mobile telephone or terminal throughout the life cycle of the mobile telephone or terminal. When starting the launcher program a list of applications, services and URLs can be shown on the display of the mobile telephone or terminal. The records in this list correspond to application links that when activated can directly connect the user to applications already existing or stored in the mobile telephone or terminal and/or can act as bootstraps or URLs from servers connected to some network such as an access network or the Internet.

The launcher program may e.g. launch JAVA and SYMBIAN applications as well as bootstraps and web URLs. The launcher program may be updated "over the air".

Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained by means of the methods, processes, instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

While the novel features of the invention are set forth with particularly in the appended claims, a complete understanding of the invention, both as to organization and content, and of the above and other features thereof may be gained from and the invention will be better appreciated from a consideration of the following detailed description of non-limiting embodiments presented hereinbelow with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

- Figs. Ia is partly schematic front view of a mobile telephone or terminal in which a menu list is shown on display by an activated launcher program, - Fig. Ib is a schematic of the memory of a mobile telephone or terminal in which a launcher program is installed,

- Fig. Ic is a picture showing the layout of data required for showing a menu list,

- Fig. 2 is a schematic illustrating the menu items seen in Fig. Ic,

- Fig. 3 is a flow chart of the main steps performed in a launcher program, - Fig. 4 is a flow chart of the main steps performed in a background update flow for a launcher program,

- Fig. 5 is a signal diagram of an update procedure in the case where a client launcher program is out-of-date,

- Fig. 6 is a signal diagram similar to Fig. 5 in the case where a client launcher program is up-to- date, and

- Fig. 7 is a flow chart of steps executed in an installation procedure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In a mobile terminal or telephone 1 a launcher program may be constantly or nearly constantly running that support items such as applications and services, each such item composed of an image, a headline, a URL and a system reference, the items forming a list 3 shown on the display 5 of the mobile telephone or terminal as shown in Figs. Ia and 2. The items basically are applications, programs or services for which the system references, also called application links, provide information on the location or address from where the respective application can be retrieved, either from the exterior or in the mobile terminal or telephone itself. The list 3 thus generally shows the content of the mobile telephone or terminal and/or other content that it and the user of the mobile telephone or terminal can access.

One of the keys of the keyboard of the mobile terminal or telephone 1 can be used as a launcher key. When such a launcher key is activated such as being depressed the launcher program is opened. The launcher key can e.g. be the RSK (right softkey) 7 or an icon, not shown, placed on the idle screen of the mobile terminal or telephone 1. If there is only one item in the menu list the application link is launched automatically upon starting the launcher program, i.e. in that case the 3 list is never displayed to the user of the mobile terminal or telephone.

The items of the list 3 can be scrolled through vertically by the user who can move up and down through the content displayed by the launcher program using the rocker key 9 in up and down positions.

The mobile terminal or telephone 1 has as conventional a control unit 11, i.e. a processor or CPU, and a storage 13 for storing data, hi the storage various data are stored such as a general control program or the operative system of the mobile telephone or terminal stored in a memory place 15. The program code of the launcher program is stored in a memory place 17 and the data of the last used menu list in a memory place 19.

An application shown by the launcher program can be deleted from the file structure of the mobile telephone or terminal 1 by the user but in that case the launcher program updates the list as stored and "replaces" the application link with a URL for a page from which the application can be downloaded again, see also the schematic structure of the menu list information as illustrated in Fig. Ic.

The launcher program can be exited by a command from the user and then an idle screen, not seen in the drawings, is shown on the display 5. The command can e.g. be either depressing the RSK 13, the LSK 11 or the back/C key, not shown, of the mobile telephone or terminal 1, this being configurable in an initial set-up of the launcher program. If an application is opened or started the same exiting action is performed.

The launcher program provides a link at the bottom of the shown page to go to "More

Applications". This link provides access to a view of a list of applications installed in the mobile telephone or terminal 1 and stored at a memory place 21. This view is configurable using a black list stored at a memory, place 23. All applications listed in the black list are excluded from the

"More Applications" view.

In the overview flowchart of Fig. 3 the main steps performed by the launcher program are illustrated. After the program has been started it is checked in a step 301 whether the latest version of the program is installed which is done by determining whether the installed version is the same as in a stored configuration XML-file. Some identification of the version of the launcher program, also called client program or only "client", that is installed in the mobile telephone or terminal 1 is stored in a memory place 25. The identification can e.g. be a version number. The configuration file is stored in a memory place 27 and includes a parameter "upgrade_client_version" as described below. If it is not the latest version information this is shown on the display 5 prompting the user in a step 303 for selecting if the launcher program should be updated now. If the user selects updating now, the launcher program is updated from a server 31 over e.g. the Internet 33, i.e. an installation flow is started, see Figs. Ia and 4.

In a next step 305, performed after the steps 301 and 303, it is determined whether the time elapsed since the last update is greater than a predetermined value, called <update_interval>, e.g. included in the configuration XML-file. The date of the last update of the client software is stored in a memory place 29. If it is determined that the elapsed time is greater than this value a step 307 is executed. In this step a background update process is forked and a background update flow is started and executed in a step 309, see Fig. 4. After the steps 305 and 307 the main portion of the launcher program is started in a step

311 in which the menu is shown as illustrated in Figs. Ia and 2. The menu content displayed is taken from the content that was stored in the previous session, i.e. from the memory place 19. It is then awaited in a step 313 that the user will make some input.

If the user input is the command for exiting the launcher program, see step 315, the program is exited. The current menu is then stored in the memory place 19 and also information on the last highlighted menu item can be stored such as in a memory place 35.

If the user input is the selection of a menu item, see step 317, it is first in a step 319 checked whether a "roaming notify" flag, as defined in the menu list, has been set to TRUE for the selected application. If it has been set to the value TRUE it is determined in a step 319 whether the mobile telephone or terminal 1 currently is in a roaming state, i.e. is roaming in a network not included in a whitelist, stored in a memory place 39. If it is the case, a roaming warning notification is shown in a step 321. It is then awaited for some user input, see step 323. Such user input can indicate that the user does not want to run the selected application, see step 325, and then it is again awaited for some new user input in the step 313. If the flag "roaming notify"- has the value FALSE or the user input detected in step 325 indicates that the user will take the extra cost when roaming, a step 327 is executed in which it is determined whether the selected menu item is a URL or another application, compare the list structure as illustrated in Fig. Ic. If it is a URL, the Internet page at this URL is opened using the built-in browser e.g. stored in a memory place 41 as illustrated or incorporated in the general control program, see step 329. The launcher program is exited, and as above the current menu is stored and also information on the last highlighted menu item. If the menu item is another application, such as a JAVA or SYMBIAN application, provided e.g. by the operator of the mobile telephony system to the which the mobile station, i.e. telephone or terminal, is connected or the provider of the launcher application, it is checked if the application is installed at the file location given by <identification>. If the selected application has been installed, it is launched from a location in the memory 13 derived from the attribute <identification> in a step 333. The launcher program is simultaneously exited as above in a step 337. If the selected application is not installed, the URL as specified in <url> is in a step 335 used for downloading the application from the Internet or some other network such as the access network used by the mobile telephone or terminal 1. Then the application is launched in the step 333. The launcher program is exited as above in the step 337.

The launcher program only downloads menu updates when the mobile station 1 is connected in a network included in the whitelist stored at the memory place 39. For each application part of the Launcher menu, the launcher application prompts the user with information regarding roaming costs if an application is to be launched in a network that is not included in the whitelist and the <roaming_notify> flag for the menu item has the value TRUE. Using services when roaming can be very expensive and hence it may be very favourable to the user to be informed about the cost. The updating of the menu content and the configuration of the menu and launcher program is made in background, see step 309, without any need for any customer involvement. The main steps are illustrated in the flow chart of Fig. 4. The updates are fetched silently in the background from a pre-configured URL that returns XML-files according to a configuration XML-file while the launcher application is active. If the time elapsed since the last update check is greater than the value <update_interval> at application start the background update flow is triggered as a separate process. hi a first step 401 is checked whether the user of the mobile telephone or terminal 1 is roaming, i.e. whether the mobile telephone or terminal is currently connected in a network not included in the whitelist. If the user is roaming the updating process is terminated in a step 403. If the user is not roaming, the background update process downloads the updated or current configuration XML-file through the Internet 33 from the pre-configured URL, see step 405. If the downloading of the updated configuration file fails, the launcher application retries to fetch the content a predetermined number of times as specified in the parameter field <update_num_retries> in the currently stored configuration file using an interval between retries specified in another parameter field <download_delay>, see steps 405, 407 and 409. If the downloading has finally failed, the updating flow is terminated in a step 411. If it is successful the new configuration XML-file is in a step 413 stored in the memory place 27.

The update URL may be .up to 512 characters long. The column definition type is "Number". An example of the format is:

http://<host>:<port>/dl?menu_version=xx&client_version=yy

The parameters <menu_version> and <client_version> in the configuration XML-file specify the client menu configuration version and the launcher program version associated with the XML- file. These parameters in the configuration file stored in the memory 13 of the mobile telephone or terminal 1 or better as stored in some specific memory cells are compared to the corresponding versions stored in the server master configuration XML-file, see steps 415 and 419 and also the signal diagrams of Figs. 5 - and 6. If the client application <menu_version> or <client_version> version is out-of-date the server 31 responds by first transmitting the current version of the configuration XML-file and the new versions are transmitted and installed or stored in steps 417 and 421, respectively. After a successful downloading operation and installation, the current date is stored in the memory fields 29, 43 respectively and if desired also the version identities in other memory fields, not shown. If the client application <menu_version> and <client_version> both are up-to-date, which can happen if the time from the latest updating is larger than the parameter <update_interval> as described above, a blank reply using a predetermined http response code such as "304" is transmitted from the server 31 to the mobile telephone or terminal 1. The HTTP status code "304" indicates that no changes have been made on the server. The <client_version> parameter allows the server 31 to recognise an out-of-date client.

The server responds with the latest version of the configuration XML-file stored in the server and with information about the location/URL from which the upgraded version can be downloaded, such as from another server 45 connected to the Internet 33.

If any of the content cannot be retrieved from the update URL, the existing content stored in the mobile telephone or terminal 1 is used.

All HTTP requests for XML-files & images includes a "User Agent" header. The User agent header can be used to identify the hand-set type, i.e. the type of mobile telephone or terminal 1.

The launcher program can be a pre-installed application that can be upgraded as appears from the above. Every time the launcher application is started or a background update is performed a check of the installed version is done. If there is a newer version of the launcher application available for installation the user is prompted with a question if the installation should, take place now or later, see the simple flowchart of Fig. 7. This question is asked every time the launcher application is started until the installed version is the same as in the most recently fetched configuration update. The application version can e.g. be compared to the configuration parameter <upgrade_client_version>.

The configuration XML-file may include the following fields:

<configuration> for which parameters or attributes are defined that control the behaviour of the launcher application. It may have the following attributes:

<upgrade_client_version> Identifies the latest version id of the launcher application <update_interval> If no update has been since for a time greater than update_interval an update will fetched or at least it is checked whether an update exists

<update_num_retries> If a retrieval of an update fails the launcher application retries to fetch the update a set number of times

<retry_interval> The time to wait before retrying to fetch an update

<download_delay> The random interval to wait before initiating a background download after the handset has been switched on. Only triggered if the background download should have been triggered when the handset was switched of. <client_upgrade_url> A URL pointing at the location from where to download the latest version of the launcher application <menu_version> Identifies the current version of the menu

<network_whitelist> that is a list of pairs of MNC and MCC in which the launcher application is allowed to download updates. Attributes:

<mnc> The Mobile Network Code

<mcc> The Mobile Country Code

<menu_list_item> is a description of the list menu items to be displayed by the launcher application. The list of items is displayed 'lop-down" in the application according to the position in the XML-file. Attributes:

<text> Name of application to be displayed

<icon> Icon of application to be displayed <identification> Optional for URL-links. ¹UID' for SYMBIAN applications and application name for Midlets <url> The URL for URL-links (in the case where filelocation=NULL) or the URL to be displayed (for download) if the application pointed to by the identification parameter <Identification> does not exist

<roaming_notify> IfTRUE a notification is displayed when the user has clicked on an application link and is roaming abroad. If FALSE no roaming notification.

A mobile telephone or terminal and a mobile telephone system have been described that allows a user of the mobile telephone or terminal to scroll through a large number of content items and that in an efficient way exposes content to users that cannot be displayed in a first or basic content window.

A mobile telephone or terminal and a mobile telephone system have been described in which it may be possible to hide the possibility of deleting applications from the mobile telephone or terminal and if this still is done in the file structure of the mobile telephone or terminal it may arranged so that broken application links are avoided such as by storing a suitable address or URL for download.

A mobile telephone or terminal and a mobile telephone system have been described in which the addition of a direct link to the applications folder of the mobile telephone or terminal provides the user with a useful shortcut so that the user does not have to search through the file system of the mobile telephone or terminal.

While specific embodiments of the invention have been illustrated and described herein, it is realized that numerous other embodiments may be envisaged and that numerous additional advantages, modifications and changes will readily occur to those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. Therefore, the invention in its broader aspects is not limited to the specific details, representative devices and illustrated examples shown and described herein. Accordingly, various modifications may be made without departing from the spirit or scope of the general inventive concept as defined by the appended claims and their equivalents. It is therefore to be understood that the appended claims are intended to cover all such modifications and changes as fall within a true spirit and scope of the invention. Numerous other embodiments may be envisaged without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.

Claims

1. A mobile telephone or terminal adapted to run a launcher program, the launcher program

- showing when activated a menu list of items that are available through the mobile telephone or terminal, the menu list based on or derived from menu information stored in the mobile telephone or terminal,

- allowing the user to select one of said menu items by a suitable manual input, and

- performing an operation corresponding to or associated with the selected item, such as starting an application in the mobile telephone or terminal or opening/displaying an application or service available through a network to which the mobile telephone or terminal is connected or connectable, in particular an access network or a general purpose network, such as the Internet, the application or service e.g. being an Internet page, wherein the mobile telephone or terminal is adapted to check, each time when activating or starting to run the launcher program, whether new menu information on which said menu list is based is available and if available, replace or update the menu information stored in the mobile telephone or terminal with said new menu information.

2. A mobile telephone or terminal according to claim 1, characterized in that the mobile telephone or terminal is also adapted to check, each time when activating or starting to run the launcher program, whether a new version of the launcher program is available and if available, install the new version in the mobile telephone or terminal.

3. A mobile telephone or terminal according to claim 2, characterized in that the mobile telephone or terminal is arranged to install the new version only after input from a user of the mobile telephone or terminal.

4. A mobile telephone or terminal according to any of claims 1 - 3, characterized in that the mobile telephone or terminal is also adapted to check, each time when activating or starting to run the launcher program, whether a predetermined time has elapsed since new menu information last was entered in the mobile telephone or terminal or a new version of the launcher program last was installed in the mobile telephone or terminal, and in the case where the predetermined time has elapsed to replace or update the menu information or to install the new version, respectively.

5. A mobile telephone or terminal according to any of claims 1 - 4, characterized in that the mobile telephone or terminal is adapted to perform the updating and the installing, respectively, controlled by parameters in a configuration file stored in the mobile telephone or terminal.

6. A mobile telephone or terminal according to any of claims 1 - 5, characterized in that the mobile telephone or terminal is adapted to check, before performing the updating or the installing, respectively, that it is connected in a telephone network included in a whitelist stored in the mobile telephone or terminal, and is adapted to perform said updating or installing, respectively, only if it connected in such a network.

7. A mobile telephone or terminal according to any of claims 1 - 6, characterized in that the launcher programs is arranged to allow a user to delete, when showing the menu list of items available through the mobile telephone or terminal, one or more the items, and then to store, for each deleted item, a URL or similar address information indicating a site or server from which information can be downloaded to perform the operation corresponding to or associated with the deleted item.

8. A mobile telephone system including

- a mobile telephone or terminal according to any of claims 1 - 7, and

- an application server to which the mobile telephone or terminal is connectable and which has a storage in which current menu information is stored so that the mobile telephone or terminal can access said storage for updating.

9. A mobile telephone system including

- a mobile telephone or terminal according to any of claims 1 - 7, and

- an application server to which the mobile telephone or terminal is connectable and which has a storage in which the latest version of the launcher program is stored so that the mobile telephone or terminal can access said storage for updating.